Legislator frustrations shared by true limited-government Republicans

Pratt on TexasWith a few exceptions, the best discussions I have had at our Capitol this week have been with legislators I know from other parts of the state who saw me and then spent a few moments asking for my thoughts on the session, and more importantly telling me their frustrations.

Because there was no recording and these discussions were not on-the-record, enough was shared with me for me to say there is definitely a pattern of frustration among true, limited government Republicans.

…key legislators are handing out our money… at such levels that, if passed as the House has proposed, will put the state in serious financial emergency when the economy slows.

The most obvious frustration is that because we have a flush revenue stream, key legislators are handing out our money to buy political peace and favor at such levels that, if passed as the House has proposed, will put the state in serious financial emergency when the economy slows. Filling holes and spending more is fine to keep up with the state’s growth but the frustration is that much more than that is proposed to be distributed with little thought to what hell it will put us through in the next economic downturn.

The other general agreement is that the House is being run better by a wide margin than it was under Straus. But the downside of this is that all the comity is dampening the willingness of members to stand up strongly against overspending. They’re all concerned privately but don’t want to ruin the better atmosphere in the House with rancorous argument.

Our system is setup purposely to be adversarial and works best as such.

That last point is why I don’t like the idea of all-working-together and all the other platitudes people use to describe what they wrongly think to be good government. Our system is setup purposely to be adversarial and works best as such.

 

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