Replacing Property Taxes with Sales Taxes Is the Wrong Answer for Texas Families and Public Schools


Book Description

Public education is the foundation of our democracy and the engine of our economy, and Texans have a collective responsibility to ensure that public education is adequately supported. This responsibility needs to be fairly distributed among Texas families in a way that supports economic growth. Recently, some have proposed that Texas replace local school property taxes, or even all local property taxes, by increasing the rate of the state sales tax or expanding the sales tax to more goods and services. Such a tax swap would be a bad deal for businesses, families, and public education. This policy page outlines the reasons why.







Texas Politics


Book Description

The eighth edition of this popular text has been expanded and updated to better fit the needs of a stand-alone Texas politics course. Jillson continues to approach the politics of the Lone Star State from historical, developmental, and analytical perspectives, while giving students the most even-handed, readable, and engaging description of Texas politics available today. Students are encouraged to connect the origins and development of government and politics in Texas to its current practice and the alternatives possible through change and reform. This text helps instructors prepare their students to master the origin and development of the Texas Constitution, the structure and powers of state and local government in Texas, how Texas fits into the U.S. federal system, as well as political participation, the electoral process, and public policy in Texas. Texas Politics offers instructors and students an unmatched range of pedagogical aids and tools. Each chapter opens with an engaging vignette and a series of focus questions to orient readers to the learning objectives at hand and concludes with a chapter summary, a list of key terms, review questions, suggested readings, and web resources. "Let’s Compare" boxes help students see how Texas sits alongside other states, "Texas Legends" boxes spotlight key figures in Texas political history, "Pro & Con" boxes bring conflicting political views into sharper focus and every chapter features a timeline of important events in Texas history. New to the eighth edition • Covers the 2020 national elections, the 2021 legislative session, and the 2018 state and national elections as they affect Texas. • Highlights Governor Greg Abbott’s call for policy solutions to the vulnerability of the Texas energy grid; Texas voter eligibility laws; the coronavirus recovery program; and preparation for redistricting in the wake of the 2020 census. • Provides a detailed study of the 2022–2023 state budget and the taxing and spending decisions that went into it, including the school funding and property tax reforms of 2019. .




Taxing the Poor


Book Description

This book looks at the way we tax the poor in the United States, particularly in the American South, where poor families are often subject to income taxes, and where regressive sales taxes apply even to food for home consumption. Katherine S. Newman and Rourke L. O’Brien argue that these policies contribute in unrecognized ways to poverty-related problems like obesity, early mortality, the high school dropout rates, teen pregnancy, and crime. They show how, decades before California’s passage of Proposition 13, many southern states implemented legislation that makes it almost impossible to raise property or corporate taxes, a pattern now growing in the western states. Taxing the Poor demonstrates how sales taxes intended to replace the missing revenue—taxes that at first glance appear fair—actually punish the poor and exacerbate the very conditions that drove them into poverty in the first place.




The Tax Racket


Book Description

OUR GOVERNMENT IS PICKING OUR POCKETS--AND CALLING IT TAXATION! In his previous bestsellers, The Government Racket and A Call for Revolution, Martin L. Gross alerted the nation to government waste, corruption, and the shocking squandering of public funds. But an even deeper and more pervasive problem is crippling America's economy and undermining our nation's strength: excessive and unfair taxes. Through spiraling federal, state, and local taxes, our government is literally robbing us blind right under our noses--and it's time we opened our eyes to the truth. In comprehensive chapters from A to Z (Audits to Zoning), The Tax Racket exposes exactly what's wrong with our present tax system, including: Taxpayer Rights? You don't have many. The Constitution supposedly protects us against search and seizure of our papers and property, but the IRS couldn't care less. Airline and Airport Taxes--these federal taxes on every plane flight are not only kept secret from you, but much of these billions that go into Washington's general slush fund are not even used for better air travel. X-tortion Oddities--our governments levy taxes for all sorts of things you've never heard of--from "mall taxes" to "use taxes" to "snack taxes" to 66 "excise taxes"--but you pay them anyway. Earned Income Tax Credit--this program, billed as an aid to the working poor, is actually the biggest fiscal assault ever launched on the beleaguered American middle class. Social Security--the more the government hauls in your FICA taxes, the faster it spends that money on everything else, from welfare to farm subsidies to the President's salary. The result? Social Security will be bankrupt when the baby boomers retire. But it doesn't have to be this way. The Tax Racket lays out a clear and workable plan to fix it--by abolishing all federal, state, and city income taxes and replacing them with a fair and equitable national sales tax that will reduce the tax burden on everyone. Nothing gets American citizens angrier than the excessive and overlapping taxes forced down their throats. This honest, eye-opening book is a call to arms to bust the tax racket before it breaks the backbone of our nation. It's time to say goodbye to filing, penalties, interest, audits, and fear! STOP TAKING OUR MONEY!




The Texas Poll Report


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Making Money Matter


Book Description

The United States annually spends over $300 billion on public elementary and secondary education. As the nation enters the 21st century, it faces a major challenge: how best to tie this financial investment to the goal of high levels of achievement for all students. In addition, policymakers want assurance that education dollars are being raised and used in the most efficient and effective possible ways. The book covers such topics as: Legal and legislative efforts to reduce spending and achievement gaps. The shift from "equity" to "adequacy" as a new standard for determining fairness in education spending. The debate and the evidence over the productivity of American schools. Strategies for using school finance in support of broader reforms aimed at raising student achievement. This book contains a comprehensive review of the theory and practice of financing public schools by federal, state, and local governments in the United States. It distills the best available knowledge about the fairness and productivity of expenditures on education and assesses options for changing the finance system.




Tax Politics


Book Description