Taxes for Texas? Rick Perry, Bill White Battle in Texas Governor’s Race
Is Bill White, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, a tax-and-spend liberal? That is what this election boils down to when all the politicking is set aside.
Texas Governor Rick Perry is running for an unprecedented third term. Though Perry has endorsed the idea of Tea Parties, the state is currently facing a revenue shortfall of $11-20 billion in an $182.5 billion state budget. This means, of course, talk of whether to cut spending or increase taxes, or both.
Some of the problem in Texas lies in the way school taxes are collected. In 2003, Perry and others pushed for a decrease in state school taxes, with the difference to be made up in increased business taxes. With the business downturn, that bit of revenue is considerably less than school tax dollars were. The state is currently scrambling to raise money via increased tuition to the state colleges, and increased fees.
Of course, taxes have always been a major issue in the Texas governor’s race. Past governors have lost elections over increasing taxes, and candidates have thrown away what seemed to be promising candidacies because they either said they favored raising taxes or cutting services drastically. Bill White seems to be getting ready to do himself in, as the shortfall noted above has sparked fears of drastic cuts in services or drastic raising of taxes.
Texas has no income tax and generates most of its “tax” revenue via a sales tax, currently 6.25% on goods and services. Cities impose typically an additional 2% on top of the state rate for a total of 8.25%. There are some 100 things sold in Texas that are exempt from the sales tax. But raising the sales tax rate is fraught with danger for any candidate.
As the incumbent, Perry has refused to debate White. There are a few reasons for this: strategically, there is no reason for a leader to debate the fellow trying to catch up; Perry has enough problems in his past to be leery of a debate, such as his roundly criticized executive order requiring teenage girls to be vaccinated against STDs; and Bill White can be an eloquent speaker. Otherwise, it would seem like a no-brainer to have the debate if Perry can nail White on increasing taxes.
Wow, you’re kidding me right? Our governor is going to win by a huge margin, and no I’m not just saying this because I’m a fan of his. Look at the facts. He’s not going to have problems with this, Perry has said no to tax increases, White keeps tax increases on the table. White is a friend of Washington DC, our governor won’t bend over and take it!
And you got it dead wrong on a lot of things! Perry will not debate White because White refuses to debate via NOT releasing his taxes while he was Energy Secretary under Clinton! White is a shady, Elmer Fudd looking liberal higing his taxes because he doesn’t want us to see how he made his millions! It’s simple, if he’s not corrupt then he’s got nothing to hide and should RELEASE them!!! You are also wrong on the HPV issue, look up facts not rhetoric by the pathetic White campaign! Go to the governor’s website, not his campaign site, and type in the search bar ‘HPV issue’ and read the darn executive order! It states that only the PARENTS have the right to whether or not their daugthers get the vaccine! Parents had the rights, and when you read it an appology is in order when you actually write about the truth and not write about it just because the liberaledia says so. Oh and by the way, the HPV issue was dead in 2007 and has no place in a 2010 race.
Furthermore, no one should even be saying anything about a freaking budget shortfall when our Comptroller hasn’t even had her estimates out yet. And even if the shortfall is projected to be that big, I
still pick Perry to handle it because he’s done it before! Brought us from deficits to BILLIONS in surplus is something he KNOWS how to do.
Texans aren’t stupid, we’re picking Perry and the Belo Poll shows exactly how this race is heading with Perry’s lead growing. It’s at a 14% advantage and it’s heading for a spread bigger than in the primary where he won by upwards of 20%!
Wow :/ This didn’t help me. But than again, when it comes to stuff like this I’m so behind because of the lack of TV and interest in politics. Not that yours didn’t help. Because neither comments or article helped me in the specific topic. Maybe it did, I’ll have to think deeper.
To everyone, sorry you wasted your time reading this. White was never in the running and won’t be in the running. All Perry has to do to win is not talk about raising taxes and “not get caught in bed with…”. Whoever wrote this column should stick to their day job because Texas politics is way over their heads. Without looking the author up, I would guess they live in Austin.
Texas has a biennial budget process, with the $18 Billion deficit being a projection. There is ample proof of a tax & spend attitude by White, as he did this by ramping up the debt as Mayor of Houston. Perry is not without warts, but he should win easily.
White’s refusal to open his tax returns during his tenure in the Clinton administration will be used against him. There must be something he is ashamed of there, especially since his best gambit to cut into Perry’s lead was to have face to face debates. Those tax returns release was the precondition set by Perry.
I expect taxes or fees to be raised, and spending cut, especially in education administration, a union stronghold.
Also note, that Geo. Soros is funding a multimillion Dollar independent expenditure campaign on behalf of Texas Democrats via surrogates. With Texas getting 4 new Conbgressional seats in the diennial reapportionment, conservatives need to maintain and increase control of both the legislature and executive branches of State government.
“Republicans did cut spending then and righted Texas’ fiscal situation, so there’s reason to believe they can’t do it in 2011.” Should read “Republicans did cut spending then and righted Texas’ fiscal situation, so there’s NO reason to believe they can’t do it in 2011.
More comment later.
Texas has one of the loosest waiver laws on vaccines. Yes, Perry was a tool about the Gardasil thing. So what? He got killed on it, it went away. Can you say that about Massachusetts care?
5% across the board cuts- fine, whatever.
Why not take up the Texas Monthly list of things to axe? That’s a lot.
Or cut Child Protective Services. They admit that 96% of their calls are just pure harassment of the parents? They say it themselves in the newspaper. So, cut them out, entirely, and leave the police with a child advocate on staff, for the criminal matters, and leave all the other parents alone? That’s several million dollars of government meddling gone, right there.
Or consider re-writing NCLB. Right now my kids spend four weeks of their school year testing. Beginning, middle, end of the year district tests, plus TAKS testing in third grade through graduation. I’m actually a fan of NCLB- my kids are getting a more comprehensive education than I did. The teachers are forced to teach more broadly than they had planned. The fourth grade teacher, last year, had to bring in a specialist to teach division, for instance. I think she would have skipped it entirely without NCLB.
I think the only thing needed to sink Bill White is take pictures of Houston while he was mayor. The potholes and broken pipes leaking all over the place, the crime rate, the spotty trash pickup…any of it……….
wow…some cranky commentary in here today. I would hate to see it happen but if white somehow pulls it off and wins I wonder if stephanie will remember an apology is in order for making comments before she’s had any coffee and able to read for comprehension. I don’t see any bias in this article either way….it just looks like an analysis.
Given the current state of the race, the current state of Texas and national politics, only an idiot would recommend Perry even debating White indirectly through the media much less face to face. The time reading this column was wasted. The title alone is idiotic – this race is not a battle, it’s a slaughter, a route – the title suggests White has some reasonable chance.
So I’m irritated that Pajamas Media would publish such a useless column. I expect more quality from PM.
Houstonian, I’m sorry you don’t like my take on the subject, but I think Perry would leave White in the dust in a debate and all he would have to do would be to focus on taxes and White’s refusal to release his 1040s.
Just so you know, I tried to be very even handed in this report, I live in the Rio Grande Valley, not Austin and I blog at a very conservative site, probably because I’m very conservative. People have predicted one Governor aspirant or another slaughtering the opposite aspirant for the Governors office (often within the same party)ever since Texas became a state, and often had to eat their words. While I think that Perry will win, don’t forget that he pulled only some 39% in the last election, the Third to do so. Only Governor’s elected in 1853 and 1861 were also elected with a plurality of less than 40%.
White could possibly pull this off, but I doubt it. Unfortunately one thing I’ve learned after 45 years of living and voting in Texas and paying close attention to Texas politics, the only thing you can count on is that there is that you can’t count on anything in any given election.
Remember Hillary was going to carry Texas in the Democratic primary? She got the votes, but Obama got the delegates. Comprende?
White’s problem is that he picked the wrong year to run — in the 2006 election, a better Democratic nominee than Chris Bell might have had a chance to beat Perry, who was weak enough so that not only Bell, but Carole Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman also ran against him in the general election (all running to Perry’s left, which explained why he thought it was OK to lurch in that direction the following January with the Gardasil fiasco and the push for the Trans-Texas Corridor and the eminent domain land confiscation kerfuffles. It was only when he saw the threat of a 2010 primary challenge from Kay Bailey Hutchison looming after the ’07 Legislature that he hustled his beliefs back to the conservative side of the spectrum).
As it is this year, White’s made an effort to run to Perry’s right on several issues, including the budget deficit and the Gardasil and TTC incidents. But Perry has done a good job of nationalizing the election, and while enough of the electorate (especially in the Houston area) might by OK with White based on how they feel he did as Houston mayor, the actions of Democrats in Washington has put the idea of Democrats in state races running a bait-and-switch and governing to the left of where they campaign at the forefront of too many peoples’ minds to allow White to have a chance a month from now, barring some major unknown scandal (and as for the budget deficit, thanks to Obama’s offshore drilling ban, the number of onshore rigs in Texas has been rising over the summer, which if it holds up through the early part of next year means oil and gas valuations and ad valorem tax revenues will be on the rise in 2011. That includes the state-owned Permanent University Fund lands, which will cut into the deficit no matter who the governor turns out to be).
I’m not that fond of Rick Perry, but I’m not putting a Democrat anywhere near the Governor’s Mansion (what’s left of it) either.
8.25% sales tax is nothing compared to more socialized regions.
Perry has been up by 14 and 11 in two public polls this week. He is running away with it.
My problem with Bill White has been how he allowed Houston to become a safe haven city where tax dollars were spent to build facilities that ilegal criminals could use. Bill White is the Howdy Doodie of Texas politics. Come to think of it he looks like Howdy Doodie