HB 256 by Rep. Leo Berman

State Representative Leo Berman needs your help with making sure his bill (HB 256) is passed and signed into law.

HB 256 will prohibit the State of Texas from issuing a birth certificate to the children of illegal aliens born in the state. The state will issue a record of birth; however, illegal aliens will have to contact their own consulate and apply for a birth certificate from the country in which they are citizens.

If this bill passes it will immediately be challenged with several lawsuits. Most of these cases will end up before the Supreme Court in the form of contesting the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment reads "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Representative Berman is seeking a Federal Judge that will rule that the 14th Amendment only applies to children born in the US, when at least one parent is a US citizen. This bill has the ability to reduce public funding that goes toward illegal immigrants who receive free pre-natal care, free hospital care, and birthing services in a medical facility. The days of automatic US citizenship for being born on American soil for the new borns of illegal immigrants will be over. No more free benefits for sneaking across the border!

Link to the bill and its history:

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=81R&Bill=HB256

Birds that want take flight

From the folks at Empower Texans comes:

State Rep. Tommy Merrit inserted into the budget an amendment that requires the Department of Public Safety to buy a $4.3 million helicopter to be based in his hometown of Longview. However, there is a problem with this request. The bird will be flightless for no money was included in the budget for pilots or maintenance. Sounds like some of that advanced planning..........................

A flightless bird that is an earth-bound porker. Only a state representative could create the pork. This is currently contained in the new state budget that has been sent to conference committee. Let's hope that someone puts this flightless bird out of its misery, and saves the taxpayers from the cost of frying the bacon.

State Rep. Pete Gallego (D-Alpine) earmarked $6 million for a pool and recreation center for YOU to build in Presidio County (population of 7,575). "That's $800 per resident; that pool better have an awesome slide." It also better come with free usage passes for all Texas residents. The pool must be the size of the Baltic Sea.

And most thought that the folks occupying the seats in Washington, D.C. grew all the pork!

Blagovich and Twi-light Super of the PISD

The lack of an important ingredient in formulating a good person based upon the advertisements by a school board candidate seems to be the common element between Twi-light Super and the former impeached governor Blago of IL. Wonder if the maker forgot to add the 'integrity'? One may never know.

If I comprehend correctly it appears we may have a school board member who is no longer living in the district. However, this school board member continues to make decisions on our behalf. This has to violate some state law. Who on the current school board has the 'nuts' to confront the situation? Guess they will let this one ride as well. Just like they let Twi-light Super ride when she broke school board policy. To this day they have taken no personnel file action with regards to her disrespect for local school board policy that she is hired to uphold. Wow, is that part of the missing ingredient? Twi-light Super could possibly qualify as an Obama cabinet nomination.

Eltife sponsors tax increase bill (SB 1569)

From AFP Texas

This week, 22 Texas Senators voted to expand our unemployment insurance eligibility in Texas. This will result in a short-term gain, but long-term cost. It will result in a tax increase that will impact Texas employers and future job growth. Please call those Senators and ask them to reverse their vote, and vote against this tax increase. The bill is SB 1569 and the next vote is slated for Monday.

Texas has the strongest economy in the nation for one reason — we work to keep taxes low. Texas has the largest job growth in the country, has been named as the best state for doing business, and has more Fortune 500 companies than any other state.

But some Senators are willing to throw our success away and accept one-time federal dollars that will expand our current program. The unemployment insurance portion of the so-called stimulus would pay for less than eight weeks of unemployment insurance payments in Texas. Passage of SB 1569 will result in a permanent tax increase for Texas employers and fewer jobs in Texas.

Our message (AFP) to those Senators who voted for the tax increase: Don't mess with Texas' economy and job growth!

Texans want a paycheck, not an unemployment check. Our current program of Unemployment Insurance still allows those who lose their jobs to get unemployment checks while they look for a new job.

It is imperative that we not increase taxes at this critical time. We agree with what Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands) said before the vote on Thursday:

“Texas employers would be stuck paying the bill, through higher state taxes, once the federal money ran out. I just felt like the long-term consequences of expanding that program are not good for Texas employers.”

Please call these State Senators and tell them to vote against this tax increase (SB 1569) and for Texas jobs:

Sen. Kip Averitt (R-Waco): (512) 463-0122 or (254) 772-6225
Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas): (512) 463-0116 or (214)738-5751
Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth): (512) 463-0110 or (817) 806-4400
Sen. Bob Deuell (R-Greenville): (512) 463-0102 or (972) 279-1800
Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock): (512) 463-0128 or (806) 762-1122
Sen. Rodney Ellis (D-Houston): (512) 463-0113 or (713) 236-0306
Sen. Kevin Eltife (R-Tyler): (512) 463-0101 (903) 596-9122
Sen. Craig Estes ( R-Wichita Falls): (512) 463-0130 or (940) 689-0191
Sen. Mario Gallegos, Jr. (D-Houston): (512) 463-0106 or (713) 678-8600
Sen. Chris Harris (R-Arlington): (512) 463-0109 or (817) 461-9109
Sen. Chuy Hinojosa (D-McAllen): (512) 463-0120 or (956) 972-1841
Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. (D-Brownsville): (512) 463-0127 or (956) 548-0227
Sen. Steve Ogden (R-Bryan): (512) 463-0105 or (979) 776-0521
Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano): (512) 463-0108 or (972) 403-3404
Sen. Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso): (512) 463-0129 or (915) 544-1990
Sen. Carlos Uresti (D-San Antonio): (512) 463-0119 or (210) 932-2568
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio): (512) 463-0126 or (210) 733-6604
Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin): (512) 463-0114
Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio): (512) 463-0125 or (210) 826-7800
Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas): (512) 463-0123 or (214) 467-0123
Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston): (512) 463-0115 or (713) 864-8701
Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo): (512) 463-0121 or (956) 722-2293Or email them at


firstname.lastname@senate.state.tx.us

Enough said..............

AFP supports SB 700 and HB 1575 and you should as well

Write Senator Eltiffe and Representative Hughes and let them know you support SB 700 and HB 1575. As a taxpayer it is in your best interest to support bills such as these.

For Texas taxpayers, SB 700 by Sen. Dan Patrick and HB 1575 by Rep. Carl Isett are probably the most important bills this legislature will consider.

Though legislators worked hard to provide billions in property tax relief, and though school property taxes were lowered, property taxpayers’ perception is that they didn’t see the relief.
Why? Local taxing entities either raised tax rates or – more often – allowed the appraisal process to provide them with additional revenue.

Local taxing entities and their lobby organizations will be opposing any legislation which provides opportunity for taxpayers to determine just how much government we want and are willing to pay for. That is unfortunate.

For the past several sessions, the Texas Municipal League and the Texas Association of Counties have clearly laid out their legislative agendas – they consistently say they don’t want any legislation which limits their ability to raise revenue.Some of the arguments you will hear from local government officials and their lobbyists:

Fiction: This should be a local issue. Voters elect their city council members and county commissioners and they are responsible for the tax rates. If taxpayers were unhappy with them, these officials would not be re-elected.
Fact: Too many local officials will run for re-election claiming they “didn’t raise taxes” when they actually didn’t raise the tax RATE but didn’t need to do so to collect more revenue. The appraisal increases allowed the local taxing entity to get more revenue from the individual taxpayer. Moreover, true local control should rest with the taxpayers, not the tax-spenders.

Fiction: Any attempt to “limit revenue” would harm local governments.
Fact: No proposal we have seen would unilaterally limit revenue. The rollback provision is a trigger which would require local officials to “make their case” to the taxpayers (i.e. - their constituents) and voters would have the opportunity to determine whether they agree with their officials that more money is needed.

Fiction: Taxpayers would not approve tax increases. (Yes, the Texas Association of Counties president actually used this argument in a Senate hearing last session.)
Fact: Taxpayers have been extremely generous when asked. Bond initiatives pass at a rate of 75-85%. Rollback elections are slightly less successful. Texas taxpayers are generous and if the local officials can justify why they need the additional spending, it will likely be approved. If not, then the local government entity should tighten their belt, and re-assess their priorities just like taxpayers are doing across the state and the nation.

Fiction: Local government growth is driven by new development.
Fact: Local government has grown four times faster than Texans’ paychecks. (Local government debt has grown five times faster!) Texas is a fast-growth state, but growth cannot account for the rapid increase in local government spending. In fact, that growth was factored into the analysis as newcomers’ income was factored into the analysis.

Fiction: Rollback elections are expensive.
Fact: We are always amazed when taxing entities use the argument that an election is expensive, so they are saving tax payers money by not asking them before digging deeper into taxpayers’ pockets. If rollback elections are expensive (and they should be held on a uniform election date to encourage greater participation), then local government should not increase the tax revenue above the rollback rate.

Fiction: Citizens should be required to petition for a roll-back election
Fact: The petition-gathering process should be eliminated. It is cumbersome and some elections don’t garner participation by 10% of the registered voters. Taxpayers deserve an automatic roll-back election. Currently, taxpayers have few tools to control local government growth; whereas, government has many tools to “educate” the public on the vote – using taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers who want to participate in the process and oppose the increase must not only pay for governments’ “education campaign” but their own education/advocacy efforts.

Fiction: 5% rollback rate is too low. That rate is generally more generous than the increase in population and inflation.
Fact: The rollback rate was 5% in the mid-1980’s and was increased to 8% when the rate of inflation was higher. It is appropriate to return to 5% now.

Fiction: The rollback election does not allow taxing entities to plan.
Fact: Taxing entities can plan to spend under the rollback rate and have a supplement budget prepared for the additional revenue, should the rollback election fail.

In addition to the changes to the effective tax rate and rollback, we support the bills’ provisions for:

• An electronic filing for a protest of an appraisal for a county that has 500,000 or more people.
• Late applications for a homestead exemption.
• Appraisals based on the current designation or use of the property and not the highest and best potential use of the property.
• Improving the notice of appraisal by requiring the chief appraiser to give an annual notice to each homeowner stating the current appraised value of the property and the difference, either positive or negative, for the previous tax year

Source: AFP - Texas

Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius

Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding "unintentional errors" the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee.

The guys on CNBC said maybe a thousand unintentionally, but $7,000?

One quipped, is it that Republicans have better tax advice?

Oh, and her husband's a judge. Yet they have trouble following the law. And paying the taxes they owe that they like to raise on us.I think there's a pattern here, don't you?