Debra Medina, the feisty Republican running for governor, promises Texans that she will liberate them from their property taxes.
“I talk about that for freedom reasons first,” Medina said at the Jan. 29 gubernatorial debate.
“We’ve surrendered private property ownership to the ever-growing state — we lease our property in the form of ever increasing rents known as property taxes,” she wrote on her campaign Web site. “We’ve forgotten that ownership is an essential element of freedom.”
A call to eliminate property taxes might resonate with many taxpayers, beleaguered by the demands for more money from schools, cities, counties, emergency districts and more when their wallets are thin.
But critics say the freedom Medina promises would come at a huge cost to local taxpayers because they would lose a critical element of control over the governments closest to them.
As envisioned by Medina, the property taxes now paid by Texans — $39 billion as of last year — would be replaced with a sales tax applied to more services and to real estate transfers.
Texas would be the only state not to have local property taxes, if Medina’s plan were to be adopted, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington.
The state would collect the sales tax dollars and redistribute them to local governments based on “sharing formulas,” according to the campaign’s Web site. Campaign officials did not provide someone to explain Medina’s plan.
The practical effect would be to make local governments beholden to state government for every tax dollar and thus concentrate decision-making power in the Texas Capitol, said Kail Padgitt, a staff economist for the Tax Foundation.
“Cities and schools and other governmental entities would be at the mercy of us in Austin, and they would have no local control, which is one of the banner themes in Republican politics,” said state Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
And it’s not Sarah Palin. Her name is Debra Medina and right now she’s polling right at 16% in the GOP primary race. Here she is:
She has participated in the Texas Tea Party movement and she spoke at last summer’s gathering of Texas secessionists at the State Capitol. And yes, she did call for secession. Here is her speech:
The two big planks of the Medina platform deal with property taxes and gun ownership. Medina refers to property taxes as “rent” being paid to the state. So the elimination of property taxes is an essential step to take in her framework of property ownership. Her revenue-raising alternative is to broaden the base of the Texas state sales tax. One thing she is unclear about is whether she is in favor of taxing the food Texans buy at the grocery store, which is currently sales tax exempt.
Gun ownership and the training of Texas citizenry in the use of guns follows right behind the property tax issue. Gun ownership is a sacred right in the Lone Star state; generations of Texas youth–myself included–have grown up learning to use firearms. My dad (a liberal, Yellow-Dog Democrat) was merely following through on his paternal responsibility when he put a .22 rifle in my little hands and then taught me the safety rules that naturally precede going out to the country and doing a little plinking. And plinking naturally preceded learning how to hunt. It also led to target shooting, which is a favorite sport among gun owners. Medina has tapped into a fundamental vein of Texas culture here, as she speaks to the irrational fear that Barack Obama is going to come and take people’s guns away. In the words of Mr. T, I pity the fool that would ever attempt to take guns away from Texans.
Then comes the issue of sovereignty (secession), which began to catch fire primarily in the southern states soon after the election of Barack Obama as President. Medina says this on her website:
Texas must stop the over reaching federal government and nullify federal mandates in agriculture, energy, education, healthcare, industry, and any other areas D.C. is not granted authority by the Constitution.
One wonders if this would include federal ag subsidies and EPA restrictions on what power companies and other industries might dump in Texas waterways or expel into the atmosphere (not that the EPA’s regulations are all that stringent or enforced.) What about the protective FDA regulations that (should) call for sanitary conditions in meat packing plants? Would she opt out of the federal highway and transportation system? If so, how will Texas continue to maintain its highway infrastructure? Wouldn’t such a move necessitate handing even more Texas roads over to private toll road companies?
Debra Medina will likely lose the primary, but perhaps force Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison into a run-off. Win or lose, she is likely going to remain an active force in Texas politics. Like Sarah Palin, Deb Medina won’t fade back into the scenery. And though Deb isn’t the beauty pageant type, she is an attractive, outspoken, glasses-wearing female politician. Expect her to run again in ’14. Depending on how bad or good things get between now and then, she may have a fighting chance to win. And if she does, the normally whacked-out state of affairs known as Texas politics will become even crazier.
I know. You’re wondering, given the current situation, how getting even crazier might be possible. But I look at the current occupant of the governor’s mansion and think back to 1978, when an unheralded oilman named Bill Clements came out of nowhere to clobber the Democratic candidate for governor, John Hill. Clements’ win was historic: he was the first Republican governor to be elected since Reconstruction. I remember the atrocious, ham-handed way he attempted to govern, how the Lege had to school him a bit, how coarse and pugnacious his speeches and press statements were, and I remember thinking then that his election set an all-time low in Texas politics. Little did we know that this was only the initial stage of sinking for the good ship “Political Gravitas.” The ascendancy of George W. Bush and Karl Rove to the Texas political main-stage heralded the onset of new lows. And amazingly, W.’s understudy, Rick Perry, has plumbed uncharted depths in his secessionist rantings, his selling off Texas roads to private toll road firms, and his Big Pharma connections with Merk that relate to his attempt to require that all Texas girls be immunized with Merk’s HPV vaccine, Gardasil.
The one thing Debra Medina would seem to offer that is sorely lacking in the governor’s office at the moment is integrity. Watch her in action and it becomes apparent that she truly believes in and is passionate about her intent to honestly represent “We Texans.” If the incumbent wins re-election, as the polls suggest he will, then maybe the stage will be set for 2014, when another victorious candidate might just swoop in from the margins. Perhaps, in the long term, that is what Debra Medina is counting on.
This Tumbleweed Life 