Today's pay-walled Houston Chronicle story, however, seems to paint a slightly different picture....
City Rev Cap to force modest tax rate cut. Brian Rodgers, Houston Chronicle.com
(If you can, go read the entire thing)
For many Houston homeowners, the reduced tax rate – which makes the first of several procedural appearances on the City Council agenda this week – does not mean they will pay less in property taxes, as home appraisals continue to rise.
This is an important take-away, because it means that, contrary to previous reports, the City is not going to be taking in less money than in previous years. Instead, it means that the increase in money collected is going to be slightly smaller. The problem then, is not that the City is going to be operating on reduced funds, but that the increases in spending are rising faster than population growth and inflation.
In short: The city has a spending problem.
If this all sounds familiar to you that's good, because we saw the same "reduced funding" lie in the debate over Texas education funding where a reduction in the increase was miscast as a "cut" by the happy scribblers of the Texas Lock-Step Political Media and the hive-mind of the InterLeft.
What worries me the most is not that there will be a discussion around city finances, but that the discussion itself is going to be held on a dishonest landscape. It should concern all Texans that one of our major political parties has totally abandoned any semblance of concern for the taxpayer in favor of government interests. That there's no sense of concern, from Texas Democrats, that some government agencies are inefficient and broken.
This is not to say that Texas Republicans should be given a free pass. In fact, in their quest to blindly cut spending while refusing to audit and push for efficiencies they've been an active participant in exacerbating this problem, but on the Democratic side of the aisle there is no onus to do anything other than increase funding, whether the money is spent wisely or not be damned.
At some point, you hope that the Texas voters understand the depths of the problem and demand that both parties offer real solutions. I wouldn't hold my breath however, because in most cases people either don't pay all that much attention to State and local politics or they are just clamoring to get noticed by a Pol or three to assuage their egos.
Watchdog journalism might put a dent in this, but the TLSPM is too busy making goo-goo eyes at Wendy! Davis and Rachel Maddow.
