Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick want a property tax cut but there are more...
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, center, seated next to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, left, and Speaker Dade Phelan wants the state to spend a significant portion of its $33 billion surplus on property tax relief.Sure sounds great on the stump: The benevolent governor doing his best Robin Hood impression and promising to send half of a projected $27 billion surplus back to the long-suffering property taxpayers of Texas.
Rainbows, though, are preceded by rain. We can't forget that this windfall is largely the result of plenty of gloom and hardship for Texas families: inflation that led to higher prices and higher tax collections on purchases. Hegar factored a shallow recession in his figures and expects inflation rates to cool down significantly in the next several years, which would mean that sales tax receipts would not shoot up again by the next budget cycle. The potential for a deep economic recession that could send state revenues plummeting still looms, as the Federal Reserve continues to inch up interest rates to bring down inflation.
The state spending cap, which was put into place in 1978 as a check on the growth of government, is also a significant obstacle. In November, the Texas Legislative Budget Boardin the next budget than they did in the current biennium, which amounts to less than half of the $33 billion. The state also hasn’t factored in how much money it owes the federal government for Medicaid costs, which, some experts told the editorial board, could be as much as $4 billion.
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