VIDEO: Sen. Ted Cruz with Jonathon Karl on “This Week.”
I’m excited about Sen. Cruz coming to KWTP on Aug. 19, are you? In the meantime, here’s Sen. Cruz with Jonathon Karl on “This Week.”
I’m excited about Sen. Cruz coming to KWTP on Aug. 19, are you? In the meantime, here’s Sen. Cruz with Jonathon Karl on “This Week.”
Since the 2012 election, there has been quite a lot of talk about Harris County moving from Republican to Democrat. But anyone who is paying attention to this legislative session will see that the Republican legislators from Harris County are not particularly conservative on budgetary matters anyway. There has been a 26% increase in this budget over the previous budget. Rather than banking additional tax revenue this legislature has decided to spend more and then take $4 billion out of the rainy day fund.
With the passage of a budget that allowed for a raid on the ‘rainy day fund’, for an encore Harris County-based Representatives Dan Huberty, Patricia Harless, and Debbie Riddle joined with Democrats to support HB 16 and HJR 2 thus allowing for the rainy day fund to be raided with impunity. The Senate passed a bill that included a baseline under which the rainy day fund would not drop—a poor consolation for raiding the fund in the first place but a consolation nonetheless. When that bill came before the House the baseline was removed. Now, thanks to a coalition of irresponsible spenders, the rainy day fund can be raided with impunity.
The irresponsible budgeting of the Texas legislature during this legislative session has even garnered national attention with the Wall Street Journal comparing Austin to Sacramento. Texas is experiencing a boom—thanks to oil—in the same way California had experienced a boom—thanks to real estate—when it had decided to increase spending in the face of a positive financial outlook. Texas legislatures have failed to learn from California in recognizing that good times come to an end and a budgetary surplus can come in handy down the road. When one asks the government “How much can you spend?” the government usually replies, “How much do you have?” and then it takes some more.
Even a casual observer of politics and economics knows that saving money in good times is generally a good idea and that spending like the good times will go on forever will wreak havoc on a budget in the long run. The Texas legislature would do well to make two adjustments to the budgetary process in order to prevent these mistakes. First, we need a zero-based budgeting approach for all state agencies. Zero-based budgeting would allow legislators to assess how much money is really needed by an agency and not just how much money an agency usually gets. Second, discretionary spending should be handled after mandated spending and matters such as transportation and water are dealt with. Right now legislators are trying to say they need to raid the rainy day fund for roads and water. And they are right, we need to fund road and water projects. But these projects should have been dealt with first, not last, and discretionary spending measures should have been moved to the back of the line. By moving the most important matters to the back of the line legislators manipulated the situation to make it appear as though there is more of a scarcity of resources than there actually is. While money is the most important thing in making budget decisions, timing comes a close second.
We should all be alarmed by the dangerous and irresponsible budget practices by this legislature. What should be particularly alarming is that the conservatives are not acting like conservatives which means the spending will only increase and raiding the rainy day fund will only continue.
– See at: Dr. Scott’s Blog. .
Things are beginning to happen up in East Montgomery County. It can mean better opportunities for everyone in the area or it could be an unmitigated disaster. Join Bryce Howe in getting the right people in the right places in our community to carefully plan our coming growth in a productive way for everyone.
MUST WATCH:
Michael Walsh tells it like it is: Equal Protection under the law renders all cronyism of business or special interest groups and the government unconstitutional, infringing on other’s rights. Well Done!
Thomas Sowell, Immigration Gambles
We are importing many foreigners who stay foreign, if not hostile. Blithely turning them into citizens by fiat, rather than because they have committed to the American way of life, is an irreversible decision that can easily turn out to be a dangerous gamble with the future of the whole society.
What happened in Boston shows just one of those dangers.
Thomas Sowell, Immigration Gambles:Part II
Waiting until the border has already been secured before an immigration policy is decided upon would also allow time to discuss the pros and cons of various ways of enforcing whatever that policy might turn out to be. But many politicians much prefer to rush complex legislation through Congress before the public knows what is in it or what is at stake. “We the people” are to be by-passed.
Time to deliberate would also be time to raise questions as to why local government officials in “sanctuary” cities who openly thwart or defy federal immigration laws should be allowed to get away with such illegal acts, while private employers are forced to become enforcers of such laws, under heavy penalties for not investigating the legal status of those they hire.
Government officials at all levels take an oath to uphold the laws, but somebody who owns a restaurant or hardware store has not applied for the job of border enforcement — and the 13th Amendment forbids involuntary servitude. Or are we already too far along on the road to serfdom for that to matter any more?
FTA: Why Liberals Should Oppose the Immigration Bill: It’s about low-wage American workers, by T.A. Frank, New Republic
Most of America’s college-educated elites are little affected by illegal immigration. In fact, it’s often a benefit to us in terms of childcare, household help, dinners out, and other staples of upper-middle-class life. Many therefore view the problem as akin, in severity, to marijuana use—common but benign, helpful to the immigrants and minimal in its effects on Americans or anyone else. I know, because it used to be my own view.
H/T: Red State Blog, “The Stories They Told.”
Here are the Republican and Red State Democrat Senators who ran for election against amnesty and are about to vote for the ruinous Gang of Eight bill. Liars and cowards, trembling before the liberal press, listening to out of touch “republican” advisors, and betraying those that voted them into office.
THEY HAVEN’T READ THE BILL, and don’t care about the damage it will do. They are this generation’s “Useful Idiots” being played by the anti-American left.
Rubio: “I would vote against anything that grants amnesty because I think it destroys your ability to enforce the existing law and I think it’s unfair to the people who are standing in line and waiting to come in legally. I would vote against anything that has amnesty in it.”
Ayotte: “For the people who are here illegally, I don’t support amnesty; it’s wrong. It’s wrong to the people who are waiting in line here, who have waited for so long. And we need to stop that because I think that’s where the Administration is heading next.”
MUST WATCH: Ginni Thomas interviews Ret. AF Gen. Tom McInerney on Pres. Obama’s Failed Middle East policies.