Blog Stage Five

In the weeks preceding the primaries and even more so now that they’re over, Texas politicians across the state have been taking swings at one another in order to gain the upper hand in their respective races for public office.  Naturally, the media has mainly been focusing on the more popular races, primarily the Governor and Lt. Governor races, until recently.  One of the lesser talked about races set for the November elections is the battle for Texas Comptroller, the office which is essentially responsible for collecting taxes as well as certifying the amount of money the Texas legislature can appropriate in their budget (basically telling them how much they can plan to spend) has been in the headlines lately thanks to the nominees.  The story goes like this.  Glenn Heger, the Republican nominee for Texas Comptroller, says he wants to do away with property taxes in Texas and instead focus more on “consumption-based” taxes, for example sales tax.  His opponent and the Democrat’s nominee for Texas Comptroller, Mike Collier, is using Hegar’s comments against him in order to generate support for himself in the race.

While I do agree with Hergar on the notion that property taxes are something I could live without, (personally, I’d save about $200 a month) I don’t feel like we need to raise our sales tax, seeing as how we already have one of the highest sales taxes rates in the nation, possibly to offset the fact that we don’t have an income tax.  I think we have already just about whittled down all the existing tax avenues our state government can utilize and I don’t really think we can take away much more with out adding some in another area.  Not to mention, if we were to do away with property taxes, we would be taking the money away from our counties, municipalities and school districts, which rely on it as their primary means of funding.