By now you've probably read about Mayor Turner's proposed "undo the revenue cap" tax designed not to provide relief for struggling citizens, but to replace city vehicles that were stupidly left in underground garages during Harvey and to repair government buildings. It's a brutal pill to Houston residents who, foolishly, elected a career back-bench legislator to be the Chief Executive of the fourth largest city in America.
Turner wants, at all costs, his revenue back, and he'll do whatever he can to try and get it there, even if it means pushing through a tax increase on home-values BEFORE the flood, before they're reappraised to reflect current market conditions AFTER the flood.
On top of that Harris County has caught the tax-them-until-their-eyes-bleed bug and is preparing to take a $1 Billion bond-issue to voters, the majority of which would go to buy-out around 3,000 flood-prone homes, pay-off patrons to begin planning for a third reservoir and "revamp the County's Flood Management Strategy" which basically sounds like a ReBuild Houston style slush-fund to heap taxpayer largesse onto preferred political patrons.
In short, the Houston Area Leadership Vacuum is sucking harder than ever.
The response to this, from what passes for Conservative leadership in the area, is to scream "government waste, fraud, abuse!" without offering any real examples of this. It's the playbook that's turned Houston blue and will probably turn Harris County blue (and eventually Texas) in the coming years. It doesn't matter how bad the Texas Democrats are (and trust me, they're pretty bad) as long as Texas Republicans are worse. Which they are, and it's not close right now.
In fact, while many of the issues in Houston are the result of a long-line of bad Democratic Leadership (Hi Lee P. Brown!) and a County Commissioner election process that was basically a lifetime appointment due to poor media coverage and cronyism, the Harris County Republican Party has been unbelievably worse.
Even worse is the fact that both of these tax proposals have arisen before the City or the County even understand the full scope of the task in front of them. In the linked Chronicle article even Sylvester Turner admits he might not need all of the tax money he's asking for, but he's going to take it from citizens anyway. The County doesn't yet know how much FEMA will provide to assist in the condemnation process, but they're going to collect the tax anyway.
And be sure, if the City of Houston's insurance, FEMA or the State make the City and County whole there's NO WAY that tax money is going to be refunded. The County will divert it to the Astrodome so Ed Emmett can get a plaque with his name on it and the City will squander it repainting bike lanes, probably.
Remember all of this in late December, when you're looking down the barrel of home repair bills as, hopefully, you're spending the Holiday with your family.....then, in the mail, comes a bigger tax bill than you were expecting. A tax bill based on your property's value BEFORE the flood because the City of Houston and County of Harris wanted to ensure the greatest amount of money possible was extracted from your bank account.
And the thing is, this is just the beginning. There are many in the Courtier Class who are already starting to demand more. When it comes to the Editorial Board of the Houston Chronicle however I offer this advice: The Chronicle keeps suggesting that "$10 per month is not going to bankrupt anyone with a home". Fine, I say, a Chronicle subscription runs around $10-$12 per month. What say we all cancel those when the tax hit comes to keep our budgets even and see how much it effects them?
I've a feeling they'd be in a world of bother.
