Senator Tommy Williams is trying to turn our state savings account into dedicated spending, which is like dedicating the the kid’s college account or the retirement account to new boat payments.
The Legislature is in a mad dash to use the last of the post-election Obama political wave to spend money in ways Texans would never have approved of in the past, and will not approve of in the future. In the spirit of Obama, it is being done in a very devious way, with long-lasting harm. They are trying to put it into the state constitution.
This is as disastrous as it is treacherous. Can these people not be trusted with a savings account? The answer is clearly no. We created the savings account in case of state disasters, and all they’ve done since it was created is try to spend it on recurring items. Now they are making a hard push to put it into the constitution.
The lesson? Never leave a pile of money anywhere near the Texas legislature. They can’t take their eyes off of it, and all of the talent associated with the legislature – staffers, consultant, lobbyists – will not rest until a way is devised to spend it. Legislators spending money creates loyalties and coalitions. Figuring out ways for them to do so does the same. That is why they constantly want to do it, and don’t much care what it’s for.
Additionally, the gambling crowd wants the savings account wiped out because the Speaker of the House wants a revenue crisis to try to ram gambling expansion through on the back of. Healthy savings accounts and revenue crises do not go together.
But what exactly is going on with the Tommy Williams spending bomb?
Texas has a spending cap that is tied to the size of our economy. The Legislative Budget Board tells us how much our economy has grown each year, and therefore, how much non-dedicated spending can grow.
And, what is non-dedicated money? Non-dedicated money is the money legislators play with and make deals with, because dedicated money is spent specifically already. Federal dollars for specific programs are an example of dedicated dollars.
Basically, the Williams spending bomb will siphon off a large piece of the state savings account in order to pay for things that have, for round-about a century or two, come out of non-dedicated general revenue.
We know that spending new piles of money will entrench legislators politically and financially, but is there any other upside for them in structuring it this way? Yes, very much so.
This is because there is a big push for our legislature not to bust our spending cap. In fact, there will be a vote soon to legalize busting the cap. In this vote there is a decent chance that the Democrats and the 20 Democrats elected as Republicans will vote it through. (By the way, this would be on top of the water and transportation fund the Tommy Williams spending bomb is designed to fund. And ,after the RDF is $6 billion short, and the spending caps have been usurped, where do you think the money will come from that gets spent over and above the spending cap? Well, the first of it will come from the RDF, finishing the job of destroying it, and the rest, the gambling lobby hopes, will come from the phony projections of new revenue they will get with expanded gambling.)
The magic of the Williams Spending Bomb is that it lets legislators spend like drunken sailors without busting the spending cap. This is because it will turn the $6 billion they’ve been scheming for out of the RDF into dedicated funds, which means it will not count against the spending cap. Thus, the savings account, created for emergencies, will be decimated, and legislators could say they didn’t bust the spending cap.
Any legislator that votes against busting the spending cap but votes for the Tommy Williams spending bomb is double-dealing. We have to many legislators interested in looking like they are serving principle, but really serving power, and recklessly, as far as the future of our state is concerned.
Here’s to hoping these legislators are haunted by this very scheme next time they are nobly describing to family members and friends what they do for a living.