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We've been told that the Texas economy is essentially indestructible, but as it turns out, we could be headed down a dangerous path with our budget. Texas is slowly developing major property tax and spending problems.
According to economist Vance Ginn, the clock is ticking on solving these problems. He said, "These are certainly things that need to be addressed this session in Texas, because if not, Texas will continue to run up more spending and higher taxes."
Ginn says this spending problem is manifesting as both multiple different corporate welfare programs, as well as higher property taxes to cover costs. He said, "As far as corporate welfare goes, there's a number of dollars, around $500 million, that would go to creating movies in Texas, which shouldn't be a role for government."
He also pointed out how the current proposed Texas budget only gives a small portion of the over $20 billion budget surplus back to taxpayers through property tax relief. Currently, just $6 billion has been allocated for property tax relief, and only $3 billion of that is new relief.
Ginn warned that this cycle of overtaxing and overspending could snowball and wind up wrecking the Texas economy. He said, "It's one of those things where, yes, we're doing better economically, but we've got to be doing better fiscally as well."
