Texas’ oversize property tax cut now will mean a big bill in the future

Politics dictated surplus spending, and we will pay in the long run.

By Nathan Johnson | Dallas News

Presented with an extra $32 billion of spending money this session, legislators spent more than half of it — $18 billion — on property tax reduction. Jubilation and self-congratulation followed. When the noise dies down, we’re left with a few questions: Should it have been more? Or less? How did we get to the number $18 billion anyway? Most importantly, given that we’ve created a permanent obligation to buy down future taxes, how are we going to pay for it when there isn’t a massive surplus?

Texas property taxes are high, and in recent years steep increases have created real financial strain for many residents and troubling incentives for others. Some level of property tax reduction was in order.

And though it took two contentious special sessions to get there, the final tax reduction package is well conceived: It raises the personal homestead exemption by 150%, compresses local school tax rates, temporarily caps dramatic spikes in commercial appraisal values, and in a related bill, exempts thousands of small businesses from the cost and nuisance of the dreaded margins tax. (Interesting note: The margins tax was created to pay for the last big property tax cut.)

These are major changes that will result in significant tax savings for homeowners and small businesses. That’s good, as far as it goes.

Unfortunately, it’s also reckless. You might even say it’s unconservative.

Dubbed “the largest tax cut in Texas history” (it actually is not, but never mind), it’s being funded this session by “the largest surplus in Texas history” (it actually is — but please read on). Large surpluses are not routine. We shouldn’t expect to have anything like this surplus in the future.

Consider why we had a $32 billion surplus this session. It’s mostly one-time money, with the rest owing to unsustainable deferral of expenses. More than $14 billion comes from various federal COVID funds, while another nearly $7 billion comes from inflation-inflated sales tax revenue. Meanwhile, funding public education in real dollars at 2019 levels would have cost an additional $15 billion. If you’re adding, that’s pretty much the entire “surplus.”

We’re not going to get another flood of unattached money from the federal government. We don’t want high inflation. Pretty soon we will have to fund our public schools like we said we would.

We must ask also about the consequences of not investing some of that $18 billion in other essential state responsibilities — one-shot investments like water infrastructure, affordable housing (renters were largely left out of the discussion, save for the disingenuous hope that landlords might pass on the tax savings they realize), and prison system upgrades; and recurring investments like education and health care. Investments like these produce economic (and social) returns in both the short and the long run.

So exactly how did we wind up at $18 billion? Why not $11 billion, or $13 billion, or $20 billion? The truth is uninspiring: It’s political. The number $18 billion did not come from a fiscal analysis aimed at determining the most beneficial and responsible way to spend the surplus, that is, as between tax reduction for the half of Texans who own homes, and investments in Texas’ lagging physical and social infrastructure. It was, for the most part, little more than an exciting and predictably effective campaign promise from the top. Another case of politics over policy.

Until the public demands more from government leaders, this is how policy will be made.

In the meantime, we have to deal with the consequences. I expect we’ll do just fine for a while. The Texas economy is marvelously strong, to some extent because of, and to some extent in spite of, our politics.

But one day, maybe because of and maybe irrespective of our politics, instead of a surplus we will face a deficit. What then? Will we fire school teachers to pay for property tax reductions for homeowners?

Fortunately and wisely we maintain a sizable Economic Stabilization Fund, better known as the Rainy Day Fund. We should not hesitate to draw upon it — heavily if necessary — to meet our responsibilities to the public. Perhaps that gets us past any shortfall. If not, legislators will have a difficult time cleaning up after the big tax reduction party of 2023, and the voters will not be happy when they see the mess.

Nathan Johnson is a Democrat representing Dallas in the Texas Senate. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Texas Senator Nathan Johnson: Lawmakers must stop deep fake images for fair elections

Unscrupulous political agents are spreading disinformation. This bill will help stop them.

By Nathan Johnson | Dallas News

Seeing is believing. Well, not always. It’s OK — desirable, even — to be fooled by digital images when we watch movies. It’s not OK when we’re deciding how to vote in elections.

As much as we tend to think election outcomes are the foregone conclusions of partisan map drawing, there still are contests in which people struggle to make up their minds about candidates; sometimes in a primary election, sometimes in a general election.

Seeing is believing. Well, not always. It’s OK — desirable, even — to be fooled by digital images when we watch movies. It’s not OK when we’re deciding how to vote in elections.

As much as we tend to think election outcomes are the foregone conclusions of partisan map drawing, there still are contests in which people struggle to make up their minds about candidates; sometimes in a primary election, sometimes in a general election.

The technology for digitally altering images and creating fake videos gets more powerful every day. It gives election saboteurs the ability to make us think and feel things that aren’t real, and to vote accordingly. It’s a growing threat to the integrity of our elections and our democratic institutions.

After all the acrimony over election laws during the past few years, addressing the threat of manipulating voters through digital alteration of images is neither controversial nor partisan.

The threat applies without regard to state boundaries, so you’d think the federal government would have already acted to safeguard the electoral process against manipulation by digital hacks. Alas, this is yet another area where Congress hasn’t performed its duty, and responsible action falls to the states.

In 2019, Texas passed the nation’s first law prohibiting “deep fake videos,” those produced using artificial intelligence, made with the intent to deceive people and influence the outcome of an election.

The 2019 law did not, however, address a simpler manipulation tool — altered still images. This session, I filed Senate Bill 1044 to expand the reach of the 2019 “deep fake” law to include digitally altered images: photos manipulated to change in a realistic way how someone looks, or to show them doing something they didn’t actually do, with the intent to deceive people and influence the outcome of an election.

Any effort to place boundaries on verbal or visual communications inevitably runs into concerns about preserving rights of free expression. Indeed, when it comes to politics, we seem to have an attitude of anything goes regarding criticizing, characterizing and caricaturing candidates and elected officials.

But this isn’t about free speech or damage to reputation or hurt feelings. It’s about protecting voters and the electoral process from malicious manipulation. And it’s not that hard. The bill doesn’t regulate caricatures, cartoons, satire or superficial changes; it applies to only deliberate attempts to trick us.

We needn’t sacrifice free expression to protect the electoral process from deliberate sabotage. And we should not permit ourselves to be played by those who would gain power through deceit. New digital tools require new rules. Texas can and should continue its lead over other states in protecting the integrity of elections from digital sabotage. After all, this isn’t a movie.

Nathan Johnson is a Democrat representing Dallas in the Texas Senate. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Why Do Texas Republicans Still Oppose Medicaid Expansion?

Senator Nathan Johnson outside Texas Capitol

State Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Democrat from Dallas, has made Medicaid expansion in Texas a priority during his first term. None of his bills has succeeded, but he's determined to break through Republican opposition if he wins another term. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar

This story is being co-published with The Texas Tribune.

by Kim Krisberg and David Leffler

November 7, 2022

One afternoon in April 2021, state Sen. Nathan Johnson sprinted through the Texas Capitol building, determined to reach the House chamber in time to see history made. For one of the few times since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, the full Texas House was going to vote on a proposal to expand Medicaid, the program that provides health care to America’s poorest.An ongoing series on the 11 states that refuse to expand Medicaid. Read other project stories.Eighteen percent of Texans don’t have health insurance—the highest rate in the nation—and Johnson had already filed five pieces of legislation that session to use Medicaid expansion to get as many as 1.2 million of those people insured.To him, the approach made sense. The federal government would pick up 90% of the cost. Research showed that by rejecting Medicaid expansion, Texas was turning its back on more than $5 billion in federal money every year.All of Johnson’s bills were likely dead that session, doomed by opposition from Republicans whose hostility toward the Affordable Care Act goes back to 2013, when then-Gov. Rick Perry called it a “criminal act.” But as he ran to the House chamber that day, Johnson clung to a faint hope that this new effort would succeed. Nine Republicans had recently signed onto a House version of his last expansion bill, suggesting that cracks were forming in the GOP front.If Republicans were looking for a way to expand Medicaid on their own terms, this bare-bones amendment to a House budget bill could be it.

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Public Health Watch