Happy Birthday to America. On this, the week of our 246th year, we celebrate — or we ought to commemorate — the sacred injunction of the Founders to keep secure our unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
American Democracy, a famous visiting Frenchman once observed, is the “great experiment” of modern times. This is to say, as the progenitors of something altogether new, our future stability can never be taken for granted. There are things we can do to strengthen the republic and things we can do to considerably weaken the world’s finest ongoing experiment.
Right now, a second special session on property tax relief has been called by Gov. Greg Abbott. True property ownership was of central importance to the Founders. A free people could never be so without land to call their own. In this crucial respect, Texans are not free. After all, we don’t really own our property since taxes, even after our mortgages are paid off, continue forever. And often they increase.
Eliminating property taxes is challenging but not impossible. As I’ve outlined in great detail, Gov. Abbott and our representatives in Austin can use our massive state surplus to buy down school property tax rates to zero over the next 8 years. We have more than enough money — tens of billions of dollars —to put the school property tax on a glide path to zero. Do the hordes of lobbyists have our duplicitous legislators running scared?
Assuming that this second special session channels their inner Founding Fathers and they decide to govern like statesmen, they must not stop at compression. That is simply step one. To cement these gains, state and local spending must be controlled, and a constitutional provision that Texas will pay all school taxes must be passed. In a few years, school property taxes should be as outmoded as George Washington’s wig.
When Texans behold what promises to be an astounding tax cut, amazing things will follow. Our local and state economies will flourish as suddenly tens of billions of dollars (annually!) are open for people to use in all sorts of entrepreneurial ways. At liberty to pursue their own happiness, Texans will do amazing things.
In the above, I’m not altogether hopeful. It is more than likely the failed homestead exemption will be increased for the fourth time and our legislators will call it a day. Again, the Senate does not have to go this route. It can for the first time in history put us on the path of unimaginable prosperity. But I can promise you there is no chance of compression or any other sensible plan coming to fruition if average Texans remain complacent.
So, on this holiday week, I challenge my fellow Texans to take part in the “grand experiment” in which they yearn for true property rights and liberty. Our forefathers were not shy when making disagreements known to King George. In similar respects, we should not just accept the machinations of political machines we cannot see but whose power affects our lives. The power of our system still lies with the people, but only if they’re awakened. We learn to use the power we have, the power of an angry, focused electorate. If we wake up, we will prevail. Let your voices ring loud and clear before it’s too late.
