“It Ends not with a Bang, but a Whimper,” was the headline about the just ended Texas special legislative session in a letter to members of NFIB/Texas.
Two headlines in the Austin American-Statesman read: “Gov. Abbott calls out Speaker Straus for failures of special session” and ” A fiery Dan Patrick lashes out at Speaker Straus.”
For many Texans these last few months have been the first time they’ve actually heard the name of the Speaker of the House in any important context.
Listeners of Pratt on Texas have known about the hostility to conservatism held by Speaker Straus since the day he was selected as standard bearer by the handful of Republican traitors who teamed with Democrats to put him in the Speaker’s office.
Since Ronald Reagan’s victory in the GOP primary of 1980, the term “moderate” in the Republican Party has meant, anti-Reagan and anti-conservative. Those adopting the label of moderate are openly stating their brand of Republican is that of the old big-government Rockefeller branch of their party.
Upon being selected as Texas Speaker of the House, Joe Straus told the media, and told me to my face, that he was a moderate.
Somehow though, many of our friends and neighbors we’ve elected to the Texas House since that time have done nothing but kiss the ring of this Rockefeller Republican while telling us that we should re-elect them to office because they are conservatives.
How is a person conservative if he votes to hand massive power to an enemy of not only conservatism but of republicanism? How does even a little-“r” republican, whether conservative or not, vote for a leader who will not even let important bills have a record vote on the House floor?
Are our representatives such cowards, such babies, so afraid of not being part of the big-man-on-campus clique in Austin, that they are willing to turn their backs on their friends, donors, and supporters at home?
Apparently many of them are and their abject failure to pass meaningful pro-taxpayer reforms in a called legislative session is a strong argument against their re-election.
I believe the House has several super conservatives wanting to do right, but overall, I am concerned that refusal for property tax reform is not fiscally conservative, and that’s how moderates have defined themselves for as long as I have been a grassroots Rpublican. Something doesn’t add up. Our property taxes are just too high.