The Texas Legislature is going commit accounting fraud against the Texas taxpayer, if the state budget that comes up on the floor tomorrow doesn’t change.
For 20 years money taken in by hospitals affiliated with state-owned medical schools has been counted in the budget. It seems they plan to erase this line item worth over $6 billion, which mean when they spend $6 billion more it will look like they are spending the same amount.
When the money is spent again, either the Legislature will put it on a credit card or they will shake down the Texas taxpayer with new taxes, fees, or both. Then, if the Texas taxpayer complains, they’ll point at the books and say, “Hey this is just what we spent before! Be reasonable, you backward bunch of hicks!”
Let’s be clear: The Texas government owns these hospitals. These hospitals were created, and are maintained and promoted by the Texas taxpayer. Money they bring in doesn’t have a life independent of a legislature that continues to fund it.
If this accounting fraud happens, as it is set to, these institutions will appear to be getting less from the legislature this session than last when they are actually getting more.
The bad guys would love for the issue to be whether the money coming in to these hospitals ever should have been counted in the legislative budget proper in the first place. This is a meaningless philosophical argument meant to distract from the very important practical issue. The bad guys will be thrilled if can make the argument about this.
The real issue is the result this accounting change will cause, not whether it makes sense on a philosophical level.
The reality is that if this $6 billion is taken off the books that amount will be spent again, it will simply be $6 billion worth of brand new spending, and the Texas taxpayer will think it is old spending.
Last session $5.4 billion of education spending drove the establishment media to apocalyptic tones. This morning, the Texas Tribune tried to bluff that $6 billion is no big deal. Nice try. Six billion dollars is just as massive as it sound like it is.
This behavior is par-for-the-course by members on both sides of the isle of the ruling class. To them, the Texas taxpayer is a big dumb animal to be tricked, abused, and lied to, while they create various confusing piles of excess cash to get a piece of later on.
Until conviction politicians occupy every position of significant power in this state – the kind of politicians the media/government establishment does everything it can to belittle and demean – this kind of thing this will continue happening.