In case you were wondering ...[TEXAS TAX]

Special to the Star-Telegram ^ | May. 22, 2006 | ELLIOTT NAISHTAT

[Dubya]

Notably absent from the Republican leadership's self-congratulatory comments regarding the recently completed special session on public school finance were any references to the fact that, because of the leadership's inaction, more than 1.3 million senior citizens and people with disabilities in Texas will receive little or no property tax relief.

Given that the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker were all in positions to intervene on behalf of these vulnerable populations (living for the most part on fixed incomes), I question why the interests of these particular Texans were left so far behind.

House Bill 1, the property tax reduction bill, as proposed, neglected to provide proportionate tax relief for seniors and people with disabilities currently receiving a freeze on tax increases as other homeowners would receive.

Realizing that these people had been left out of the bill, I offered an amendment and introduced a constitutional amendment to ensure that all Texas homeowners, including those whose taxes are frozen because they are over 65 or have a disability, would receive the same level or proportion of tax relief.

The amendment was adopted by the House and retained in the bill by the Senate. But the constitutional amendment still needed to pass.

Eastland's Republican Rep. Jim Keffer, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told me that "a decision had been made" (by whom, I wondered) to not let my proposed constitutional amendment get out of committee.

Instead, legislation sponsored by Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, that would provide a temporary reduction in taxes for seniors and people with disabilities -- but that also would allow their taxes to float up in the future -- was quickly passed out of the committee and scheduled for floor debate.

Berman asked me to sign on to his bills as a joint author. I told him that as long as language authorizing property taxes owed by senior and disabled Texans to float up remained in his proposals, I would not. Such language was antithetical to the firmly established principle of a tax freeze for these populations.

Berman argued that the additional amount of taxes owed by seniors and people with disabilities would not amount to that much. So why, I asked, were he and leadership so insistent upon including the float-up language? He said something about "fairness."

Once again, the full House accepted amendments to replace the Berman bills with my original language, providing proportionate tax relief and a permanent tax freeze for seniors and people with disabilities. But Berman's proposed constitutional amendment, as amended, still had to pass in the Senate. (Berman's stand-alone bill, as amended to reflect my original language, did not have to pass in the Senate because both the House and Senate had retained my language in House Bill 1.)

Despite repeated pleas from the Texas Silver-Haired Legislature, the Texas Senior Advocacy Coalition and AARP, as well as from a bipartisan group of legislators (including Berman and me), the proposed constitutional amendment never was considered for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee. This effectively killed the measures intended to provide proportionate tax relief and a permanent tax freeze for seniors and people with disabilities.

At any point during the special session's waning days, the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker could have impressed upon the Senate Finance Committee chairman the importance of voting out the requisite constitutional amendment. But they chose to not do so.

The votes were there; the necessity was apparent. In the end, 1,181,825 elderly and 146,945 disabled Texans were left out.

For those of you interested in understanding why the Republican leadership pushed so hard for Berman's float-up language and, when my proportionate tax relief and freeze language was substituted, proceeded to kill the proposed constitutional amendment, consider the following:

House Bill 1 requires any increase in school tax rates above 4 cents to go before the voters, so the Berman float-up language would have ensured that there was a built-in constituency to vote against school districts' raising their rates, and would have further limited the ability of districts to exercise local control and raise needed revenues.

Anti-tax guru Grover Norquist loved Berman's float-up language. So did our Republican leadership. That's why the constitutional amendment was killed. That's why more than 1.3 million seniors and people with disabilities will receive little or no property tax relief. State Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, represents District 49. He has been a member of the Texas House since 1991 and serves on the Human Services Committee.

[Rte66]

Well, hello! I was having a "McLynnan" moment just the past two days, as a matter of fact.

Two things: a Grand Ole Opry star died and I had never heard of him, at least his name and songs didn't ring a bell, which surprised me. He was Billy Walker and one of his "famous" songs was "Cross the Brazos at Waco." Do you know or have you heard it? I can't place it at all.

Second thing was about horses, as I have become captivated with thoroughbred Barbaro's recovery process from his Preakness accident.

I'm not a horse person, but had tried through the years to follow some of the quarter horse events in the SW because my g'daddy had had an interest in some horses that raced in Ruidoso, a long time ago.

When I googled to see if I remembered the winner of last year's All-American Futurity, I ran across a horse who won the 1st two points of the Ruidoso Triple Crown for 2-year-olds, but finished 5th in the All-American. The article was touting him ("Leading Spirit") for the New Mexico derbies this year.

Anyway, he is out of West, Texas, which is what caught my eye. The owner is - former Texas A&M chancellor, Barry Thompson - Thompson Ranch. I probably wouldn't have guessed that. There just aren't that many people in West!

Thompson's partner had the same kind of unusual last name of an oilman I knew *of* in OKC who was famous for having been kidnapped - ransomed and returned unharmed, too - back in the 1930s by George "Machine Gun" Kelly. That got me curious and I got "lost in the Thirties tonight" last night!

Glad to see you and glad you got a reprieve on those property taxes! It *does* work. Say hello to the people in Willie's birthplace town of Abbott for me, lol.

[McLynnan]

Billy Walker's death made the front page of the local paper, but I've never heard of him, and don't think I ever heard that song. We must be too young ; )

I'm not familiar with any horse breeders in West. The Salome's breed Arabians out near Crawford -- they have some beautiful horses. I think the Saudi Crown Prince spent some major money there when he was in Crawford a few years ago.