Texas Water Shortage

Austin is currently under Stage 2 water restrictions. This means residents of Austin cannot wash their cars at home, cannot have charity car washes, restaurants cannot serve water to a table unless it is requested by the customer, and lawns can only be watered on certain days of the week.

Cities and towns around the state of Texas have similar watering restrictions to Austin. Texas is running out of water. Coupled with the growing population and recent droughts, if actions are not taken now, there will be serious problems for the people of Texas in the future.  Texas Tribune wrote that recent reports found that Texas would be short 1-2 trillion gallons of water by 2060 if we did not change our watering ways. While these reports make a lot of assumptions, like that there will be agriculture expansion, and some of these assumptions may not play out, currently the aquifers are dropping quickly. Some of the biggest drops in the past sixty years have been recorded for the Ogallala aquifer.

Texas needs to start building more infrastructure to conserve water. The one problem: Cities are losing money because of water conservation. The Texas Tribune reported that Fort Worth lost an estimated 11 million in water sales because of water conservation. This is a big conflict of interest. While Texas must start to conserve water and build water conservation infrastructure for the future generations living in Texas, it is not the optimal thing to do now. Cities could instead make money letting their citizens use all the water they want, which would hurt people in the future, or they can do things like raise the rates of water, which will hurt people now.

If we do not face the future Texas water shortage now, we will be in trouble in the future. We must make sure Texas has the things it needs to still be prosperous in the future. This includes taking actions to make sure everyone conserves water and building infrastructure, like water treatment plants, to help save water. 

We Must Wait

As Bluebonnets, Roadkill, and Texas Politics stated in their blog, Keep Taxes Low by Keeping Texas High, Colorado has had a significant increase in their revenue since the legalization of pot. Texas could likely have a increase in state revenue if it legalized marijuana as well, but there are still too many flaws in the system to do so.

First, there is still a large black market for marijuana in Colorado. Ben Buckland, who CNBC talks about in their article about the black market of weed in Colorado, is a contributor to this market. The black market allows people to get marijuana for less money, than someone would buy at a licensed store, and they do not have to worry about being 21. Because there is still a black market, police still have to be on the lookout for the illegal buying and selling of marijuana. To add, if someone is in possession of marijuana and they are not 21, they can still be in legal trouble. People are still going to jail because of marijuana in Colorado. It did not relieve the police of crime in that aspect.  

Individuals can also get into legal trouble, specifically they can receive a DUI, for driving under the influence of marijuana. There is currently no test, like someone would compare to a breathalyzer, to see if a driver is under the influence of marijuana. Instead, law enforcement officers must be trained to know when someone is likely under the influence. It is crucial for scientific tests to be preformed to see at what point people should be considered intoxicated and to find a test that will show if someone is currently under the influence of marijuana.

Three deaths have been linked to marijuana infused foods that are making people too high, and in some cases hallucinate. There has often been over consumption of edibles that have marijuana in them. To add, parents are not keeping the edibles away from their children and children have been eating them thinking they are normal lollipops or brownies.

While legalizing marijuana in Texas could bring the state more revenue, it is not safe enough to legalize yet. It is critical to allow Colorado and Washington to work out the quirks before other states think about legalizing it and putting more people at risk. 

Personal Income Tax in Texas

When it comes to implementing a personal income tax in Texas, many have differing opinions. Some say it is beneficial because it brings jobs to the state, while others believe it is hurting the poor.

Opponents to bringing a state personal income tax say that not having an income tax brings innovation and job growth. They often compare Texas to the rest of the country during the recent recession as back up to their argument. They also say having no income tax helps keep young, educated individuals in the state to work.

People who want Texas to implement a state tax say not having a personal income tax hurts the poor. Studies have shown the poor is taxed a greater amount, as percentage of their income, when a state has no personal income tax. No personal income tax has been a factor leading cities and school districts to be underfunded, which requires them to go into debt. They have to pay for more things because the state does not have the funds to pay. This requires Texans to be taxed at a higher rate on other things, like their property.

I think Texas should keep their no personal income tax policy. While there are some problems within Texas regarding their personal income tax policy, at a mere glance, the Texas tax policy looks promising. The reason Texas does not have the money to build things like new roads or fund education is not only because they do not collect personal income tax. For example, Texas has not raised their tax on gasoline, of which a portion of it goes to transportation and education, since 1991.  Texas could implement a personal income tax and have less taxes other places, including property tax, but it would likely not look as appealing to people thinking about living in Texas. This would mean Texas could lose much of its innovation and growth we prided ourselves on.  While correlation may not mean causation, many states think because Texas has no personal income tax, it did very well during The Great Recession of 2008. Texas has come out of the recession on top. Personal income tax may not have been the deciding factor of that, but implementing a personal income tax will NOT help Texas stay on top. 

Texas Toll Roads

On September 5, 2014, Burnt Orange Report posted an article written by Joe Deshotel about a possible Texas toll road default. In his article, Joe tries to grab the attention of Texans, specifically tax paying Texans, by saying things like the toll roads were a “bad idea for tax payers.”

Deshotel carefully outlines his arguments, using various secondary sources including articles from Texas Tribune, Houston Chronical, Rolling Stone, and Texans for Toll-free Highways, to undermine the Texas Tollways and Rick Perry. Deshotel argued that Perry has done a disservice to Texas by allowing Cintra, a Spain toll operator, to get too far into debt when building “the NAFTA superhighway”. Deshotel then made Perry seem anti-American by discussing all the foreign companies Perry used while governor of Texas.

Deshotel, however, never talks about the growing population of Texas and how these roads could be key for transporting people as our population grows, or how multiple other states have used foreign companies, including Cintra, to build their toll roads. 

At the end of his article, Deshotel argues that Perry is not pro-America like he claims to be because he had foreign companies assist Texas government operations. When Perry was making the decisions as Texas governor, not The United States President. As many know, Texas government is pro-Texas business, innovation, et cetera. Perry did what he thought was best of the TEXAS government because that’s what he was in charge of doing. If he were the president of our country, he would likely do what is in the best interest of the whole country.

Because Deshotel failed to share the other side of all his arguments and give counterarguments to the other side, he fails to give solid information to his readers. 

Minimum Wage Argument

On June 29, 2015, Big JollyPolitics posted an argument written by Jonathan Hansen, a Houston City Council candidate, on why Houston should not raise their minimum wage.  The article is intended for the people that live within the city limits of Houston, specifically the young people. Although, this article is beneficial for all Texans and Americans. Jonathan Hansen has a BBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and has proven he has done extensive research in his article, which makes him a credible source.

Hansen argues that Houston should not raise their minimum wage because of multiple factors. Hansen first points out that minimum wage, which he calls “training wage”, jobs can allow individuals to gain experience and knowledge required to have higher paying jobs. These jobs with “training wages” can help young individuals decide what career path they want take and can help motivate young people to go to school. Hansen expressed that employers may not be able to take on as many employees if the minimum wage was raised because labor costs tend to be 30% of revenue. In order to keep the labor to revenue ratio, businesses would have to raise their product prices. Then, Hansen provides research that shows only about a .5% of the nation’s population are people that earn minimum wage or less and live in impoverished households. That means there are 4,918 Houstonians earning minimum wage and are living in impoverishe

d households.

Hansen then began to show possible implications of raising the minimum wage in the Houston city limits. This included the possibility of some business relocating outside the city limits, raising their prices, laying off people (which contributes to more impoverished people in Houston) and increasing the workload of other employees.

Personally, I agree with everything Hansen has to say regarding minimum wage. While in theory it may sound good, in practice there are many implications it will bring and Hansen was smart to show real world examples of problems when raising the minimum wage. 

Tesla in Texas

On July 14, The Texas Tribune confirmed Governor Greg Abbott has no plans to create a policy loophole for Tesla in Texas. Currently Tesla cannot directly sell their vehicles to consumers in Texas. Texan Tesla consumers can however buy the cars online. Abbott’s does not want to give Tesla a loophole because they do not have a dealership to repair cars. Tesla’s current business model simplifies car buying by selling cars directly from the vehicle manufacture, not a third party dealership. Traditional dealerships have lobbied strongly against this because it disrupts their business model.

Because Abbott does not want to allow Tesla to sell cars in Texas, he is disrupting the free market.  This goes against core Texan values. Abbott is even quoted saying the automobile sector is “very open”. If the sector were actually “open”, Texas would allow Tesla to sell their cars. Regarding Abbott’s statement about Tesla not having a dealership to repair cars, Tesla already has three service centers in Texas to repair cars. Governor Greg Abbott’s decision is disrupting the free market and is hurting innovation, which would also help consumers, in Texas.