Beware of promises! Year after year Gov. Rick Perry and legislators promised to make school financing and high property taxes the sole priority. Well, blatantly stated, they lied!
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By Peter Stern
Special interest politics and economic power-plays are killing Texas families in their wallets and quality of life, slowly but surely.
After years of scamming the public by sliding through "back-door" meetings and "piggy-backing" legislation, the corporate sector and their in-pocket state and local officials are working hard to put the screws into their taxpaying constituents.
Point of Fact: Several election revolutions are needed to kick-out a lackluster governor and a few dozen incompetent special-interest elected legislators and appointed officials, a.k.a., "the do-nothings."
During the past 7 years legislators circumvented resolving the unfair, inadequate financing of Texas public schools and the repercussions of that avoidance hit homeowners hard in their property taxes. In five years property taxes of some homeowners sky-rocketed from $2,400 to more than $10,000 per year. Part of the cause for record foreclosures are diversion of state responsibility onto local government, ongoing and uncontested property appraisal jumps, increasing tax rates and ongoing road and school bond packages.
Beware of promises! Year after year Gov. Rick Perry and legislators promised to make school financing and high property taxes the sole priority. Well, blatantly stated, they lied! They did NOT resolve the school finance issue, nor were homeowners provided any relief. In fact, property taxes via tax rate and/or appraisal values rose again and again.
Furthermore, since the state consistently refuses to resolve the urgent inadequate public school finance issue many districts have had to hold several bond elections to repair or build schools. When bond issues are approved by voters, property taxes increase again. In addition, when bond issues are approved the state has pushed its own responsibility onto local government.
Another issue hitting Texans hard is that families no longer can afford to send their children to private higher education institutions thanks to the governor and legislators, who pushed the legislation for tuition deregulation.
Even with the tuition deregulation, Texans pay additional taxes to higher education institutions via the state's gasoline tax. You know, that tax revenue that is supposed to go to building and maintaining Texas roadways? Well, a large chunk of the gas tax still goes to universities and colleges – and other special interest priorities. Isn't it interesting that now after diverting those taxes to higher education and the Department of Public Safety the governor and legislators say they want to build toll roads because the state doesn't have the money available to build "free" roads?
Special interests via "romancing" the governor and state officials are pushing through toll plans and approving projects contrary to the public's wishes. Texans will be paying infinite toll taxes, which will be a plague upon our children's children.
In addition, the GOP platform of "NO New Taxes" has left the state on this issue. Most elected officials have sold out to the highest bidder – e.g., to toll road icon CINTRA. Meanwhile, mismanaged and corrupt TxDOT is permitted to sit on taxpayer dollars until the need for toll roads becomes paramount. Furthermore, TxDOT has permitted its contractors to perform shoddy road work and then not hold them accountable for unprofessional work (e.g., the resealing of FM 1826 – twice).
There is no question that TxDOT needs an independent panel for oversight to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used more efficiently for the reasons taxpayer provided the dollars in the first place: to build and maintain our roadways. The list of urgent and controversial issues is virtually endless, but the "do-nothings" live up to their namesake and continue to perform as history has documented – doing as little as possible for the majority of Texans, while catering to and providing all they can for their special interests.
Texas taxpayers, isn't it time for a change?
Peter Stern of Driftwood, Texas, a former Director of Information Services, university professor and public school administrator, is a political writer published frequently throughout the Texas community and nationwide. Mr. Stern is a Disabled Vietnam Veteran. He holds three post-graduate degrees.
2 comments:
Mr. Stern points out some very important issues. The macro view, however, is that Texans overall are a trusting but sad lot, not unlike the loyal churchgoer whose child has been abused by the minister. They know what Mr. Stern is saying is true, but their "faith" in their party and their elected officials is just too hard to question. But until they do question it, Texas continues to be run like a corrupt third world country.
Basic education benefits everybody in society, and everybody should pay for it. The only equitable way to pay for basic education in Texas (short of establishing an income tax) is a sales tax targeted to paying for the K-12 education system.
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