$31 billion dollars in cuts in new State budget (sales, 2013)

[orbius]

Texas slashes budget to close budget deficit - Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Texas-slashes-budget-to-close-cnnm-1579954993.html?x=0&.v=2 - broken link)


The prevailing attitude in Texas seems to be cuts are good, cut, cut, cut. We'll have to see what happens when the cuts are no longer effecting the person down the road and instead effecting your average family.

When they close down neighborhood schools and bus kids to a rough part of town or the family with two kids in college has to pay $4000 more a year to educate their kids there will be more reflection on the role of government and taxes IMO.

In the mean time a lot of hard working people are going to be losing their jobs. Despite the ugly attitude I see a lot of State workers tend to do thankless jobs, tend to be hard working and be over worked. I wish these people well and good luck. Its pretty rough to be turfed out in the street in this economy and housing market.

[orbius]

Government is as good or bad as we are. If its bad the answer is to make it good not to carve it up.
Also no one makes money without the help of their community or the country. This creates responsibility to the community this truth is being treated like it doesnt exist in Texas IMO as all the pain and responsibility for the shrinking budget is being put on the backs of the working poor and middle class.

[TurtleCreek80]

Well, how do you propose the legislature RAISES an extra $31B in the next two years so no cuts are necessary? State income tax? More toll roads? Increase the state sales tax to 8 or 10%?

[orbius]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

Well, how do you propose the legislature RAISES an extra $31B in the next two years so no cuts are necessary? State income tax? More toll roads? Increase the state sales tax to 8 or 10%?

I didnt say no cuts are necessary. Though I would hope a great deal of care and intelligence was put into identifying where cuts should be made.
As far as taxes a good start would be ensuring all Texans are paying the same property tax rates in their communities. There are rampant under appraisals among business property and high end property, its simply not fair. Also we should look at closing the open land loophole and ensuring that Ag exemptions are only given to true farming operations that need it to survive.
Thats what I mean when I say the first thing to do is make the parts of government that are bad, good and fair before you raise taxes. The way appraisals and property taxes are dealt with is one of those 'bad' areas we can make good IMO. This will raise revenue and make things fairer, and its something we can do without raising taxes.

[Gary Siete]

Unlike other states Texas' problem isn't over-spending it's under-funding. Compare this with California's systemic problems. Texas spends less per capita than other states. As one legislator said - "it's akin to asking an anorexic person to lose more weight." Texas has low overhead and is good shape long term if it can get through this depression without incurring a ship load of debt.
IMHO offset some cuts with tax increases. Temporarily raise the sales tax rate - don't institutionalize new taxes or implement taxes (ie income taxes) that can't be collected until April 2012 or April 2013.

[orbius]

^ Correct.

Also from what I'm told theres a lot of fat cats in high paid administrator positions at some State government agencies who are connected who literally do nothing. While the rank and file in these institutions were already running around like chickens with their heads lopped off with unreasonable work loads before the cuts. While in some institutions theres entire departments sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
More attention should be paid to making Government good than simply blindly cutting.