AUSTIN, Texas – As budget negotiators for the House and Senate continue work on the spending and tax plans, the vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation urged them to exercise the same fiscal restraint found during the last legislative session.
“Two years ago these lawmakers closed a $10 billion shortfall through sound fiscal management, but by all accounts that same discipline does not seem to be in place today,” said Michael Quinn Sullivan. “With spending expected to rise as much as 15 percent, Texans need to be prepared for the higher taxes that must inevitably follow to fund such an increase.”
Sullivan cited recent polling data from the Heritage Alliance and the Tower Institute suggesting that Texans are uninterested in new spending.
“When almost two-thirds of Texans say they prefer a property tax cut funded by spending reductions instead of tax swaps, the message to the legislature should be clear: cut spending, don’t increase it,” said Sullivan.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan research institute focusing on the values of individual liberty, personal responsibility, private property rights, free market economics and limited government.
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