In the days since the legislative session ended, House Speaker Joe Straus and his coalition government of Democrats and liberal Republicans has been bragging about passing the very tax cuts they had opposed.
Joe Straus… After obstructing tax relief, his coalition is now claiming credit for passage.
“We cut taxes,” Straus bragged in a statement issued by his press shop headlined House ends successful 2015 session, as though the property tax relief effort started under his watch.
That’s a far cry from how they started the session, calling property tax relief efforts “gimmickry.”
When the Texas Senate started off in January with a $4 billion tax relief package, one of the Straus coalition Republicans, State Rep. Lyle Larson of San Antonio, rushed to the media to dismiss it.
“The political gimmickry you’re gonna hear is, ‘let me give it back.’” That’s how Larson put it to Texas Public Radio.
Even after Gov. Greg Abbott called on lawmakers to implement $4.2 billion in tax relief, the coalition-led House did nothing until after the Senate passed a $4.6 billion relief package. And then they waited more than a week to put forward a plan (inexplicably cutting sales taxes instead of property taxes) that they then completely abandoned a couple weeks later.
Yet as the session ended, Straus and his House cronies were out in force claiming credit for the very tax relief efforts they dismissed for nearly half of the session, and obstructed almost until the bitter end.
Those Republican legislators who have supported the Democrat-led coalition are desperately hoping taxpayers will forget just how much energy and effort House leadership put into obstructing the very tax relief they now want credit for having adopted.
