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Business//Chris Tomlinson


PATRICK MOVE TO ELIMINATE TEXAS PROPERTY TAXES WOULD DESTROY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

By Chris Tomlinson, ColumnistApril 16, 2024



 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, left, Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan
at a press conference at the state Capitol in 2021. Patrick has ordered the
Texas Senate to come up with a plan to eliminate property taxes, setting up the
end of public schools.

Stephen Spillman/for Express-News



Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick listens to questions from reporters about recent energy
bills at the Texas State Capitol in Austin last year. Patrick has ordered the
Texas Senate to come up with a plan to eliminate property taxes, setting up the
end of public schools.

Nell Carroll/special contributor



Gov. Greg Abbott speaks about a school voucher plan during a rally in March 2023
at Cypress Christian School in Houston. Abbott and his allies say the voucher
effort is about school choice. Critics say they are private school vouchers that
allow people to take money out of the public school system to benefit private
schools.

Jon Shapley/Staff photographer



Love Elementary School in Houston.

Jon Shapley/Staff photographer

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s fantasy of abolishing property taxes would set the state
up for financial failure and end public education as we know it by placing a
greater burden on low- and medium-income Texans.

The most powerful man in Texas politics wants you to believe he’s looking out
for homeowners, but there’s always an unacknowledged goal for significant
initiatives like this one. You need only look at who deposited $3 million in
Patrick’s campaign account and who gave the record $6 million donation to Gov.
Greg Abbott to boost private religious schools.

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As lieutenant governor, Patrick appoints the leaders of Senate committees, sets
their agendas and decides whether a piece of legislation gets a vote. Patrick
also rewards senators who appease him and punishes those who don’t with his fat
campaign war chest.

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Last week, the lite guv ordered the Senate Finance Committee to “determine the
effect on other state programs if general revenue were used to fully replace
school property taxes, particularly during economic downturns.”


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TEXAS IS NOT A LOW-TAX STATE

Businesses pay most of the taxes in Texas, and low- and middle-income people pay
high...


Rising property taxes are directly correlated to the growing cost of housing in
Texas. When home or apartment values go up, so do taxes, and the two combined
create a crisis across the country.

Median property taxes in Texas rose 26% between 2019 and 2023, according to data
from real estate research firm CoreLogic, and first reported by Axios, an online
news agency. In four years, the median payment rose to $4,916 from $3,900 as
property values nationwide grew 40%.

Texas has crazy property taxes due to a convoluted system that protects the
wealthy and pushes the burden of paying for government services onto low- and
middle-income families.

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To understand how and why, Texans must remember that we pay for schools through
property taxes levied by school districts. The state is forbidden from
collecting a property tax, so the Legislature depends primarily on sales taxes
and severance taxes levied on oil and gas production.

The Texas Constitution also forbids an income tax, perpetuating the myth Texas
is a low-tax state. The wealthy, who spend less of their income on retail
purchases and real estate, get off easier than in other states. But the half of
Texans who struggle to make ends meet pay a higher proportion of their income in
sales and property taxes.

Most states rely on the proverbial three-legged stool of income, property and
sales taxes to fairly charge families and businesses based on their ability to
pay. Texas relies on only two legs, and Patrick is talking about kicking away
one of them.

Patrick’s command comes less than a year after the Legislature took $18 billion
from sales taxes and oil and gas severance taxes to pay down school taxes. Most
of that money came from high crude oil and natural gas prices and a roaring
economy that generated huge sales tax returns. The move marked the first tax
reduction paid by most property owners in decades.

Ending property taxes is part of the Republican Party of Texas platform, but it
would require collecting $73.5 billion from the remaining leg of the stool, the
sales tax.



The state sales rate is 6.25%, while local authorities can collect up to 2%
more. The Texas Taxpayers and Research Association in 2018 calculated the sales
taxes would need to reach 25% to replace property taxes.

Right-wing fantasists will point at Texas’ colossal budget surplus last year as
proof that lawmakers will only need to raise sales taxes a tiny bit. However,
anyone who’s lived in Texas for a decade or more knows the fossil fuel business
goes through boom-and-bust cycles.

During a bust in 2011, Texas lawmakers slashed school funding by $4 billion.
When the money runs out, the Republicans who control every lever of power in
Texas do not hesitate to sacrifice public education to avoid raising taxes. Even
with last year’s windfall, they refused to give teachers a raise.

This is where school vouchers and property taxes collide. The billionaires
backing Abbott and Patrick believe public schools are Marxist, woke
indoctrination factories. They want to give parents vouchers to choose Christian
nationalist indoctrination factories exempted from state or federal oversight.

The vouchers, though, are insufficient to cover private school tuition, so
families must pay the difference. The GOP hopes to create a system in which the
state pays a defined amount and normalizes parents' paying the rest.



Don’t be fooled by promises of lower taxes; this is about killing public schools
by underfunding them and shifting more of the burden onto young families and off
the wealthy.

Award-winning opinion writer Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about money,
politics and life in Texas. Sign up for his “Tomlinson’s Take” newsletter at
houstonhchronicle.com/tomlinsonnewsletter or
expressnews.com/tomlinsonnewsletter.

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April 16, 2024
Chris Tomlinson
Business Columnist

Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about money, politics and life in Texas for
Hearst Newspapers. He can be reached at chris.tomlinson@houstonchronicle.com.

The Texas Association of Managing Editors awarded him columnist of the year in
2021, and the Headliners Foundation named him Texas's Star Opinion Writer. He’s
authored two New York Times Bestsellers, “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of
an American Myth” and “Tomlinson Hill: The Remarkable Story of Two Families Who
Share the Tomlinson Name - One White, One Black.”

Before joining the Houston Chronicle, he spent 20 years with The Associated
Press reporting on politics, economics, conflicts and natural disasters from
more than 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.




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