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Texas Spending Spree — “We’re Just a Bit Short.”
By Bill Murchison
Texas Insider
January 28, 2011
Texas Insider Report: DALLAS, Texas – There’s nothing more odd in politics than telling the truth: which is why so many Texans, not to mention Americans, fail to recognize the truth when they hear it. Truths such as, “Folks, we’re out of money.”
In Texas, unlike some other places, we’re not completely out, you know — just a bit short.
But even in Texas, revenues and spending expectations aren’t rising at the same pace. Everybody with a checkbook knows the story—except that in political circles it appears to be the polite or the expected thing to fuzz up the discussion; to say, for instance well, it’s “their” fault (“their” having come to connote the folks in the other party).
That might or might not be the truth. It changes the conversation at least. The argument ceases, for a time, to be, what do we do now? It becomes, how fast can we throw out the bums who made the bad choices before they make things worse by cutting the “wrong” programs or not raising taxes on the “right” bad guys?
What often is lost in the discussion are the facts; e.g., Texas’ state government spending from all the funds at its disposal rose nearly 300 percent between 1990 and 2010.
At the same time population was growing just 115.5 percent.
In other words, spending as a percent of the population nearly tripled in 20 years. Health and human services spending rose 406 percent during the period, education spending 276 percent.
Sounds like some people in Austin got carried away with the taxpayers’ money they thought they had to spend. It’s the sort of truth that can be hard to own up to when the money finally runs low.
On the other hand, owning up is where recovery starts—moral recovery as well as economic recovery.
The topic in Texas (and in other places) this year is responsibility and doing what has to be done. Which, we hope you don’t mind our saying, is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
Today’s TexByte was written by the Institute for Policy Innovation Research Fellow Bill Murchison