Keep Texans Working, a business lobby grassroots initiative, gave a statement lauding the budget as responsible and fiscally sound, just as most of the Texas conservative movement said the exact opposite.
In a letter to Rick Perry signed by AFP-Texas, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Young Conservatives of Texas and many other groups, conservatives pointed out the many ways in which the budget was irresponsible.
The letter speaks of how both HB 1025 accelerates K-12 school funding growth, and so does HB 10. The first does it out of the Rainy Day Fund, the second comes out of general revenue.
The letter also points out how tax cuts offered are, for the most part, temporary, and fall short of the Governor’s marker. In addition, wildly popular constitutional spending limit legislation was nowhere to be seen, even after a 2012 GOP primary ballot proposition saw spending limits poll slightly better than a proposition asking for the repeal of ObamaCare.
The legislature also raised its own pension in the budget, done in conference committee, outside the light of a normal vote. This was done by raising judicial salaries, since legislator pensions are pegged to judicial salaries.
The budget also paved the way for $2 billion from the Rainy Day Fund to be used for a ”water infrastructure bank”. The Rainy Day Fund is our emergency savings account, and the proponents of more water infrastructure have claimed water will be an emergency – in 50 years.
Veteran East Texas grassroots leader JoAnn Fleming released a letter to the Governor asking him to veto the budget, calling it a threat to a strong Texas.
Even an elected politician, State Representative Jonathan Stickland, was forthright about the nature of this budget. Stickland published a picture of himself on Facebook holding two stacks of paper, one in each hand. In the left hand is a large stack that is the normal state budget. In his right hand is a 245 page document that legislators were given one night to read before voting on. It was an “out of bounds spending” resolution, designed to give the legislature authority to add spending that neither the House nor the Senate had considered or adopted. This is a very Washington DC way for our legislature to do business – and very reckless.
Keep Texans Working’s statement started with: “We applaud the Texas Legislature for passing a fiscally sound and balanced state budget that lives within our means while still addressing several key economic priorities such as water infrastructure development, significant tax relief for Texans, ending some diversions for future transportation infrastructure improvements, and maintaining a healthy balance in the state’s Rainy Day Fund for future emergencies.”
Keep Texans Working seems to be the business lobby’s attempt to go populist, website and all. Their statement on the budget gives a good picture of how out of step they are with the Texas conservative movement.
–TX conservative movement letter to the Governor on the budget
–Keep Texans Working statement on the budget