On this Salcedo Storm Podcast: Dr. Derek Cohen is the Vice President of Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. In this role, he oversees the Foundation’s various policy campaigns and works with the legislature on keeping Texas the freest, most prosperous place on earth.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Because American values have been degraded denigrated by by Gov Ed over the last two generations, it is one of the sponsors I see as being instrumental toward dividing us, it seems because of the lack of education that our children are receiving, and the inordinate amount of indoctrination our children are receiving. And gov Ed, is the reason why we have so much hate division and discord in this country. And it plays right into the hands of those who are seeking political power by keeping us divided.
And sadly, this used to be exclusively on the left wing side of the equation, but a lot of so called Republicans are adopting this to George Carlin, the comedian, he kind of put it into perspective, in I don’t even think this was a comedy routine, it may have been one of his routines. But I think he nailed our problem in in this analysis of his in either one of his acts, or it might have been in an interview, I can’t remember, listen.
“Because that’s all you ever hear about in this country is our differences. That’s all the media and the politicians are ever talking about the things that separate us things that make us different from one another. That’s the way the ruling class operates in any society, they tried to divide the rest of the people, they keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they the rich can run off with all the money, fairly simple thing happens to work, you know, anything different. That’s what they’re going to talk about race, religion, ethnic and national background, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality, anything you can do keep us fighting with each other so that they can keep going to the bank. You know, I described the economic and social classes in this country, the upper class keeps all of the money pays none of the taxes, the middle class pays all of the taxes does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the out of the middle class. from showing up at those jobs?”
Well, you know, I don’t you can’t disagree with the political, the political attacks on our people by our elitist class, our political class. And that leads me to what’s been happening in the Texas House. As you all know, the the Republicans in the Texas House who lead the Texas House Dade Phelan and his lieutenants turn to the most socialist, anti American anti Texan regular session that we have seen, perhaps in Texas history.
Now, it was so bad that so many of the Republican Party priorities got left by the wayside. It was so bad. And so pro Democrat that Governor Greg Abbott has to send these children back to work over and over and over again saying hey, little, little, little Dade Phelan go back and do your work. And he was able to do so by, of course, as you know, special sessions, the governor puts out the call. This is what this is the subject matter and the laws that the legislature must address. And the governor could keep sending them back over and over and over again until they deliver on what the governor wants or the governor stopped sending them.
And, of course, they’ve passed what I would classify as a modest, not universal, but a modest restriction on vaccine mandates. They have come up with by all accounts judging by the left wing nut jobs. reaction to this a rather strong border type protection bill which gives, which gives local law enforcement the ability here in Texas, to to enforce a law that says hey, if you’re an illegal alien, you can’t be in Texas. You can’t be in Texas, if you’re an illegal alien, that makes it a state crime. Of course, this is in response to the federal government completely abdicating its responsibilities.
And then their school choice. Parental school choice and education freedom. The governor has had to come out and say, Hey, you’re doing it wrong. You’re trying to paper this over. You’re trying to get away so you can keep your powerful union buddies and your powerful Democrat buddies. You know, propped up, you’re you’re doing it so you can steal power and continue to steal power away from parents. I want to empower parents and I want to empower students. I want the money to follow the students, not the failed institutions. That’s what the governor has been saying.
And there’s every effort inside the Texas House to thwart that. And there’s a problem, folks with gov ED and its monopoly on education in iron. Rand was talking about this back in the 1950s. Again, it’s amazing how appropriate these concepts are today. Because as you know, the reason why our kids are failing is because of this gov Ed monopolies.
“Single Corporation were to get a stranglehold on a vital product or aroma of raw material uranium, for instance, which might be vital for the national defense and then would refuse to sell it to the government. Then, under a free system, no one could acquire a monopoly on anything. If you look at economics and economic history, you will discover that all monopolies have been established with government help with the help of franchises, subsidies, or any kind of government privileges. In free competition. No one could cornered the market on a needed product. It is an intellectual issue. Since they all believe in collectivism, they do favor it.”
Yep, they do favorite left wingers who have taken over government, they favor the monopoly. And a monopoly always what destroys innovation, destroys competition destroys excellence. And that’s why in Texas, we must join the 32 other states in our union, who have seen fit, to be civilized and get rid of monopolies in education, folks that are some other issues that you need to be paying attention to your vote counts. This November, we’re going to go over the propositions that are available for you to debate on and to choose from when you go to the ballot box coming up on the Salcedo store podcast.
There are some initiatives that are on the ballot, some propositions that we got to go through folks and we’ve been a lot of you have been clamoring for this. So let’s go through this. Let’s bring on Derek Cohen. He’s Vice President of Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. In his role he oversees the foundation’s various policy campaigns and works with the legislature on keeping Texas the freest most prosperous place on Earth, which is a daunting task given the makeup of the Texas House at this point. Welcome to you, sir.
Great to be here.
Okay, so Derek, I’m going to be using as my source. I’m going to add some other individuals in here too, because Texas scorecard did did an analysis to by asking Texans for fiscal responsibility true Texas project, the Texas Eagle Forum and the Hofheinz Liberty Foundation, their opinion on these two so we’ll just tell everybody how TPP F is looking at this. Then we’ll go through there. These these other organization wins and just briefly each summarize each and maybe read one of their yeas and Nays. Okay, so that’s how we’ll do it.
Sounds good to me.
Okay, so let’s let’s start with number one, of course. And this is protecting the right to engage in farming, ranching, timber production, horticulture and wildlife management. What’s it about?
Well simply put that this actually enshrined a right to farm you know that the simple way of putting it given the extensive area with Ranjan, Kimber and so on. But what we found is specifically in these rural areas, turning urban, or the ones that are kind of transitioning into more suburban areas, is that regulation, usually at the municipal level is actually forcing our long standing family bar. And so this would of course, not prevent that from happening or those municipal orders from occurring. But this would give a person who is aggrieved by this a Janssen court to say, hey, look, I have this constitutional right. And this local government stepping all over it.
Okay. Understood now, according to proposition ones analysis from the Texas scorecard, they had one of the organizations voting for it to against it. So folks go and read their analysis and listen to what the way it was broken down here by TTF and make up your own mind. Proposition two, authorizing a local option exemption from an ad valorem taxation by a county or municipality of all or part of the appraised value of real property used to operate a childcare facility. That’s a lot of godly goop. What is this?
So if you run a daycare, obviously, you have property, you know, you put these kids in a building, and so that would be subject to local municipal taxation. What this allows is for that local government entity to exempt child care facilities, shouldn’t they show with I believe the animating principle behind this is trying to combat some of the facility closures, obviously, a whole bunch of money got dumped on these facilities during COVID. And you know, that money is starting to dry up trying to go away. And this is trying to kind of head that off at the past or at least give locals the option to address that should they see.
The individuals who are asked to evaluate this proposition by Texas scorecard. None of them supported prop two, let’s go to proposition three prohibiting the imposition of an individual wealth or net worth tax, including a tax on the difference between the assets and liabilities of an individual or family seems relatively self explanatory. This is prohibiting government taxation, correct?
Absolutely. And so many states, California, trumping them on had these crazy taxation schemes where you know, you’re actually penalized for the act of dying, you can actually give the your kid all this is a is basically put in the Constitution that that is not a viable option here. And second, of course, this can be knocked out of the Constitution at a future date, but the threshold for doing so would be greater than the threshold for establishing a statutory taxation scheme that would do this. So this kind of is a hedge against that.
Three of the four are for this proposition, the fourth one did not weigh in. So again, it seems anybody that wants to prohibit more taxation to our people should vote for Proposition three. Okay, Proposition four boy, this is a lengthy one, authorizing the legislature to establish a temporary limit on the maximum appraised value of real property other than a residence homestead or ad valorem tax purposes, folks, it goes on and on and on and on. I’m going to ask the folks at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Derek cone to just basically break down what four is.
Right and putting it just at the 30,000 foot level. This is the property tax relief section. This would include raising the homestead exemption, you know, basically the bar on the taxable value of your property should have a homestead on it from 40 to 100,000. And also create a temporary cap on the annualized appraised value of the non homestead property has been sure that you know, commercial entities also have some of that compression as well it also raised as other things like raises, elderly and disabled homeowners exemption, and then some stuff in the finer print. There you go.
So folks, if you like massive taxation on you, go ahead and vote against this. But if you want less taxation on you, if you want to give less money to the government, you should vote for it and three of the four surveyed voted for this the other didn’t weigh in. Okay, let’s go to proposition five relating to the Texas university fund, which provides funding to certain institutions of higher education so called higher education to achieve national prominence as major research universities and drive the state economy. This is seems like a giveaway to to so called Higher Education right.
Well, one thing is interesting about this one is it seeks to level the playing field between the two major state institutions of Texas a&m and University of Texas System, which are supported by the permanent University Be fun and essentially creating another dedicated account to help out a large amount of the others, whether it’s tech, whether it’s Texas State, you know, so on and so forth. So this basically is creating a parallel venue for that. Now, of course, you know, you bring up a good point about the about the handouts and give us it’d be very important to make sure that this money is being spent wisely. This, however, just creates a dedicated mechanism for doing.
There you go, it’s a what some would call, as my estimation, a slush fund. That’s why everybody surveyed by Texas scorecard is against this proposition against Prop five, that’s no, Derek Cohen is our guest Vice President of Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Greg guys over there we we tapped them quite often to see about things that are going on here in Texas, that we want to drill down on and the propositions are one of them. And as you can tell folks, these these propositions this time around, it’s not like a not like a primary election, where you’re just weighing in on the sense of the people, this stuff has real impact on our lives. Proposition six, creating the Texas Water fund to assist in financing water projects in the state. I mean, seeing the population growth in this state, Derek, I could really see why more water projects would benefit this state. What do you say? What do you think?
Yeah, and so this one’s an interesting one as well, because again, we already have the water development fund, but that is inadequate to the scope of what needs to be done to, just like you said, to meet the needs of a growing population. And while this would give some flexibility to that, you know, there’s also other alternatives out there, in addition to proposition six, and this is not a value judgment, Proposition six. But when it comes to land use regulation, there’s other things that we can do to bring down the overhead as well, this would just be another tool in that toolbox.
Right. And you know, what, folks, the way it’s written, didn’t meet with the approval of everybody surveyed by Texas scorecard, only one had a neutral vote on it. The rest of them are against this again, it it may have been well intentioned, but the wording, this is what I’m what I’m gleaning the wording, may lead it, leave it open to corruption. So there are other ways as, as Derek said, to get these water projects that everybody concedes are needed. Proposition seven providing for the creation of the Texas energy fund to support the construction maintenance modernization and operation of electric generating facilities. What’s What’s your read on this, Derek?
Now essentially, like so both six, seven and eight are largely similar in the fact that it creates a dedicated funding back into this specific area, whether it’s water in sick, you know, energy in this one, our broadband in aid, this one seeks to get out in front of some of the issues that we had with the grid in 2021. Of course, that is the problem with that, isn’t that a problem. But one consideration with this is obviously the time it would take to actually use the money to allocate those funds in order to build that generation capacity. And so that’s something that I would just want to flag is, again, not weighing in at what pro or con on this is that, you know, a vote for this as immediately as it goes into effect, just create a dedicated account, it doesn’t necessarily deliver that capacity right away.
Yeah. And that’s why, but by the way, on sixth, seventh, and eighth, nobody is for any of those propositions six, seven and eight, nobody that was surveyed by Texas scorecard is for that because for them, it because again, it’s a slush fund mentality, and there doesn’t seem to be sufficient guidance on how funds will be raised, how quickly they’ll be raised. And, and to prevent any corruption and cronyism, there just doesn’t seem to be any of that. So that’s my summary of those types of bills. They’re not really wise for the people to vote for. Let’s go to proposition nine authorizing the ADA the legislature to provide a cost of living adjustment to certain annuitants, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, what is prop nine about.
That very simply Chris’s as a cost of living adjustment for those teachers. You know, there’s there’s debate on both sides. One thing Well, obviously, cost of living has gone up, you know, obviously, we can have certain elements in politicians to blame for that. But also that, you know, these since they were exempted from Social Security, that this is a necessary stopgap. I would also point out that this is fundamentally separate and wholly distinct from any discussion about increasing teacher pay raises our stuff we’re currently active.
Understood, and all of those surveyed by Texas scorecard nobody supported it, they were three of them are neutral one chose not to weigh in at all. Prop 10 authorizing the legislature to exempt from ad valorem taxation equipment or inventory held by a manufacturer of medical or biomedical products to protect the Texas Health Care Network and strengthen our medical Well supply chain. This this screams to me Derrick slush fund again, what do you see?
I wouldn’t call it a slush fund more a targeted exemption. And then we can talk that dasyam about the wisdom of, you know, do we want to make a carve out or an exemption for X, Y, or Z, and actually have a robust discussion on that this font is personal and desktop highlights the medical and biomedical properties. So what it essentially tried to do is lower that cost of medical overhead. Now, you know, at cbcf, we have many solutions for lowering the cost of health care. This is not necessarily in that portfolio, seeking to address the same thing, you know, just cut into that overhead.
Very diplomatic not necessarily in our portfolio, a portfolio. By the way, all those surveyed by Texas scorecard against Prop 10, prop 11, authorizing the legislature to permit conservation and reclamation districts in El Paso County to issue bonds supported by ad valorem taxes to fund the development and maintenance of parks and recreational facilities, prop 11.
Yet prop 11 is an interesting one insofar as only applies to these special district Special Purpose districts and only applies to them within El Paso County. Now, whether or not this needs a constitutional amendment I it is my opinion that it’s belt and suspenders at this point. As you know, the ability to issue debt is pretty well established for local entities and special purpose districts. In fact, that one would argue that’s their, you know, very reason for being. But that being said, as this has a very narrow focus on that particular thing. And so if you’re a resident listening, of El Paso, I would weigh in, I would really read into the fact that they knew these particular districts needs this debt authority that can’t be handled in other areas and then vote pursuant to your read and write. And if you’re not in El Paso, the rest of the state of Texas, maybe you ought to just skip this. And by the way, one neutral vote on this and to against from those surveyed by Texas scorecard. I’ve got two or three more propositions and I only got about a minute left. So we got to scream through these providing the abolition, this is proposition 12, providing the abolition of the Office of county treasurer in Galveston County. Why why do this?
This is one of the best bar stories I think that we have in the entire ballot because the individual who’s currently in the office ran on eliminating his office. That was that was his campaign promise. And yeah, long story short, Galveston County is another handful of other counties here and they actually have an elected an elected treasurer. Now that’s a function that largely it’s subsumed with within the counties, Commissioner courts, across the vast majority of counties here in the state. But that being said, is they had the constitutional creation of it and long story short, they’re seeking to get rid of it.
Understood. There’s one for one against and one neutral. So hey, you folks in Galveston, it’s just gonna be a toss up I have no, I don’t weigh in on this either. Less government is always good for me. Proposition 13 Increasing the mandatory age of retirement for state justices and judges.
Yeah, I mean, that’s simply right out the gate explains what it is this would raise that minimum age for stage Justin judges from 75 to 79, increase the minimum from 70 to 75. And so this just basically bumped up those particular thresholds by four and five years respectively. You know, I was about to say there’s wisdom that’d be talking about whether or not we should apply this to certain federal elected positions, presidency comes to mind. But that being said, is the judiciary here in the States obviously very broad, it is does have that hard cap or that hard ceiling on when a judge needs to retire? This would be bumping it up by them.
Yeah, nobody surveyed by the Texas scorecard supports this. All are a No on Proposition 13. One not choosing to weigh in proposition 14, the last one providing the creation of the centennial Parks Conservation Fund. There’s a word I don’t like fund to be used for the creation and improvement of state parks.
Yeah this one would essentially create a fund that would be allowed to use to purchase to purchase land and designate as as parkland. And that would basically bring that not as a municipal function or a local or county function, but up to the state level. Now we obviously already have like state parks in the state park system, this would be at least intermarried those for more, I would say kind of smaller parks, but throughout the state.
Well, one of the respondents nobody, nobody supports prop 14. This is another quote. This is another amendment that fits nicely into the Biden 30 by 30 Land Grab agenda, which is in a high endorsement in the state of Texas. I think it’s fair to say Derek Cohen. He’s the Vice President of Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Do Erricka folks want to check out what you guys do, where can they go?
They can just go over to www and practice policy.com And that’s where we have everything from our research, our media, our anything that we predict.
Buddy, thank you very much appreciate the time here, the Salcedo storm podcast. Anytime, Chris, that’s gonna do it for this edition of The Salcedo store podcasts. My friends do me a favor and visit a couple of websites Texas scorecard.com. That’s where you go for all the big news in Texas. And if it’s happening in Texas, it’s not only big for our state, it’s going to impact all the 50 states because yes, Texas is that big. Also check out. Chris Salcedo shows on AM 700k SCV the voice of Texas that’s a simulcast on Newsmax to that simulcast on getter and rumble, and you can also check our show out on Newsmax one in the afternoon four o’clock Eastern until fun till we visit again my friends remember a society’s worth is not measured by how much power is stolen by government. It’s measured by how much power is reserved for you and me. We the People, stay safe out there, my friends.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
