Rainy Day Fund for Texas Roads

    The Legislature planned to cough up $1.2 billion from the Rainy Day Fund to build roads. The Legislature will let the voters decide in 15 months whether they want to use the Rainy Day Fund or not. The politicians in the Capitol allow the roads to fall into poor condition and no plan to repair it. This is caused by an ideology of against raising tax, also fees. Injecting $1.2 billion for a $4 billion project will not fix the problem, instead they are just putting 'band aid' on it. It looks like the government is trying to do something, but actually they are not doing much.

     In my opinion, the notions of not raising fees and taxes are just a way to gain popularity. Lowering taxes and fees might solve some problems, but poor and unsafe road condition is just another problem. Why would the government allow the roads deteriorate without any plans of repairing it? Instead of fixing the problem, they just stick a ‘band aid’ on it. Rather than using paved roads, they might downgrade it to gravel road to save money and maintenance fee. The government should also put the fast growth of Texas economy and population into consideration. These growths mean more vehicles are using the roads. More usage of the roads means more money needs to be injected for maintenance and new road. The more the Legislature postponing their actions in solving this problem, the more expensive it gets to fix it. If the deficit keeps accumulating, then the future state government will suffer from the huge deficit and blamed for it.

Re: "The Dirty Little Secret of Texas’ Big Business Success"

I found an article about tax system in Texas from Hashir Ali’s blog. His evaluation is well pointed out. The author also put a video of Texas’ pro-business advertisement to support his argument.  Many big businesses from other states like California, Illinois and New York move to Texas for lower state tax. I feel this is true since Austin, city where I live, is growing really fast in the last three years. Not to ignore Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. I also heard that many Californians moved to Texas because Texas created plenty of jobs. But, without sacrificing the poor people, all these greatness of Texas will not happen.

I agree that the tax in Texas can be said ‘regressive’ because everybody pays the same flat rate. True that the system of “flat rate” because everybody is paying the same amount of tax. But if we see it in more detail, the percentage of tax paid by poor people is more than the rich people. Which means the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

I also agree that Texas has put unfair tax system.  Regressive tax system will force the poor to be in the poverty condition endlessly. No way that the poor can get out from poverty. I also consider that progressive tax system is better to decrease the gap between the poor and the rich. Thus rich people cannot enjoy the super low tax anymore.