Texas Republicans did a lot to deserve their electoral thrashing last week. Nominating execrable statewide candidates while ignoring the concerns of Hispanic voters contributed to the GOP wipeout in the Lone Star State.
Now, newly empowered Texas Democrats are zeroing in on the real issue: State-level Republicans were too fiscally responsible. Democrats in the legislature are cooking up a plan to declare a fake emergency to raid the state’s rainy day fund to send stimulus checks. This would fulfill a campaign promise by Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa (D) to send $1,500 checks to every household in the state.
The Texas Constitution generally prohibits sending government funds directly to individuals. Other states return money to taxpayers through income tax rebates, but Texas has no income tax. There’s an exception in the law where funds can be sent directly for a “public calamity.”
Just as President Donald Trump declared a bogus national emergency over the trade deficit, Texas Democrats want to declare a bogus public calamity over the cost of living, turning economic statistics into the legal equivalent of natural disasters to unlock sweeping government power. In this case, doing so would give them the power to parcel out $17 billion from the state’s rainy day fund — about 60 percent of the total — to “qualified households,” with “qualified” to be defined at a later date.
The bill says that eligibility is not allowed to be determined based on income, homeownership, tax liability, employment or receipt of public benefits. It says qualified households must have a usual place of residence in Texas come Jan. 1, and there is no citizenship requirement. The legislation directs the state comptroller to create an application process open through the end of 2028 and says applications may not be denied solely because a household does not appear in existing government databases.
The bill also says the comptroller should prevent fraud, but this wide-open application process would inevitably become a magnet for abuse. Even the residency requirement, loose as it is, could be easily evaded. For example, the bill directs the comptroller to create rules for people without conventional street addresses to receive payments.
Potentially sending $1,500 checks to everyone from illegal immigrants to Elon Musk apparently does not bother the bill’s authors. Nor does vaporizing the majority of the rainy day fund, which is supposed to tide over the state during recessions, amid an economic expansion with low unemployment. If Democrats think the state government has too much money, they could cut taxes instead. Texas has been running large budget surpluses, though revenue growth is projected to slow.
Texas Democrats had a good case that decades of one-party rule in Austin turned the GOP into a laughingstock unworthy of governing a state larger than most countries. But if a check-writing free-for-all is their idea of more-serious governance, they should recall that Trump promised $5,000 checks before Republicans got demolished.
The post Texas Democrats promise $1,500 checks. Trump tried that and lost. appeared first on Washington Post.
