Tax Day edition — our tax code is a disaster.
Top Stories
- Balanced budget without raising taxes or using up the Rainy Day Fund, says Perry — Joe Holley, San Antonio Express-News
- Julian Castro endorses Obama’s big government spending — Gary Martin, San Antonio Express-News
Castro was one of several U.S. mayors pushed forward by the White House to sell the proposal publicly….
Castro was recently featured as the “next big thing” by the New York Times. And now he’s endorsing Obama’s big government spending, which will add trillions to our national debt.
- Texas governor, California Lt. Gov. tout job creation – Jay Root, AP
Coverage by a pro (contrast with the intern’s work below). - Two 'Goodhairs' in One Room – Nolan Hicks, Chron Texas Politics
Leading state officials in California have recently begun to ferociously counterattack the notion of the ‘Texas Miracle,’ pointing out with a certain amount of schadenfreude just how bad Texas’ budget problems are. According to a budget analysis done by the Houston Chronicle’s Texas Politics blog Texas’ budget crisis is proportionally as bad as California’s.
Not. Even. Close. Many Texas journos still seem inclined to editorialize in this manner anyway. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, right?
- Willingham report released – Chuck Lindell, Postcards
Recommended
- List of theaters playing Atlas Shrugged
Celebrate Tax Day by watching the seminal libertarian work on the big screen - Proposed Peña District Voted 50.1% for Perry in 2010 – Matt Stiles, Texas Tribune
It appears Rep. Peña is considering running for re-election. Good! We applaud his independence and desire to work for South Texas. - Perry: We’ll pass a balanced budget without raising taxes or using up the Rainy Day Fund – Christy Hoppe, Dallas Morning News
- Katy ISD plays politics with teachers and students – AFP Texas blog
- WTF 44? Capitol Hill Texan sends message to Obama via controversial license plate – Rick Dunham, Chron Texas On The Potomac
The Houston Chronicle is crowdsourcing stalking and violation of privacy now? To use their words, WTF? - Rick O'Donnell: The Emails – Reeve Hamilton, Texas Tribune
There were questions raised about why his job seemed to closely mirror that of Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa. The concern grew as writings he did while a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based conservative think tank, were scrutinized.
Quite a lot of passive voice in this piece — probably because Hamilton and Texas Tribune were the ones raising the questions. Self-referential = made up controversy?
- Perry, appointee play down higher education controversy – Ralph Haurwitz, Austin American-Statesman
Re “controversy”, see the previous item. - Attempt to shutdown the Texas State Board of Education Blocked by Texas Senate – Texas Legislative Update
- Travis County Trumps Texas? – Donna Garner, Ramparts360
A major problem with our Texas system: The Travis County District Attorney (Austin) is not elected statewide, whereas the Texas Attorney General is elected by all Texas voters.
Ding!
- Former Rep. Terri Hodge released from prison – Gromer Jeffers, Dallas Morning News
Buried deep in the story, we find out she’s a Democrat. - Leppert continues charge in Senate race – David Jennings, Big Jolly Politics
Can Leppert survive a Republican primary when he donated to a candidate running against George W. Bush’s agenda at the height of W’s popularity? - GOP Texans in Congress submit a map – Todd Gillman, Dallas Morning News
Look for this today. - Another Ron Paul offspring to run for Senate? – Anna Tinsley, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Dr.RonRandRobert Paul considering running for the Senate
** Two ‘Goodhairs’ in One Room – Nolan Hicks, Chron Texas Politics
Leading state officials in California have recently begun to ferociously counterattack the notion of the ‘Texas Miracle,’ pointing out with a certain amount of schadenfreude just how bad Texas’ budget problems are. According to a budget analysis done by the Houston Chronicle’s Texas Politics blog Texas’ budget crisis is proportionally as bad as California’s. **
To take this a little further than the roundup format allows…
For some reason, a lot of Texas journos seem inclined to pounce on the notion of the vibrancy of the Texas economy. Their blogs jump all over “pushback” sorts of stories from other states (mainly California). You get worse-than-PolitiFarce pieces that editorialize that the Texas budget is really just as big a mess as California’s (just not true, as noted). And so far as I can tell, the same journos pushing that story line tend to ignore positive articles about Texas like Michael Barone’s (in our roundup in pre-launch testing, but not picked up by any state political media that I read regularly).
Even assuming that the Texas budget situation somehow WERE as bad as California’s using some bizarre metric crafted by the Hearst Austin Editorial Bureau in its spare time, there is still the matter of the overall business climate and people/businesses voting with their feet (migration to Texas). And the story at hand was the visit by the California delegation to check out the Texas approach (Jay Root covered THAT story; the Hearst Austin Editorial Blog seemed to have a different agenda).
It’s odd behavior all the way around.
“odd behavior all the way around”
Indeed.
With regards to a the Texas budget mess vs the California budget mess, do you have a link to analysis rebutting those who argue that Texas is in as bad a shape as California?
I haven’t seen anything from an economic think-tank yet that’s not horribly partisan, but here’s something that’s less partisan
California vs. Texas
Here’s what I mean by horribly partisan:
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/11/18/texas-beats-california-on-economy/
Anyone not identifying the TPPF as a “conservative” think-tank is as partisan as those who refuse to identify the TPPP as a “progressive” think-tank.
A link rebutting the Chron Hearst Austin intern’s few grafs in a blog post in which he “demonstrates” that Texas and California are in the same fiscal shape?
No, I don’t know that anyone took the time to “Fisk” his grafs in a blog post. 🙂
I do think Kevin Williamson’s NRO piece on the Texas budget was pretty good, although there were some critiques on the left:
http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/256614/no-paul-krugman-texas-not-broke
I think the bigger point is that budgeting does not take place in a political or economic vacuum. If your state’s business/regulatory environment is attractive to companies and entrepreneurs and the economy is creating jobs and the cost of living is low and you have a true pay-as-you-go budget mentality (not the gimmicks offered by DC pols, but the real thing every two years), then I think your state is arguably set up to grow itself out of budget problems. If your state is bleeding jobs because businesses find the business/regulatory environment stifling…. I’d suggest your state may have a more serious problem.
And that seems to be what some California leaders were suggesting, at least as Jay Root covered the story. The Hearst Austin intern apparently was more interested in linking back to his earlier blog post than covering that story.