The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance would have voted against HB1 as well. Here's this week's blog roundup.

Off the Kuff notes that when one Bradley goes away, another one gets nominated.

Three Wise Men examines the possibility of a federal government shutdown and what Republicans are doing with the budget in Texas.

Musings rounds up news on teacher layoffs across Texas.

Presenting the comedy gold of the Honorable Anthony Weiner of The Bronx, NY, now showing for a limited time at Brains and Eggs.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme says you just have to read the paper to see how Republicans are destroying every thing and everybody they can.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson says It’s time for the left to join the class war.

At TexasKaos, more on Rick Perry's assault on our beloved state. See GOP Robs Texas of its Future. If this doesn't make clear what Perry is doing, Texans will never get it.

Marking the 43rd anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Neil at Texas Liberal reposted his 2011 MLK Reading & Reference List. Every day is the right day to be hopeful. Study MLK's life and make the decsion to take action for a better America. Nobody will do the work of freedom and democracy for you.

Who would have guessed that the biggest problem we have in the US is that taxes are too low? Turns out, McBlogger says, that's THE problem ... not spending.

After a weekend of masochistically watching the House debate the state budget, TexasVox pointed out several billion dollars in untapped and environmentally friendly revenue that we've left on the table, while the natural gas industry whines that without their corporate welfare check they'll have to move more of their drilling operations out of state to other states like Pennsylvania. Awww, poor babies.

Bad news: Texas GOP passes their budget

And it's as harsh as everyone has been warning.

The Texas House started with a $164.5 billion budget and ended with the same total. But lawmakers spent the better part of a weekend making changes inside the budget for 2012-13 before giving it their approval on a largely party-line vote of 98 to 49 late Sunday night.

The debate began first thing Friday morning, carried into the first hour of Saturday and then resumed late Sunday afternoon. The essentials remained the same, with an overall plan that's 12.3 percent smaller than the current budget; leaves public education and health and human services spending short of what it would take to maintain current services, especially given population growth and inflation; and requires none of the remaining $6 billion in the state's Rainy Day Fund or any new taxes (though it does include $100 million in new fees).

That's a party line vote, with two exceptions: Republicans David Simpson of Longview and Aaron Pena of Turncoat voted against it (though there is some confusion about a couple of D's and R's who may -- "clerical errors" have been blamed -- switched sides on third reading).

The budget now heads to a Senate that's on track, at this midpoint, to spend more money — about $10 billion, for now — than the House. And the reconciliation of those two disparate notions of state government will frame what's left of the legislative session. If they can't find middle ground, it could go into overtime in special sessions after the regular session ends on Memorial Day.

That's a concise summary of the situation. The Texas House is much like the national one: full of conservative extremists who want to shrink government until it can fit inside a woman's uterus, as state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte has noted. The Texas Senate in fact seems to be a bit more realistic about the money needed to run a halfway-decent state government. But only a bit.

For the Democrats, it was a way of disowning a Republican budget. For the Republicans, it was the difference between winning by a 2-to-1 margin and winning by near acclamation. That says something about how the state representatives see the political risks here: If they were worried about future general election contests against Democrats, Republicans would be breaking away from the pack as local politics required. Instead, they ignored the Democrats and stuck to voting in favor of cuts and against more spending.

Two votes broke the pattern. One would move $3.5 million from the Texas Commission on the Arts to the Department of Aging and Disability Services; it passed by just six votes, 67-61, with Pitts and former House Speaker Tom Craddick among those on the losing side. ...

Another would have moved $1.5 million from the governor's film and music marketing budget into state aid for libraries. It failed 79-55, with Pitts again on the losing side. Both of those votes broke the Republican-Democrat pattern that prevailed on most of the votes on budget amendments.

No extra money to speak of; just moving funds from one strapped state agency to another. The lesser of the greatest evil.

Conservatives successfully raided family planning funds in the budget, stripping money from those programs and sending it to others, including one for autism, another for mental health services for kids and yet another for trauma care. "We don't choose between good and bad," said Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center. "We choose between necessary and necessary." Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, was on the other side of that argument and started the nonvoting with this line: "I will not be caught trying to decide whether to fund child one or child two."

The debate on education issues lasted six hours. Members took money from the public school system for Texas prisons and put it into community colleges.

They turned back an attack on the Texas Education Agency that would have whacked its funding and cut the commissioner's salary to $50,000 from $186,000. "I don't know any of us that go home and say 'hip, hip hooray for the TEA,'" said Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, the author of that amendment. But after opposition from a fellow Republican, House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler of The Woodlands, the House voted to leave the agency alone. Another from Democratic Rep. Harold Dutton of Houston also fell short, after he expressed his vision for the agency as "one guy and one phone."

Oh, and some classy moves to placate the religious fundamentalists by the afore-mentioned Representative 'Christian'.

Before the House stopped early Saturday morning, members turned to a series of votes on controversial social and cultural issues. One debate started a buzz inside and outside the Capitol, when Christian proposed requiring "family and traditional values centers" at colleges and universities where any state money supports gender and sexuality centers or any "other center for students focused on gay, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, transsexual, transgender, gender questioning, or any other gender identity issues." That was adopted, overwhelmingly, by a 110-24 margin.

The next debate was ugly, when Christian proposed requiring that colleges and universities getting state funds should make sure that at least 10 percent of their courses "provide instruction in Western Civilization." The line formed quickly at the back microphone, where members can question people who are at the chamber's front mike presenting legislation. Christian got flustered in his descriptions of what would and wouldn't qualify as Western studies. Asked by Rep. Borris Miles, D-Houston, whether that would include African-American or Asian-American studies, Christian suggested the first might belong in African studies. Miles, who is black, implored him, "Let's take this down, brother." But it went to a vote, with Christian and 26 fellow Republicans voting for it and 108 other House members voting it down.

This is what Texans voted for last November. Allegedly. But back to the financials.

"(This budget) lives within the available revenue that we have to work with," Pitts said, adding, "This budget is the result of the worst recession that anyone in this room has ever experienced."

That's horseshit, Jim. It lives within the structural deficit you Republicans created six five years ago when you slashed property taxes and replaced them with a business franchise tax that fell far short of your own projections -- as well as the projections that predicted the current $27 billion dollar shortfall.

You Republicans can't seem to govern worth a damn.

If budgets truly are moral documents, then the Texas GOP is surely going to hell for this one.

Sunday Funnies

House Mouse, Senate Mouse

Weiner has been destroying for a few weeks now. Here he is speaking at the Congressional Correspondents dinner.



His Fox New interviews are instant classics.

Final Four activities today

And tomorrow and Sunday, for that matter. Thanks to the Chron for all of this. (For those of us who don't have -- or don't want -- tickets to the games but still want to play around in the vicinity.)

Friday

Bracket Town

Where: George R. Brown Convention Center

Time: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Tickets: $10 for 12-plus; $6 for 3-11, 55-plus; 2-under free

Tip-Off Tailgate

Where: Reliant Stadium Blue Lot

Time: 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Tickets: Open to the public

What to know: The Tailgate allows fans headed to the stadium a place to buy food and beverage and listen to live music.

Final Four team practices

Where: Reliant Stadium

Time: noon-4 p.m.

Tickets: Open to the public

What to know: Watch the four teams participate in their last practice session before Saturday's games. I went to the regional version of this last year and spent about an hour watching the last half of Baylor's and the first half of Duke's practice and warm-ups. It can get a little boring, but if it's as close as you can afford to get to the court, it's well worth attending.

The Big Dance Concert Series

Where: Discovery Green

Time: 4-10:30 p.m.

Tickets: Open to the public

What to know: A block party and concert series sponsored by the NCAA. The day's headliner is Sublime with Rome.

College All-Star Game

Where: Reliant Stadium

Time: 4:30 p.m.

Tickets: Open to the public

What to know: Two teams of college seniors battle immediately following the open practices for the Final Four teams.

Saturday

Bracket Town

Where: George R. Brown Convention Center

Time: 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

Tickets: $10 for 12-plus; $6 for 3-11, 55-plus; 2-under free

The Big Dance Concert Series

Where: Discovery Green

Time: 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m.

Tickets: Open to the public

What to know: The day's headliner is Kings of Leon, scheduled for 3 p.m. and lasting one hour. Expect this show to go off on time, because the basketball games -- and the watch party there on a big screen in the park -- begin at 5:07.

Sunday

Bracket Town

Where: George R. Brown Convention Center

Time: noon-8 p.m.

Tickets: $10 for 12-plus; $6 for 3-11, 55-plus; 2-under free

The Big Dance Concert Series

Where: Discovery Green

Time: 3-10 p.m.

Tickets: Open to the public

What to know: Tonight's (8:45 p.m.) headliner is Kenny Chesney, but I prefer Uncle Kracker at 5:30 and Pat Green at 7.

Update:

Every year when I arrive at the Final Four city, I try to get the flavor of the place on the bus ride from the airport to the hotel. One of my observations after arriving in Houston is that it's a good city to get sick in. There seems to be a hospital or medical center on every block. Maybe that's why there are so many gun and weapon stores: people feel that if they accidentally shoot themselves, it's no big deal. There's a gun wound specialist just around the corner.

I saw a great billboard on the way to the hotel. It was an ad for a lawyer whose phone number is 713 - WASN'T ME. I'm not kidding. After seeing this, I kept hoping the next billboard would be from the prosecutor's office with the phone number 1-800-OH YES IT WAS. Unfortunately, the second billboard didn't pop up. It shouldn't have surprised me. I mean, what are the odds that those two billboards would be on the same street? I can't do the math and answer that question, but I'm pretty sure the odds of that happening are a lot smaller than the odds of seeing these four teams play this weekend.

Pick Up the Pieces

My nephew's band in College Station. He's on drums.

The SHO/Final Four Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready for another sports-related tourist infusion as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

If the goal of the 81st Texas Legislature and Governor Rick Perry is to stifle job creation in Texas for the next two years, then Off the Kuff says they're knocking it out of the park.

Letters From Texas rolls its collective eyes about the word games played by the Republicans in charge as they announce their Senate subcommittee to find "non-tax revenue." Earth to Republicans: if we used to own it, but now the government owns it, it's a tax.

Musings looks ahead to 2021 in Connecting the Dots: Killing Education, Killing Unions, Funding the Tea Partiers. Give it a look. The videos are worth the price of admission by themselves!

WCNews at Eye On Williamson has something to say about the austerity budget: House Appropriations passes budget - tea party blamed for cuts.

In the latest post regarding the poll he's conducting on the mortgage interest tax deduction, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs explains why he has never owned a home.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme warns that Republicans are near their goal of killing public education for K-12 and at the university level.

Neil at Texas Liberal apologized for ever having voted for Houston city councilmember C.O. Bradford for any public office. Neil feels that voting for Mr. Bradford was one of the worst ballot box mistakes he has ever made.

refinish69 at Doing My Part for the Left is ever amazed by the stupidity of the Texas Lege. It is the gift that keeps on giving. Case in point is Rep. David Simpson's Don't Touch My Junk Bill.

This week, McBlogger takes a look at what austerity will do to Texas.

And PDiddie adds: as a type 2 diabetic for almost ten years, this was the most interesting thing I read in the past week.

Sunday Funnies

"Hundreds of thousands of job cuts" in Texas

The only question is how Rick Perry will attempt to blame President Obama for it.

Deep reductions in a House committee's budget proposal would cost Texas hundreds of thousands of jobs through the next two years, according to an analysis released Thursday.

"I've been trying to say this for over a year. I've been trying to say how our economy was bad, and how our shortfall was going to be affecting Texas, and nobody seemed to believe me. But I think reality is probably setting in on that," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie. "I really didn't realize the extent of the total employment. It's pretty shocking."

"How about if we blame it on the Great Collapse of 2008?"

The Legislative Budget Board's "dynamic economic impact" analysis of the Appropriations-approved budget proposal predicts 271,746 fewer jobs in 2012, and 335,244 fewer in 2013, compared to what total employment would be if revenues and spending remained stable. That includes government and private-sector jobs.

The analysis cautions that the estimate "does not imply the state will lose that many jobs from our current employment level upon enactment" of House Bill 1, as approved by the Appropriations Committee this week.

Instead, it shows Texas would have fewer jobs compared to a scenario in which state spending remained constant relative to the current budget.
Bad economy blamed

"Since available revenue for the 2012-13 biennium is predicted to fall well below that amount, in large part due to the national economic recession, many of these job losses can be attributed to the steep downturn of the Texas economy during the past several years," the LBB analysis said.

"But I thought Rick Perry said Texas was doing great. Back during the campaign season. How about if we say it just won't be that bad, like Dewhurst has been saying?"

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said the state needs to address the structural budget deficit caused by the 2006 school finance plan, but disputed the LBB's job loss estimates.

"We have a trillion-dollar economy in Texas. There's 9.5 million people employed in Texas. I don't think by any stretch of the imagination the budget that we pass is going to cost many - it may result in hundreds of job losses, but I would really doubt if it would be thousands," he said. "Most economic analysts would say that if you raise taxes to increase government spending, you'll cost jobs."

Travis Tullos, regional economist with Austin-based consulting firm TXP, described the LBB's prediction as a "worst-case scenario, generally speaking."

"If you were to increase taxes sufficient to cover that deficit - whatever that ends up being - that would be more deleterious to the economy than going ahead with a more conservative budget," Tullos said.

Vertigo-inducing spin. My question: how's that voting-a-straight-Republican-ticket-for-the-past-sixteen-years thing workin' out for ya?

"For me, life happened."

"I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands," ...  "For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else. I have been supremely lucky in my life in that I have known great love, and of course I am the temporary custodian of some incredible and beautiful things. But I have never felt more alive than when I watched my children delight in something, never more alive than when I have watched a great artist perform, and never richer than when I have scored a big check to fight AIDS."