Keyword: Budget and Taxes
Texas Attitudes on Spending as the 88th Legislature Considers Its Next Budget
With the Texas Legislature debating what should be done with the state's unprecented budget surplus, the February 2023 University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll included a large array of questions on government spending and policy priorities similar to a battery run at the beginning of the prior session. As we described last time, "The goal of the large battery on spending in our early session poll is to check in on Texans’ attitudes toward state spending in broad issue areas. It doesn’t assume the existence of specific spending proposals nor of well-informed or developed attitudes on the part of the respondents. Rather, these items provide something of a heat check on Texans’ dispositions toward areas of public policy that are contenders for finite resources in the process."
Texas attitudes on spending priorities as the Texas House debates the next budget
All eyes in the Texas Capitol today will be on the floor of the Texas House, as the chamber considers the core appropriations bill (SB1) as well as the supplemental appropriation bill (HB2) and third reading for the significant follow-up bill to last session’s major education reform (HB1525, on which there are more than 20 prefiled amendments). The February 2021 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll included a large array of questions on government spending and policy priorities. We’ve gathered them all in one place for reference as the House considers the bills and particularly the over 200 pre-filed amendments on SB1.
Data Points from the Week in Texas Politics (August 7, 2020)
The week started with the Comptroller releasing revenue numbers that invited cherry picking by the desperate, manipulative, and just plain inattentive. But they weren’t really very sweet if you looked closely. Governor Abbott held events and press conferences on two separate days as he continued his attempts to manage the COVID-19 crisis and the politics surrounding it, which have not gotten any easier, as illustrated by the fact that he got sued this week by five legislators ostensibly on his team. Those legislators are a thorn in the governor’s side, but the whole affair points to the larger question of whether we can expect to see a less obstructionist, more constructive vision of the role of the legislature restore some balance between the two main branches of government in 2021. Part of the answer to this question depends heavily on the outcome of the 2020 election. Speaking of the election, we very seriously doubt that Donald Trump’s efforts to persuade Black voters to take another look at him as a candidate, while claiming that he is more of a civil rights hero than John Lewis, are going to help him move his lopsided numbers among Black Texans.
A Searchable PDF of the Pre-filed Amendments to the House Appropriations Bill
For those following the debate in the Texas House of Representatives today on HB 1, the appropriations bill, here's a searchable pdf of the pre-filed amendments, via Google Docs. If you're not a regular Google Docs user:after you follow the link, there's a download icon in the upper right that will download the pdf to your device, then you can open using whatever you're used to using.
If Your Memo Serves You Well: Texas Data Points from the Week in Texas Politics, February 2, 2018
Political courage took a back seat to political calculation as the renegade memo on the investigation of Carter Page was made public, completing the eclipse of the President’s State of the Union and, at least for the moment, the increasingly corrosive immigration debate. While the fiddling continues in a smoldering Washington, D.C., the Comptroller delivered bad news of a more mundane variety to the Senate Finance Committee this week, while financial bad news of a different sort added to the woes of a (somewhat) surprisingly beleaguered George P. Bush in his increasingly contentious primary battle to remain Land Commissioner. Beto had better financial news than either Glenn or George P. (That sentence shows why the first name thing works better for O’Rourke). National media attention to a report on white supremacist groups focusing recruiting efforts on college campuses featured their fairly piddling efforts on Texas campuses, through our data suggests that White Supremacy pretty clearly doesn’t have a data analytics department.
Giving (Some of) the People What They Want: 85th Legislature Endgame Edition
The to-and-fro between Speaker of the Texas House Joe Straus and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick this week provides the latest development in the Austin political press corps’ favorite plot line, the personal relationships among the Big Three.
Texas GOP Leaders Face Budget Choices Amidst Vague Public Attitudes
The public — in particular the part of the public that matters most in practical terms, Republican voters — likely remains to be persuaded of the best path forward, holding attitudes that are not especially well-informed or fixed. In particular, given that the sticking point seems to be whether or not to tap the Economic Stabilization Fund, commonly called the Rainy Day Fund (RDF), only a plurality hew to a reflexive reluctance to tap the fund, with a decisive chunk of voters not having any opinion as of February.
Data Points for the Week in Texas Politics – April 28, 2017
This week brought a surprising (no really) amount of news on sanctuary cities enforcement and significantly quieter news on the franchise tax and ongoing budget negotiations between the Texas House and Senate. At the federal level, with President Trump's 100th day in office closing in, many have been inexplicably surprised (including House Republicans) by the frenetic energy emanating from the West Wing.
Texas data points of order for the week of April 7, 2017
Most of this week's focus in state politics was on the budget bill coming to the floor in the House, and the debate was filled with the usual theater, hijinks, and even a few surprises (we're looking at you, Texas Enterprise Fund). Meanwhile, the Trump administration got their man nominated to the Supreme Court and lobbed some cruise missiles at an isolated (and probably forewarned) airport, though many (especially the not-consulted U.S. Congress) wonder what the strategy in Syria is beyond some missile-based signaling.
A Document with All House Budget Amendments Searchable by Keyword
This pdf document combines all of the amendments to the House budget bill scheduled for debate on Thursday April 6, converted so that you it's searchable by keywords. The document is a large pdf posted to Google drive, so you can simply download it if you so desire. (You could save it to iBooks if you have an iPhone..) These are the amendments without numbers, and you can't search by member given that most have the members names handwritten on the document. But if you're trying to figure out who's done what, it's a start.