The story that isn’t being told about the Texas budget shortfall

The story that isn’t being told is the the story of why Texas has a $27 billion budget shortfall.  It is not being told by the media in Texas or Texas Democrats.  The people must be told who  has caused them so much pay, and will inflict more upon them in the future.  The only way that Democrats can change the current media theme – “that the GOP is so sorry for what they are about to do but they have no choice” – is to show the people of Texas that this has been their plan all along.

Historian Rick Perlstein pointed this out in a 2009 talk, excerpted here, Rules of Liberal Political Success.

(Taken from his talk “Whatever Happened to Hope: Why Barack Obama Cannot Become a Transformational President”) 
• Got to make people feel good.
• No liberal regime has ever succeeded in American History without successfully stigmatizing the conservatism that preceded it as a failure that ruined ordinary people’s lives.
• A transformational Democratic president must be a credible defender of the economic interests of ordinary Americans to a preponderance of those ordinary Americans sufficient to push through their distrust of cosmopolitan liberals as such. (Anti Big Business Populism).
• No liberal regime has ever succeeded in American History without successfully stigmatizing it’s opposition as extreme, as alien, as strange, as frightening to ordinary Americans who want order in their lives.

I like to shorten it.  There can be no savior, or “saver” of the working people, unless there is a satan, or cause of their pain. And that is the story that the Democrats MUST start telling if they want to return to power in Texas.  The Republicans in Texas are the cause of your pain, we are here to help you.  Make them feel good, that they are not alone, and you will help them, and they will vote for you.

As this blog post shows, the Legislative Study Group (LSG) points out, that this shortfall was, purposefully and knowingly, caused by a GOP tax plan that was put in place in 2006.

The Legislative Study Group, chaired by Rep. Garnet Coleman, now has an analysis of the Pitts budget outline, which you can read here. The main point to remember:

How We Got Here: Built-In Budget Shortfall Comes from the 2006 Tax Package

The current $26.8 billion budget shortfall is partly the result of a built-in budget hole created in the 3rd Called Special Session of the 79th Texas Legislature, which has now created a structural shortfall in three successive legislative sessions. Unless the tax structure is changed, Texas lawmakers will begin every legislative session with the built-in budget shortfall.

In 2006, Governor Perry signed into law a tax package that changed the state’s business tax structure, redirecting billions each year away from public schools and into a newly created Property Tax Relief Fund. The tax package consisted of four major pieces of legislation:

• House Bill 2 (3rd Called Special Session of the 79th Texas Legislature), creating the “Property Tax Relief Fund” which collected money from the other three tax bills in the tax package
• House Bill 3 (3rd Called Special Session of the 79th Texas Legislature), the franchise tax or “margins tax” bill
• House Bill 4 (3rd Called Special Session of the 79th Texas Legislature), the motor vehicle sales and use tax
• House Bill 5 (3rd Called Special Session of the 79th Texas Legislature), the $1 cigarette tax

At the time the tax package was presented to the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Perry, the Comptroller estimated that the revenues generated from the new tax package would fall $14 billion short of the cost of the legislation in the first five years. The predicted shortfall has come true, leaving the state billions short of necessary funds to maintain basic state services.

They have charts to go along with the words for all you visual learners. No matter what we do this session, we will continue to have shortfalls until we plug this hole.

And as with any budget, it shows prirorities, or the lack thereof.

The old adage is you spend money on your priorities. If that is the case, then the Republican Party doesn’t give a damn about students, struggling families, teachers, the elderly, people struggling with medical bills, state employees and so many more.

The Texas GOP caused this. Their intention was to cause a shortfall and use it as an opportunity to cut government spending that benefits poor, elderly, needy, and working Texans. They will not ask for the wealthy and corporations to help in this time of need. They planned for this, they want this, this has been their dream for decades – to cut all of these things they don’t, and never have, believed that the government should be involved in. Despite their calm demeanor, they are smiling on the inside, (all the while lying to our faces, telling us we can have budget cuts and  still have everything we want).

It’s not a hard story to tell – the Texas GOP is responsible for the budget shortfall in Texas – Texas Democrats and the media in Texas need to start telling it.