Here we are again! Good ol' Rick Perry is back at it again boasting tax cuts for all, yet pushing for dipping into the rainy day fund for the construction of water and roads. Ben Wear's Statesman.com article entitled "Perry Calls for More Money for Roads" written January 29th, 2013 rings the gong once again for taxpayers to line the pockets of Phil Wilson and his gang over at TXDOT. Perry is calling for $3.7B to be invested in "water and roads" yet does not specify how much for each project. Wait, there's more. He is further calling for another $1.3B to be diverted from the State Highway Fund (revenues from gas company taxes and vehicle registration fees) to "other state needs".
Wait. What?
So he wants to yank money from the Economic Stabilization Fund to put into money for roads, then take the revenue from vehicle registration (that pay for roads) into something else? Isn't that robbing Peter to pay Paul? Allow us to remember that we had 13 schools close in 2011 from state budget shortfalls, and Perry wants to take money for roads. Last I checked, educating our children yielded better results for our society than did paving our roads.
So, we now have $5B on the table and no idea where it's going. This is par for the course with the Texas Legislature under Perry. But let's go back for a second. The article states "the overwhelming amount" of the $1.3B will go to TXDPS, "hardly discretionary spending". I agree to a point. TXDPS troopers are some of the pre-eminent authoritarians regarding law enforcement in this state. We could discuss about how there are several troopers with huge jurisdictions and response areas that could necessitate hours before back up arrives, heightening the danger they face. However, let us remember this is the same organization that allowed an "arsonist" to walk into the 2nd most important structure in the State and set fire to it... undetected... with dozens of security cameras and TXDPS officers who were supposed to be posted at every entrance.
The last thing I'll say is about Perry's crony Wilson asking for $1.5B more than the proposed budgets. Let's look at the math. The FY budget for 2014-15 is $20.8B, 14% above our current FY, equating to roughly $17.8B. However, the extra $1.5B equates to an extra 5%, making that a 22% increase. That money has to come from somewhere. Oh, right... the taxpayers.
The reason why I feel this article is worth reading stems from my long observed behavior of Perry exploiting taxpayers for footing the bill for sweetheart deals with foreign-owned transportation/construction/management businesses. If you have lived in Texas for any period of time, you should be pretty familiar with this topic. I wrote about this already last semester here. I urge you to pay attention. We already live in the highest property-taxed counties in the State. It's only going to get more expensive. I would rather us put money into educating our children to come up with solutions like rubberized asphalt from recycled tires rather than just repaving roads with temporary fixes. But then again, our roads are pretty good already and I can't fathom $10B/year.
