Here's how I would balance the budget:
1) Texas spends about $354 million
on textbooks for public schools every year. While it is important to
have up to date information in children's textbooks, I think the annual
new editions many publishers print is a racket. Don't get me wrong, I
think education should be one of our top priorities as far as tax $ go,
but we should be smart about where we spend them. My guess is that legislators
don't force publishers to be more selective in choosing new editions
because a) it looks like they are cutting education spending and b)
there is a good sized textbook lobby that is giving them money, but it
looks like some California State Senators are trying to cut costs on textbook spending anyway. (I won't even go into what I think of the Texas Board of Education, who want this dum dum in charge of educating our children)
2) Why
do we have a natural gas tax break, again? Effectively to increase
corporate profits for the companies running the wells, according to this report by the Legislative Budget Board. Whether you believe reports funded by the fracking industry or the EPA, there seems to be enough evidence
linking fracking, an increasingly popular method of extracting natural
gas, with groundwater contamination to give us pause when considering
this industry, let alone not taxing it. In fact, it could very well lead
to increased tax expenditures in healthcare and environmental cleanup
down the road. In this way, taxpayers would get to pay for the corporate
profits twice.
3) Oh, right, I forgot what I would do first:
legalize marijuana. I know this is some kind of moral issue for many
people, but I'm pretty sure that anyone who's ever tried it can tell you
it's no more harmful than alcohol (there are plenty of studies on this-
here's an article
with a few). (you can disagree with alcohol abuse and still want alcohol to be legal)This single piece of legislation would work to balance the
budget on two fronts. It would increase tax revenue, sin tax revenue
specifically, which gives the most bang for your buck. It would also cut
down on the $3.3 billion we spend on prisons every year. As an added bonus, legalizing marijuana would cut into the $25 to $50 billion
a year operating budget of the drug cartels, which, I don't know, might
limit their power, thereby limiting their ability to deter investors
and tourists, while generally making life a hell
for Mexican citizens. With an economy not based on fear and torture,
Mexico might become a place less people would want to leave, and that
would cut into the amount of $$ taxpayers are spending on detention centers. I don't know, though, between the private prison industry and the drug cartels, aloooooot of money would be lost if we legalized marijuana, so, fingers crossed!
4) Speaking of sin taxes, while I disagree with them on principle for being regressive and discriminatory, I do believe that fast food chains and soda and junk food manufacturers could cough up some of their gigantic profits
to pay for the diseases their products cause. Maybe we could impose a
tax based on the amount of advertising $$ a company spends. That would
target the predatory practices of the company instead of their
consumers, though the effect might be the same (higher prices). Either
way, I wouldn't use this "fat tax"
to increase state revenue directly; I would put it in a fund for
healthy school lunches and programs to fight obesity and the diseases it
causes. This would open up some of our healthcare tax money to be spent
in other ways.
Who knew I had so much to say about the state budget? Well I do love a bargain!
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