Texas's budget problem will make it the California of 2011? (SFTS's wisdom is needed)

[a completely inoffensive name]

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo...talk-about.php

Just read this article about how Texas's budget and GOP legislature is setting up for some dangerous cuts into key social programs that will cause some backlash. The public discourse that has been set and maintained by the GOP leadership has kept this key point for Texas out of the spotlight.

Now here is where Strike comes in and talks about Texas, setting the record straight. (hopefully?)

[Strike For The South]

HaHa, you reap what you sow. Thank God my family is employeed by privatley owned companies

They are talking about cutting medicare or thinning out the prison system, of course it never leads the docket as it wouldn't fit into the narritive. The big thing here is the state leg is electing the speaker in a new way, there is no talk of the budget what so ever.

How Texas gets its money is based on 3 things

-Minerals/Ag (market prices have been dropping like silk underwear on prom night)
-Property Taxes (you can see where this is going)
-Sales Tax

These 3 things are based on the consumer consuming which is all fine and dandy until a recession happens and it's a double whammy when property was a main component of that recession

Now usually we just lower our shoulder and spend the oil money but for various reasons there isnt much of that anymore either (there is plenty of oil left but thats another topic)

So even if we spent all the oil money in the rainy day fund (which is a billion lighter than it should be) we're still 4-5 billion in the hole

Did I mention we spent the stimulus money?

Of course enterprise in Texas is booming our economy is about to overtake Cali (some think it already has) but to even think about raising taxes gets you labled a communist and to even bring up a state income tax gets you shot

The analogy is to compare us to Ireland. I don't like it because Ireland actually spent money on its people, Texas spends money on education, Medicare, and prisons. Of course the first thing is to slam us with tuition hikes (my other open tab is my fafsa.....Oh happy day)

Of course one can't discuss Texas without bringing up the dichoitomy of the state. If you draw a triangle from I-10 (San Antonio to Houston), I-35 (San Antonio to Dallas) and I-45 (Houston to Dallas) then everything is dandy and people are printing money, however outside that triangle people are destitute, no health care, no education and no hope.

King Perry will never raise taxes, he will instead ride the Mexican underclass into the gorund and lay off 0000s of uni employees while raising the interest rates on my loan and my tuition

When this can all be avodied by paying an extra .02 on the dollar in taxes. There is nothing left to cut we need to raise revunue

[Greyblades]

The solution seems obvious, find a way to move cash from the triange to the rest of the state. How you would go around doing this , moving cash from the rich to the needy in texas, I dont know, from what you said it sounds like trying to get a magpie to let go of a shiny coin.

I await the "economics don't work that way" response.

[Strike For The South]

The solution seems obvious, find a way to move cash from the triange to the rest of the state. How you would go around doing this , moving cash from the rich to the needy in texas, I dont know, from what you said it sounds like trying to get a magpie to let go of a shiny coin.

I await the "economics don't work that way" response.

Well the budget problem is statewide and the triangle is basically subsidizing what little the state gives already.

The problem is all the power is centered in the triange all the oil/cattle/cotton money goes right back to Dallas and Houston (granted Lubbock, Midland, and Amarillo get to keep a pittance but I digress)

The other problem is the underepresented are mostly Mexican-immagrants or 2nd gen. and if you know anything about Texas history you know we hate Mexicans. Which is funny considering about 40% of the men who fought in the revolution were Tejanos but they had brown skin and were against slavery so they were quickly written out of the narritive

The ol'boys in congress wont lift a finger to help the mexicans and the few mexicans in the leg wont budge because that would mean losing the political machiene that dominates South Texas

As for East Texas. No one cares may as well be Arkansas

[Strike For The South]

I understand that last post sounded rant-esque

But it boils down to this

As long as the private sector is booming (more jobs created than the other 49 combined) and people are still moving here (10x more migrants than the next state) No one will care, we may get a pittance out of this, maybe a bit of tax increase, hopefully tuition gets stabilized, maybe we will try to do a better job at assimalting our massive immagrant population

But more than likely we will be ******* sideways, creating a bigger gulf between rich and poor. We are in real danger of creating a permenant underclass which is no way helped by the fact that most of them will be brown, obesse and illeteriate (I just spelled that wrong IRONY)

We have the power to stop it now, nip it in the bud, we won't because we're hard headed, stiff upper lipped drunks who cherry pick good information and insulate ourselves from the bad.

But in 20 years when 1/3 of the population are literally eating themselves into a grave and unable to read hop on pop all the oil and beef money in the world wont save Highland park

[Louis VI the Fat]

HaHa, you reap what you sow. Thank God my family is employeed by privatley owned companies

They are talking about cutting medicare or thinning out the prison system, of course it never leads the docket as it wouldn't fit into the narritive. The big thing here is the state leg is electing the speaker in a new way, there is no talk of the budget what so ever.

How Texas gets its money is based on 3 things

-Minerals/Ag (market prices have been dropping like silk underwear on prom night)
-Property Taxes (you can see where this is going)
-Sales Tax

These 3 things are based on the consumer consuming which is all fine and dandy until a recession happens and it's a double whammy when property was a main component of that recession

Now usually we just lower our shoulder and spend the oil money but for various reasons there isnt much of that anymore either (there is plenty of oil left but thats another topic)

So even if we spent all the oil money in the rainy day fund (which is a billion lighter than it should be) we're still 4-5 billion in the hole

Did I mention we spent the stimulus money?

Of course enterprise in Texas is booming our economy is about to overtake Cali (some think it already has) but to even think about raising taxes gets you labled a communist and to even bring up a state income tax gets you shot

The analogy is to compare us to Ireland. I don't like it because Ireland actually spent money on its people, Texas spends money on education, Medicare, and prisons. Of course the first thing is to slam us with tuition hikes (my other open tab is my fafsa.....Oh happy day)

Of course one can't discuss Texas without bringing up the dichoitomy of the state. If you draw a triangle from I-10 (San Antonio to Houston), I-35 (San Antonio to Dallas) and I-45 (Houston to Dallas) then everything is dandy and people are printing money, however outside that triangle people are destitute, no health care, no education and no hope.

King Perry will never raise taxes, he will instead ride the Mexican underclass into the gorund and lay off 0000s of uni employees while raising the interest rates on my loan and my tuition

When this can all be avodied by paying an extra .02 on the dollar in taxes. There is nothing left to cut we need to raise revunue

I think the comparison with Ireland is perfectly apt.

Both Texas and Ireland abolished corporate taxation. Then were blinded by the superficial succes of all those businesses moving in. When the music stopped, they were bankrupt, their poor driven into destitution, an enormous gap between the poor and the rich.

And to top it off, both states have beggared their neighbours too, albeit that this effect is somewhat mitigated in the American union, which unlike the European one at least raises federal taxes.

[Strike For The South]

I think the comparison with Ireland is perfectly apt.

Both Texas and Ireland abolished corporate taxation. Then were blinded by the superficial succes of all those businesses moving in. When the music stopped, they were bankrupt, their poor driven into destitution, an enormous gap between the poor and the rich.

And to top it off, both states have beggared their neighbours too, albeit that this effect is somewhat mitigated in the American union, which unlike the European one at least raises federal taxes.

Well but the problems Ireland is wresitling with are which social programs to cut/scale back

Here it's what prison we should close and do we really need to be giving away this liver

Ireland is cutting fat we are cutting muscle...and bone....and the CNS

[Greyblades]

Wouldnt the cns come before the bone?
I hate to fall on steriotype but couldnt you just execute the life imprisonment, no chance for parole prisoners and put the rest to work on construction, That would free up space and heck you could be able to make abit of money buy hooking up the prisons exercise machines to electricity generators and save on fuel.

[Strike For The South]

Wouldnt the cns come before the bone?

Maybe, I was never one for physics

I hate to fall on steriotype but couldnt you just execute the life imprisonment, no chance for parole prisoners and put the rest to work on construction, That would free up space and heck you could be able to make abit of money buy hooking up the prisons exercise machines to electricity generators and save on fuel.

Taking away construction means taking away jobs for immagrants, we would have a bigger problem on our hands. Stunning private growth is blinding people from public woes.

[drone]

I hate to fall on steriotype but couldnt you just execute the life imprisonment, no chance for parole prisoners and put the rest to work on construction, That would free up space and heck you could be able to make abit of money buy hooking up the prisons exercise machines to electricity generators and save on fuel.

I'm not sure you would have any excess power from the prison exercise machines after the electric chair got it's share of the current.

What's the sales tax up to in Texas? 8%? Poorer locales can't raise money through bond issues. At what price point does oil need to get to before the Texas fields get going again?

[Greyblades]

Maybe, I was never one for physics

Its biology the central nervous system if I remember correcly is intertwined with the muscle and skin.

Taking away construction means taking away jobs for immagrants, we would have a bigger problem on our hands. Stunning private growth is blinding people from public woes.

Still isn't there any manual labour for them to do? It allways seemed like a waste to have a large group of men and women sitting in a cell for years on end.

[Strike For The South]

I'm not sure you would have any excess power from the prison exercise machines after the electric chair got it's share of the current.

What's the sales tax up to in Texas? 8%? Poorer locales can't raise money through bond issues. At what price point does oil need to get to before the Texas fields get going again?

8.25 brother

The fields are going however the companies are trying to deversify into Natrual gas and they are playing things closer to the vests these days. The boom and bust old west style doesn't play like it used to

[Csargo]

As for East Texas. No one cares may as well be Arkansas

[Strike For The South]

It's better than being Mexico

[a completely inoffensive name]

Awww. This thread turned out more bleak then I thought it was going to be.

[drone]

Awww. This thread turned out more bleak then I thought it was going to be.

If the violence across the border starts spilling into El Paso and the Valley, it's going to be even worse.

[Strike For The South]

Awww. This thread turned out more bleak then I thought it was going to be.

Just watch hannity and Beck, They constantly hold Texas up as a bastion of good government

When in reality we are led by a tyrant who is creating a permanent underclass at break neck speed

Cheers

[HoreTore]

The obvious solution is to remove all benefits for the poor people and lower the tax for all upper middle class and over people.

Because this crisis is clearly caused by the choices made by that bum living on 4th street who eats three times a week. Makes perfect sense that he should suffer for it. Let's cut his weekly meals back to two!

[Lemur]

Apparently that Nobel-something-or-another economist from Princeton has a bone to pick with Strike for the South.

Wasn’t Texas supposed to be thriving even as the rest of America suffered? Didn’t its governor declare, during his re-election campaign, that “we have billions in surplus”? Yes, it was, and yes, he did. But reality has now intruded, in the form of a deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years.

And that reality has implications for the nation as a whole. For Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting — the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending — has been implemented most completely. If the theory can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere.

How bad is the Texas deficit? Comparing budget crises among states is tricky, for technical reasons. Still, data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggest that the Texas budget gap is worse than New York’s, about as bad as California’s, but not quite up to New Jersey levels.

Why does Paul Krugman hate freedom and Texas?