Will Proposition 1 (statewide) pass? Should it?

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While I was thinking about what I should write this week, someone asked me for my opinion of Proposition 1 (a statewide ballot issue not to be included with the local proposition on which we voted last spring); hence this week’s topic.

Dr. Malcolm Cross
Dr. Malcolm Cross

A most informative website offers the following information:

The Texas Homestead Exemption for School District Property Taxes Amendment, Proposition 1 is on the November 3, 2015 ballot in Texas as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment.[1]

The measure would increase the homestead exemption from property taxes levied by school districts from $15,000 to $25,000.[2]

Depending on their district, homeowners would save an average of between $120 and $130 per year, which would cost the state about $1.2 billion in tax revenue for school districts over two years. Senate Joint Resolution 1, the enabling legislation, would make up for the lost revenue by entitling school districts to additional state aid from the Foundation School Fund.[3]

The text of the full article, complete with legislative history, arguments pro and con, etc., can be found here: http://ballotpedia.org/Texas_Homestead_Exemption_for_School_District_Property_Taxes_Amendment,_Proposition_1_(2015)#Background.

Proposition 1 elicited overwhelming support in the legislature, passing by a vote of 25 to 6 in the State Senate and 138 to zero in the State House of Representatives.  An earlier version won 94% of the popular vote in a 1997 constitutional amendment election, and I have no doubt this will do equally well next month.

And yet, much as I like the idea of a tax cut (and will therefore probably vote for this Prop 1) I have a few questions and reservations.  For one, reimbursing the independent school districts with state funds to make up for the property tax revenue to be lost should Prop 1 be passed will make the school districts more dependent on the state, and hence less subject to local control.  Whether this is good or bad is in the eye of the beholder, but if one values the independence of ISDs, one should be concerned.

A more important concern, in my opinion at least, is the impact of the increased state spending on public education on other state spending programs and state taxes.  As a general rule, increased spending in one policy area normally requires some sort of tax increase and/or spending cuts elsewhere.  So what will happen to other state taxes and spending programs should this Prop 1 be passed?

None of this is to say that passing Proposition 1—which I consider to be inevitable anyway—is necessarily a bad idea.  Indeed, cutting taxes, on balance, is good if doing so increases personal freedom and inspires cuts in unnecessary spending as well.  But what is bad is our failure, too often, to realize that in budgeting, every decision affects everything else, at the state and local level at least, where budgets are required to be balanced.  I can’t help but wonder whether our tendency to either ignore this issue entirely, or supply ourselves with answers based on magical thinking rather than facts and logic, reflects the corruption of our collective thinking by the nonsense in Washington.

At the national level of politics, there is all too often a bipartisan tendency to avoid supplying realistic answers to hard questions.  For example, for decades the Democrats have been piling one entitlement program up on another—Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, whatever—thereby contributing to a budget seriously out of balance.  If asked where the money will come from to ease the national debt, they simply say, “Soak the rich!”

Republicans are no better.  Indeed, they are worse because they should know better.  But Republicans gleefully support tax cuts and spending increases while assuring us that future budgets will be balanced by more revenue supplied by “economic growth,” although that growth is almost never great enough to supply necessary revenue. 

Since there’s no requirement to balance the federal budget anyway, both Democrats and Republicans can continue to be irresponsible for well into the foreseeable future, keeping taxes and revenue far lower than necessary to bring spending, deficits, and debt under control.  But at the state and local levels, where balanced budgets are constitutionally mandated, decision makers cannot afford the luxury of irresponsibility.

But getting back to the new Prop 1:  Will it pass?  Of course.  Too many voters stand to profit from its passage in the short run. 

Yet should it pass?  Only if we’re prepared to accept whatever increases in state taxes or cuts in other state spending it will bring.

But of course, given the constitutional requirement to balance the state budget, we’ll have to accept the results of Proposition 1 whether we’re prepared to or not.

Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton since 1987.  His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present).  He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014.  He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club, and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.

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