Jun
10
Written by:
Mark Lavergne
6/10/2009 4:13 PM
Texans for Fiscal Responsibility (TFR), a watchdog group that pushes for low government spending and taxes, today released its "Fiscal Responsibility Index," a scorecard of how lawmakers fared on taxpayer protection issues. The Legislature was more fiscally conservative than last year's, but is still failing with a score of 52.13 percent, TFR president Michael Quinn Sullivan reported.
“Unfortunately, the session itself was highlighted by missed opportunities; too much was simply not done that should have been,” noted Sullivan. “Not only did the legislature fail to provide much-needed property tax relief, it only provided tweaks to the property tax appraisal system and the state's business tax instead of the fundamental reforms that were needed.”
The House fared better than the Senate, 56.49 to 47.69. House Republicans outscored Democrats 81.72 to 30.92. Senate Republicans outscored Democrats 59.09 to 29.65.
Top House members, all Republicans, were Doc Anderson (Waco), Wayne Christian (Center), Jodie Laubenberg (Rockwall) and Ken Paxton (McKinney), all of whom got perfect 100's. Top Senators, also all Republicans, were Jane Nelson (Lewisville) with 93, Troy Fraser (Horseshoe Bay) with 86, Mike Jackson (La Porte) with 85, and Dan Patrick (Houston) with 81. The highest scoring Democrats in each chamber were Rep. Stephen Frost (New Boston) with a 50 and Sen. Carlos Uresti (San Antonio) with a 40.
Sullivan observed that this year's slate of House chairmen was considerably less fiscally conservative (53.88) than last year's (66.21), and less conservative than the full House. "This Session's committee chairs pushed through legislation that had to be stopped by the body, because the body tended to be more fiscally responsible than those chairs," Sullivan said. "It’s our hope that next session, Mr. Straus will pick better chairmen who take a more taxpayer-friendly approach to governing Texas."