hot list: day 99
Day 99 of the 82nd Texas Legislature
LINE OF THE DAY
“I don’t know that you can raise a tax high enough to curtail the consumption of things that are unhealthy for our children.”
OBSERVED
Teachers may soon be laid off and nursing homes might close, but some Texas lawmakers are fighting to save money for an especially disenfranchised group: mega-yacht owners. As Forrest Wilder reports, the House Ways and Means committee heard a bill yesterday that would give a tax break on boats over $250,000.
BEST OF THE REST
Texas lawmakers yesterday took one small step toward putting more money into the austere House budget that cuts $23 billion from current state spending. As Peggy Fikac of the Houston Chronicle reports, House budget writers approved a bill that would add $3 billion in non-tax revenue to the bare-bones 2012-2013 budget.
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
Today the House will take up a number of bills, including one to outlaw salvia and a bill that would create an innocence commission to investigate cases of wrongful conviction. Meanwhile, there are rumors that the Senate may debate the sonogram bill.
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