James Quintero - Policy Director, TPPF Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, you live in Harris County. It's stuff to hold on,
isn't it? At least to your tax dollars. Six twenty
three is our time here in Houston's warning news. Yeah,
they have ten billion dollars worth of property tax relief,
and we've got Senator Betton Cord very excited about it.
You've got the governor excited about it. But from a
practical standpoint, we're not thing's done in the Texas State
Legislature to keep the government of places like Harris County

(00:23):
from clawing that money back through loopholes and other means.
James Quinteroll joins US policy director of the Texas Public
Policy Foundation. It's hard in Harris County to get too excited, James,
because we remember what happened after the last property tax relief,
when Harris County basically used that loophole after having the
hurricane loophole, to call virtually all of that money back.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, you're right, local government's behaving badly has become something
of a normal occurrence. But I got good news and
I got bad news, Jimmy. The good news is that
the legislature cut your taxes by about ten billion dollars
over the next two years. So for the average homeowner,
what they're going to experience is about a four hundred
and fifty dollars tax decrease beginning later this year, assuming

(01:10):
voters ratify those two or three constitutional amendments coming up
for a vote, so folks should see some relief later
this year. The bad news is that local governments are
already gunning to either erode some or all of that
release through rate hikes, bond elections, and really just overspending.

(01:32):
And so what voters need to be aware of is
now is the time to engage their local elected officials
and start pressing on these folks to adopt the no
new revenue tax rate, which is a mouthful, but really
what it means is we need folks to call a
taxpayer time out. We need we need, we need local

(01:54):
elected officials to stop raising taxes, give everybody a chance
to catch their breath and contend with the affordability crisis
that's going on.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, these governments cannot raise your tax rate without voter approval, correct.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well kind of, so they can raise your property taxes
to an extent, and then if they want to go
above that level, they have to get voter approval, and
now MO when these things come up for a vote,
most people aren't well versed on the legal leads that's
put before them, and so I think a lot of

(02:28):
voters go in there not knowing what exactly they're voting on.
Whether it's a tax ratificational election or a bond election.
Just know if a government is putting something before you,
it's probably going to raise your taxes.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah. Well in the bond thing too, you know, they've
done a very very good job. Government has done a
very good job of convincing parents in particular in the past,
especially in school bonds, that they have to do this
that you know, schools are overcrowded, we have to provide
your kids with a better education. That's going to require
more money. We need to have you pass these bonds.
But we have noticed more pushback in the last few

(03:02):
years than I think we've ever noticed before in that category.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, I think some voters are a bit more sensitive
these days to tax increases. But there's still a long
way to go. And if there's anything to criticize the
legislature about this session, it's the absence of meaningful tax reform.
What I mean is they didn't do what they needed
to do to put the controls in place so that

(03:29):
local governments don't eat away at all of this tax relief.
We saw quite a few bills relating to spending limits
and debt limits and strengthening the property tax revenue limit.
A lot of those fell short. Now in Harris County's case,
one of the good things that did come to fruition
is we eliminated the disaster tax loophole. So no longer

(03:53):
will will Lena Hidalgo and her crew be able to
abuse that particular item and get a massive tax increase
without going to the voters. But there's still a long,
long way to go on tax reform and reining in
this local abuse.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, and I'm sure they're they're cooking up some schemes
as we speak. James, Thank you, appreciated policy director at
the Texas Public Policy Foundation. That's James Quintero, six twenty seven,
our time.