Never one to let an opportunity pass by, Carole Keeton Strayhorn has announced that if elected Governor, she will repeal the new business tax. Here’s her press release (Word doc):
“Gov. Perry said he was signing the largest tax increase in Texas history with ‘passion and joy’,” Strayhorn said. “I will repeal the tax hike with passion and common-sense fiscal responsibility.” “This law leaves Texans with a $23 billion hot check,” she said. “It is bad public policy and I will blast it off the books after I am elected governor.”
Yoo hoo, Steven Hotze! I have a Ms. Strayhorn on the line for you. She asks that you overlook her fondness for gambling, and the fact that she’ll need to act like a Democrat so she can stitch together a big enough coalition to win in November.
What’s ironic about this, given the nature of the coverage of the Governor’s race so far, is that Strayhorn’s announcement seems to have drawn almost no press. The only real hit I got doing a Google news search on “Strayhorn repeal business tax” was this Waco Trib piece. More typical was this DMN story, which spoke about other things Strayhorn wants to do but didn’t explicitly mention this item, though Dallas Blog thought so. How Strayhorn plans to push such a repeal through the Lege, never mind how she plans to fund schools, is left as an exercise for the reader’s imagination.
Anyway. We’ll see how loudly she beats this drum, and how much response she gets for it. It’s still not clear to me how well the bills passed in the special session will go down with the public. I think there’s a lot of potential to move opinion on it one way or another. Rick Perry starts out with the advantage, since the special session actually Did Something this time around, which is what everyone said needed to happen going into it. How much of that advantage he finishes with is what I’m not sure about.
Rick Perry is calling it the “largest tax cut in history” in his TV ads.
Didn’t the Vichy Republicans signing the protest document call it the “largest tax INCREASE” in history?
Come now, gentleman. Surely it cannot be both, no matter how dizzy you make yourselves from spinning.
Of course Carole 4 names, 3 parties would repeal the business tax!
This is the same person who has proposed
1. “The General Land Office (GLO) should be … required to target at least 5 percent of all underused lands for sale each year�.”
2. “Less confrontational methods of … enforcing environmental laws often can be more effective than traditional, punitive approaches. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission should aggressively market its Regulatory Flexibility Program to reduce onerous restrictions on businesses….”
3. “Create a Bill of Rights for business. Every business has the right to expect state agencies to provide … a commitment to streamlining regulations….”
4. “A lighter regulatory burden frees businesses from bureaucratic chores….”
5. “Onerous recordkeeping requirements make the tax reporting and audit processes overly burdensome….”
C4n3p is the biggest Corporatist in Texas!