Tax Cut Silly
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
It doesn’t really compare with Speaker intrigue, but the Senate did pass the whopping $14 billion property tax cut we all knew was coming. HB 2 puts aside that huge chunk of money for the Texas Education Agency to distribute back to school districts to cut the rate by 1/3. The Senators did stick one amendment on the bill, ensuring that a few billion dollars being held aside for tax cuts in 2010 and 2011 doesn’t get raided for other purposes by lawmakers, leaving us pretty much where we were in February.
The one amendment that didn’t pass, though, was interesting. Sen. Tommy Williams proposed spending even more funds — this time money the state doesn’t even have yet — on still more cuts. Williams had his eye on the much debated margins tax. No one is quite sure if the tax will bring in what state estimates predict. Williams’s amendment basically said, “Hey, what if the margins tax brings in more money than we expect? How about we require those funds to go to cutting property taxes, too?”
In response, Sen. Robert Duncan rose and said, in effect, “You sure about that?”
It was a bit of a reach, and Williams withdrew his amendment.
