Texas, is toast.

Judging by the recent works of the state’s political media, we’re done, finished, kaput.

One conservative budget was all it took to push Texas across the tipping point to bankruptcy according to R.G. Ratcliffe, and toward a dystopian future according to (make sure you get this) sixth-generation Texan Lisa (l’il Red) Falkenberg. In today’s Houston Chronicle print edition (no web linky yet, part of ChronBlog’s “see, we’re adding value for print subscribers!” method of marketing) Patricia Kilday Hart suggests that our elected officials’ reticence to enact a soda tax is putting us on the fast track toward a future of Weeble children who wobble, and even fall down because they’re too uneducated to understand what a can of Coke is doing to them.

At the heart of all this gloom and doom is a thinly-veiled undercurrent of racism that flows like a swollen Trinity River beneath the narrative that only the wisdom of the Caucasian progressive can save the State’s uneducated from themselves. In L’il Red’s world, only the smartly educated “white folks” retreat to the safety of “gated communities” in a selfish, desperate ploy for survival as intelligent progressives such as herself live in apartments reliant on light rail and farmer’s markets for their daily existence. The refusal of said rich white patriarchs to bestow their knowledge on the great unwashed is the reason future Texas is destined to be more like Road Warrior, and less like the utopia that Falkenberg and her fellow travelers view as ideal.

The counterpoint to this thinking? Missing.

In Texas’ political media you won’t find the idea that excessive spending is more worrisome than making some cuts during lean times. You won’t find any worries about Standard and Poor’s recent threat to downgrade debt ratings, or that creating a generation of people dependent on Government services for their day to day needs is a bad thing. Charity is right out, so is business development and (gasp!) education reform. The idea that continually throwing money at an education system that hasn’t done the best of jobs when fully funded would be laughed out of the room in a thinking society. In Texas’ political media it’s viewed as Gospel. In today’s media landscape the very idea that schools should spend more time teaching children than pursuing social equity goals is met with scorn.

An alternative idea is that the sky is NOT falling, that Texas is currently taking steps to ensure that, when the money is back, there will still be a core set of services in place to develop. The MSM ideal is a state population that’s been taxed out of prosperity and a business climate that’s not hiring, not making investments, and not positioned to take advantage of the coming growth. If you believe there will be no coming growth, then you pen missives that depict future Texas as a bleak, unhappy place. That might forward a political goal but it’s not very productive in the general debate.

During any session of the Texas Legislature the sheer volume of bills that are brought to a vote makes it easy for many of them to pass with little thought or scrutiny.  One such bill is today’s effort by State Senator Jose Rodriguez (D-El Paso) seeking to raise the fines and penalties for municipal traffic violations by $10, while also tacking $2 onto the state’s marriage fee. There’s a companion bill in the house, filed by State Rep. Naomi Gonzales (D-El Paso) that would raise the traffic fee by $15. The goal of these two bills is, in the eyes of the State’s progressive minority, obviously noble. After all, who could possibly be against using fines paid by law-breakers (albeit misdemeanor-breakers) to help fund legal fees for the poor?

Well, State Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston) for one, as quoted in the following:

[Senate votes to increase traffic fines. Mike Ward, Postcards from the Lege, Austin American-Statesman]

“Don’t you think a fee is just another tax?” he asked. “I applaud your intentions but I really think you’re fixing to put another fee on top of other fees … I don’t think that’s how we ought to operate.”

Now, granted, what Whitmire would probably advocate for is a new tax (preferably on business or the “rich”) whose proceeds are solely directed to providing legal support for the poor, but what was left unsaid in this article, and quite often is missing altogether when taxes are discussed in the Main Stream Media, is that these “fees” would disproportionately impact the very people it’s designed to help.

A more efficient plan would be to lower, or eliminate all-together, the State imposed extra fee on municipal traffic tickets, thus giving people more of their own money to fund their defense. Instead the State is suggesting it set itself up as a great middle-man. A middle-man whose ‘cut’ of the windfall is skimmed off the top before it’s returned to those who paid it in the first place.

If the circular-logic of taking money from the poor to then turn around and provide state-ran services for their healthcare doesn’t strike you as odd, then imagine this: Let’s say you needed to build a new fence for your back-yard. Probably, your preferred course of action would be to shop around, find the best fence possible that’s within your set budget, and then price compare with companies to provide the service. Under a system similar to the one being proposed, you’d be forced to pay your fencing money (and then some extra) to the State, who would then provide you with a fencing company “for free” who would then come out and build the fence in your backyard. Of course, the company wouldn’t be answerable to you, they’d be answerable to the State. They’d be paid by them and have to report to them. Since the contractor is now in a “public-private partnership” with the State they’d have to keep costs down to ensure they didn’t end up on the ratty side of a television news, sweeps-week story about the poor and indigent receiving $10,000 fences on the taxpayer dime. What this means is that you’ll get an inferior product, at more cost to you. It’s the same with almost every government program that’s designed to “help the poor”, a misnomer if ever there was one.

In a perfect media world, there’d be a quote from someone with a free-market lean who would point this out. In the world of modern-day Texas political media, you get a quote from a representative of the Texas Municipal League, whose main mission is making sure Texas cities receive as much funding as possible. It’s not that the TML opposes increasing the fine, it’s that they want the money sent to the States.

As with most political news stories, the center-right perspective is completely ignored.