Texans are finally rid of a tax, thanks to action taken by the Texas Legislature in 2007. The Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund tax has now been eliminated, an action championed by Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. At a press conference in the Capitol today, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and TFR’s Michael Quinn Sullivan celebrated the end of the tax.
Here are Sullivan’s prepared comments:
When the TIF tax was created in 1995, Texans were promised the tax would go away once its job was done. Under the leadership of Gov. Perry, Gov. Dewhurst and Speaker Craddick, lawmakers fulfilled that promise to Texans by eliminating a tax whose purpose had been fulfilled. This represents the kind of honest fiscal stewardship we expect of our elected officials in Texas.
There are severe economic challenges facing our nation, and as we look at the experience of the other states in these trying times, it is ever more critical that Texas lawmakers work to keep spending under control and taxes low.
We’re often told that Texas needs to levy more taxes, to give government more avenues into taxpayers pockets. But we see in California – which takes every highway, byway, backstreet and alley into their people’s wallets – that that economic program leads only to fiscal bankruptcy for the people and the government alike.
To any one of us, the TIF tax wasn’t a huge amount of money – a few cents a month. But every penny counts to families struggling to make ends meet.
We Texans are fortunate to have the leadership of Mr. Dewhurst, Mr. Perry and Mr. Craddick, who promote the public trust by being about the business of keeping the word of the Legislature to the people of Texas.
