January 19, 2018

Ep80: Tax talk stirs the election debate, cuts and no new hikes: Plus, as state costs from Harvey, foster care, special education continue to grow

31 minutes

Within hours after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott rolled out his plan put the brakes on skyrocketing property taxes in Texas, to GOP cheering, Democrats and a variety of other groups were shooting at it right and left.

Lupe Valdez, at an Austin forum a day later, appeared to leave open the door to perhaps raising taxes -- a comment she walked back within hours. "I'd have to lose a leg before I'd do that, and I don't want to lose a leg," she told a TV interviewer.

As the political season heated up this week, Abbott took heat for blasting state Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston, on a push he said she made to tap emergency funds -- a push that House records show she never made.

As the political squabbling grew this week, with the March 6 primary election getting closer, so did the list of additional costs the state will face in the coming year: Recovery from Hurricane Harvey, relying on state funds because federal funding continues to be delayed; $85 million in special education mandates, and perhaps millions more to overhaul the foster-care system to satisfy a just-rendered federal court order.

You can always count on this: Texas Politics are seldom boring, always entertaining.

With Mike Ward, the Houston Chronicle's Austin Bureau chief, and Scott Braddock, editor of the Quorum Report, it's Texas' leading online podcast about Lone Star politics -- now coming to you in collaboration with Texas Public Radio.

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