AUSTIN – Today, The Honorable Talmadge Heflin, Director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and former chairman of the Texas House Committee on Appropriations, and Dr. Vance Ginn, economist for the Center for Fiscal Policy, issued the following statements on the Legislative Budget Board’s (LBB) adoption of a recommended 2016-17 appropriations growth limit based on personal income of 11.68 percent:
“Comparing total Texas state government spending with population growth plus inflation since 2004, total spending is up 13.4 percent, costing a Texas family of four $1,800 more this year to support state government,” said Heflin. “Part of this excessive spending stems from the poor job of controlling spending by the state’s constitutional spending limit. The limit covers only forty percent of the state’s total budget, is based on personal income, and relies on projections that are often imprecise. Now that the LBB has made its decision, we recommend that the committee designated to adopt the appropriations limit better match spending growth with Texas families’ ability to support it by limiting the increase in appropriations to population growth plus inflation.”
“Using population growth plus inflation would be a huge benefit to hard-working men and women across this great state,” said Ginn. “We encourage the committee to strongly consider setting the growth limit to population growth plus inflation so that Texas families, especially the neediest among us, can improve their well-being based on their own resources and not be burdened with potentially higher taxes and fees to fund excessive spending. We encourage the Texas Legislature to take this even further by extending the limit of population growth plus inflation to the entire Texas budget and base the limit on the two most recent fiscal years.”
The Texas Constitution limits the growth of appropriations from state revenue not dedicated by the constitution to the estimated rate of growth of the state's economy. After the LBB makes its decision, the committee of the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the house, and comptroller has 10 days to formally adopt an appropriations growth limit, either as submitted by the board or using another measure of the growth of the state’s economy. If the committee doesn’t act, the LBB’s determination becomes final.
The Foundation is part of the Texas Conservative Budget Coalition that has recommended a 6.5 percent limit on the growth of the entire state budget, based on the rate of population growth plus inflation in the two most recent fiscal years. Using this measure means that total appropriations for the 2016-17 budget could not exceed $217.1 billion.
Earlier today, TPPF released updates to key budget research, The Real Texas Budget andThe Conservative Texas Budget, using the latest Texas budget and economic data.
To see the updated Real Texas Budget, visit: http://txpo.li/real-tx-budget-worksheet
To read the updated paper explaining The Real Texas Budget, visit: http://txpo.li/real-tx-budget-paper
To read the updated Conservative Budget, visit: http://txpo.li/tx-budget
The Honorable Talmadge Heflin, Director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. In the 78th Session, Heflin served as chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations and navigated a $10 billion state budget shortfall through targeted spending cuts that allowed Texans to avoid a tax increase.
Vance Ginn, Ph.D., an Economist in the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin, Texas.