Greg Abbott Wants to End Property Taxes; Dan Patrick Won't Agree

The Senate, where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is sure to block legislation to eliminate the taxes that provide the majority of the funding public schools receive (photo by Jana Birchum)

It's bad news when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is your voice of reason. But that's where we are, as Gov. Greg Abbott continues to pursue his ridiculous goal of "eliminating a property tax in Texas." Abbott announced a second special session on June 27, saying he wants to end the collection of taxes for the maintenance and operations of public schools, the largest portion of the Texas property tax system – and, coincidentally or not, the money that funds teacher salaries and school upkeep. The Texas House convened for only 20 minutes Wednesday, with the House Ways and Means Committee unanimously passing a property tax relief bill identical to one that died in the first special session. The full House will likely pass the bill Friday when they are set to reconvene, but Patrick is sure to block it.

Abbott's critics have asked how the governor would replace the billions of dollars that would be lost by doing away with this funding. Patrick has called the goal a "fantasy" and, according to the Quorum Report, said it would push sales taxes as high as 20% to offset lost revenue, since a state income tax will never happen in Texas. "If you're going to eliminate all property taxes, you have no money left to do anything," Patrick told reporters in early June. "There would be no funding for education, no funding for health care, no funding for law enforcement."

Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said higher sales taxes would push the school tax burden onto businesses. She can't see how that would be popular. "I can't imagine that businesses would be in favor of this," Howard said. "And I get that people want to push back on big corporations, but there's a huge number of mom-and-pop businesses that would be impacted by this too."

Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, points out that a system using sales tax to fund public education is regressive and unstable. "A sales tax taxes the poorest people at the highest rate, that's been very well-documented, and Texas already has one of the most regressive tax codes in the country," Zwiener said. "The other thing is, it would leave you incredibly vulnerable to any kind of financial turmoil, to any kind of drop in consumer spending."

Public school advocates – Democrats, but also some Republicans – worry that the governor's property tax proposal is really about defunding public education. The governor has spent most of his political capital this session on a voucher scheme that would weaken public schools by giving the dollars used to fund them to parents wishing to send their children to private schools. The proposal has gone nowhere. Now, school advocates say Abbott is pushing another scheme that would hurt public education, because if school dollars are reduced and not replaced, budget cuts will inevitably follow.

"I certainly don't trust anything that comes out of the governor's or lieutenant governor's mouths these days on education," Zwiener said. "We already are not keeping up with funding for our public schools. We had a historic surplus and any additional funding for our public schools was held hostage for vouchers ... I mean, we are seeing intentional sabotage."

As they wonder about Abbott's and Patrick's motives, observers are also marveling at the incompetence of our state leaders. "This is one of those things where, as the Democrats, we're just getting out the popcorn and watching," Howard said. "This was a major promise coming from Republican leadership – property tax relief – that they were not able to deliver on, and they're continuing to have disagreements about. Reasonable people can have different ideas about how we should do this, but if we really wanted to provide property tax relief, and include the appropriate funding of public education, we should be sitting down at the table and talking about all the options and working it out. I don't see that happening right now."