Sounds like she knows she isn't going to win and is trying to throw everything out there in the hopes of helping the down ballot dem senate candidate over the finish line
With the announcement of more strikes in Iran a few hours ago, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump tries to bribe voters before the midterms arrive at the same time our gas reserves run out.
Gas reserves don’t really run out. Prices just become higher as developed nations outbid cargoes for everyone else.
You will see higher prices at the pump. You won’t see shortages like what Russia is seeing, that happens when a large amount of refining capacity is knocked out.
Yeah that’s a fair point. I just see way too many people taking the current SPR withdrawal rate, plotting a straight line, and saying we completely run out of oil by x date.
I think I was arguing with someone who told me that the Cushing hub was going to become a net importer of oil…
They always have been. To juice her numbers, our brain dead Governor in NY is wasting $3 billion to give people up to $300 and it just so happens to be an election year. What a coincidence.
It's also the same year NYS passed a budget over 5% higher than last year's, had to bail out NYC with $4 billion, and was repeatedly warned by the comptroller that Trump was going to cut funding and we would have budget issues.
The problem is that the rainy day fund is constitutionally capped at 28.5 billion dollars and it's about to reach that amount. There have been identified needs for its use but Abbott refuses to spend it to help under insured residents, fund public education, mitigate weather and climate issues, etc.
Anything in excess of the cap goes into the general budget were it can absolutely be spend on things, but law makers decide what it is spent on not Abbot.
How does it fundamentally differ from the candidate for public office who's promising to get more tax dollars earmarked to/for their district or state?
Less certain it will be accomplished since they are effectively competing with 49 other states for the same funds
Less clear who the money is directly going to.
I think it can be the same under certain circumstances- for example "vote for me and I'll give a subsidy to farmers by 'x' amount." I think something like that would be similar to it.
Because doing this would almost certainly have to clear the state legislature (article link just hangs for me btw). And the last time I checked something like this has approximately the same chances a snowball has of surviving in Hell, given the TX Leg is overwhelmingly Republican.
They could try to bypass the TX leg in using money from a general fund. But in practice, it'll never happen because Texas Republicans would tie it up in the courts the entire term of the governor. Shit, it wouldn't even survive judicial review at the highest level in Texas given how conservative that court is. I'd wager dollars to pennies it gets shot down by the Texas appellate courts. Or held up as violating the states constitution, depending on how the lower court rules when Republicans inevitably challenge something like this.
But as a point of matter I don't disagree with you entirely. Money and pie in the sky political rhetoric (aka lying) is ruining things. It's no longer one person one vote, with the way campaign and campaign finance laws have evolved over the years.
No they didn’t. They weee bragging about how much money they saved through cuts and gained through tariffs and a non governmental non employee said they discussed $5000 checks and people somehow believed they were getting a check
That's not the same thing, Doge was promising a tax refund based on all the money it was supposed to save the government, that's different than literally buying votes.
Vote buying is “Vote for me and I’ll give you $1,500.” It’s a payment in exchange for your vote.
A candidate saying, “If I’m elected, I’ll pass a $1,500 rebate,” is just a policy proposal. If it becomes law, everyone who qualifies gets it, whether they voted for that candidate, voted against them, or didn’t vote at all.
If that counted as vote buying, then every campaign promise about tax cuts, Social Security, student loan relief, or child tax credits would be illegal. That’s just how democratic elections work. Candidates campaign on policies they think voters will like.
I’m with you man, fuck all these politicians promising to send out checks regardless of their party. They’re fucking us over but think throwing us a few bucks will keep us content (sadly, it works on most people)
Taxes aren't the problem. Regular costs are. And as long as we keep denying the role real estate costs play in driving up inflation and fucking up prices for everyone across the nation because we are all paying for each other's rent and mortgages when we buy goods and services and if those rents and mortgages keep going up then the prices of goods and services are gonna go up too because nobody wants to work for less than it costs to live so they charge more for their labor, and the products they make have to be sold for more to make up for the increased overhead, and then people buying those products are spending more on them than they used to so their budgets are affected and they aren't able to spend on as many different things because more and more of it gets eaten up by fewer and fewer expense items as they continue to rise in price. It stalls the economy and allows the already wealthy to have an even bigger advantage because they're able to use their existing wealth to secure loans for new property which they intend to never sell but only rent for as much as they possibly can. Then they swallow up more and more property and continue to charge more for it and everyone else gets squeezed until they're forced to sell whatever property they owned just to get some financial breathing room and then they're forced to switch to renting which means they never build equity and just funnel more wealth into the hands of the already extremely wealthy.
Taxes, if anything, are too low in this country. If we want a first world country we need to fucking pay for it, it isn't free and it never was. We had it because we paid for it, we stopped paying enough for it and people are acting like somehow if we pay even less for it we'll somehow get it back. The taxes need to be used better too. No more fucking vouchers, and maybe tell the "defense" industry to start making some shit that will "defend" us from the effects of climate change which will save us trillions in the long run instead of making bullshit weapons that became obsolete once modern drone warfare became a reality.
You are operating on an unproven premise that government is bloated, when the opposite is true. But let me guess you want to cut services that benefit the poor and cut taxes for the rich. That has always worked in the past and has never backfired (see Kansas).
The government exists to deliver services to the citizens of the organizational unit that gave consent to be governed. If you are cutting services, why have a government at all?
If the bill for your necessities exceeds your income, the solution is to increase your income, it is not to call the city to have your water shut off. The cost of having a functioning society exceeds the tax income.
If the rich want to continue living in a society where they are wealthy, they need to pay up. If society breaks down people are not going to care about laws, and they will just take whatever non-money resources the super rich have hoarded.
No joke. Texas is a bit over 50% larger than NY but their budget is only 25% higher than ours.
Our legislators and governor (who, in my opinion, is the worst governor we've had in recent history) spend like drunken sailors and they just want to "tax the wealthy" to pay for it.
Don't pay attention to the fact that we're one of the top outbound states, the top 2% of income earners pay over 50% of the taxes, and the top tax rate is 10.9% plus up to another about 3.9% if you're in NYC. So the wealthy are already paying a disproportionate share and they are leaving or never coming here to begin with.
It's weird, im born and raised in texas, I was only a couple years old when we switched from a blue state to red, supposedly every 30 years the state flips and that would be this year, but I dont think she has the motion to win anything. I think most of us texans are sick of how things have been here, especially since 2015, but we'll see, she could campaign on anything else other than this though.
I mean probably, Im just talking about Texas here, we used to be very blue and for a long time too, great things and odd things came out of it, we were a Mormon state during the last blue admin and people couldn’t buy cars or appliances on weekends until a few years after we became red
Literally wants to use their reserves to give a one time payment.
Better idea, since the article says the fund she wants to use to do this primarily comes from oil and gas production, keep the rainy day fund in tact, use future surpluses to fund sustainable programs.
People are acting like “giving money back” is some radical idea, but Texas has repeatedly used budget surpluses for taxpayer relief; mostly property tax cuts. This proposal just changes the delivery method from lowering future tax bills to sending a one-time rebate.
~~That said most of these comments don't come a place of economics and have no nuance to economic method.~~ <meh I digress>
Inflation bad? Make it worse with this one cool trick.
The lack of self-awareness that poorly targeted stimulus was the largest cause of inflation and suggesting more poorly targeted "stimulus" (its not, consumer spending is solid) to combat it is utterly insane.
I would rather increase the cap and save more before doing this or spending it on normal budgetary line item. I can see one time capital expenses being OK to use the money that is guaranteed not to exist as oil resources run dry.
Shouldn't she be trying to fix the infamous Texan electricity grid. Which goes down whenever it's too cold or too hot? It should seem like a more effective use of the funds instead of charging people $9,999 per KW/H.
This is not the kind of thing that should be done except in extreme economic circumstances like the Great Recession or COVID. The money would be better spent on targeted relief, but I guess that is difficult given the makeup of the legislature.
I would argue that the Covid payments to people who were working was stupid. Giving to social security recipients doubly stupid. Giving money to major corporations that should have had pandemic insurance equally stupid. That money should have gone to Main Street businesses who actually had to shutdown. Corporate America should have had to take loans.
Omg, what kind of politician promises something like that?! I mean, trump never sunk that low, right? He only promised DOGE payouts and tariff bonuses and trump bonds, those were all real, not like hers
The 51% vote to take from the 49% isn’t just a theory anymore. Vote for me and I will “work” for you. No, no, no, not YOU, I already have your vote locked, the other YOU who I want to lure to my side with other people’s money.
Politicians should start investing in things that brings actual benefits like infrastructures and not some useless lazy keynesianism. What is the point of this? What benefit does this bring?
Voters aren’t smart enough to realize that infrastructure brings more long term benefits than being handed a check. The American voter is focused entirely on “what’s in it for me right this very minute?”
Ha she thinks she's trump eh? I do hope she wins, in which case she won't have to do anything she said she would. But in some strange Texas dream in which a normal human being wins high office- it would cost less than greg a's "initiatives" and actually positively touch citizens and the local economies.
morbie5 | 19 hours ago
Sounds like she knows she isn't going to win and is trying to throw everything out there in the hopes of helping the down ballot dem senate candidate over the finish line
Carbon-Base | 18 hours ago
Hail Mary stimulus checks are back on the menu, I guess.
Amphabian | 18 hours ago
With the announcement of more strikes in Iran a few hours ago, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump tries to bribe voters before the midterms arrive at the same time our gas reserves run out.
Special_Ad712 | 18 hours ago
R/oil conspiracy is leaking again.
Gas reserves don’t really run out. Prices just become higher as developed nations outbid cargoes for everyone else.
You will see higher prices at the pump. You won’t see shortages like what Russia is seeing, that happens when a large amount of refining capacity is knocked out.
morbie5 | 17 hours ago
> Gas reserves don’t really run out
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve can run out tho. That won't necessarily lead to shortages tho
Special_Ad712 | 16 hours ago
Yeah that’s a fair point. I just see way too many people taking the current SPR withdrawal rate, plotting a straight line, and saying we completely run out of oil by x date.
I think I was arguing with someone who told me that the Cushing hub was going to become a net importer of oil…
SardScroll | 2 hours ago
Especially since the US is a net oil exporter.
ConLawHero | 12 hours ago
They always have been. To juice her numbers, our brain dead Governor in NY is wasting $3 billion to give people up to $300 and it just so happens to be an election year. What a coincidence.
It's also the same year NYS passed a budget over 5% higher than last year's, had to bail out NYC with $4 billion, and was repeatedly warned by the comptroller that Trump was going to cut funding and we would have budget issues.
CockBlockingLawyer | 18 hours ago
Was gonna say, this is straight from 47’s playbook
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 19 hours ago
This sort of shit is vote buying and should be illegal.
That's all. Thats the post. Also, inflation exists. Also, having a raining day fund is a smart thing for a state government to do.
justherefor23andme | 18 hours ago
The problem is that the rainy day fund is constitutionally capped at 28.5 billion dollars and it's about to reach that amount. There have been identified needs for its use but Abbott refuses to spend it to help under insured residents, fund public education, mitigate weather and climate issues, etc.
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
Anything in excess of the cap goes into the general budget were it can absolutely be spend on things, but law makers decide what it is spent on not Abbot.
wackOverflow | 18 hours ago
This things are important enough that they should be funded by an established budget, and not by leftover money from something else.
jcole4lsu | 18 hours ago
The rainy day fund should not be used for any of those things. It's to prevent budget shortfalls.
Excess could be used for any of those things, but not the fund itself.
kerouacrimbaud | 17 hours ago
They should just remove the cap. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?
Firm_Video_2932 | 18 hours ago
How does it fundamentally differ from the candidate for public office who's promising to get more tax dollars earmarked to/for their district or state?
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
Less certain it will be accomplished since they are effectively competing with 49 other states for the same funds
Less clear who the money is directly going to.
I think it can be the same under certain circumstances- for example "vote for me and I'll give a subsidy to farmers by 'x' amount." I think something like that would be similar to it.
Firm_Video_2932 | 18 hours ago
Difference without distinction.
Because doing this would almost certainly have to clear the state legislature (article link just hangs for me btw). And the last time I checked something like this has approximately the same chances a snowball has of surviving in Hell, given the TX Leg is overwhelmingly Republican.
They could try to bypass the TX leg in using money from a general fund. But in practice, it'll never happen because Texas Republicans would tie it up in the courts the entire term of the governor. Shit, it wouldn't even survive judicial review at the highest level in Texas given how conservative that court is. I'd wager dollars to pennies it gets shot down by the Texas appellate courts. Or held up as violating the states constitution, depending on how the lower court rules when Republicans inevitably challenge something like this.
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
More like a spectrum with a lot of grey area
Firm_Video_2932 | 18 hours ago
Maybe.
But as a point of matter I don't disagree with you entirely. Money and pie in the sky political rhetoric (aka lying) is ruining things. It's no longer one person one vote, with the way campaign and campaign finance laws have evolved over the years.
Passncatch | 19 hours ago
Doge promised 5000 dollars. And chances are higher that this candidate will follow through.
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 19 hours ago
Same principle should apply
ForMoreYears | 19 hours ago
Trump literally issued 1 time stimmy cheques with his name on them
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
The same principle should apply
DarthRevan109 | 18 hours ago
Doubt you were commenting on either though
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
You'd be wrong
suspicious_hyperlink | 13 hours ago
No they didn’t. They weee bragging about how much money they saved through cuts and gained through tariffs and a non governmental non employee said they discussed $5000 checks and people somehow believed they were getting a check
Steven_The_Shoe | 17 hours ago
That's not the same thing, Doge was promising a tax refund based on all the money it was supposed to save the government, that's different than literally buying votes.
ImpossibleEbb6862 | 16 hours ago
That’s not what vote buying is.
Vote buying is “Vote for me and I’ll give you $1,500.” It’s a payment in exchange for your vote.
A candidate saying, “If I’m elected, I’ll pass a $1,500 rebate,” is just a policy proposal. If it becomes law, everyone who qualifies gets it, whether they voted for that candidate, voted against them, or didn’t vote at all.
If that counted as vote buying, then every campaign promise about tax cuts, Social Security, student loan relief, or child tax credits would be illegal. That’s just how democratic elections work. Candidates campaign on policies they think voters will like.
slo1111 | 18 hours ago
That money comes from sales tax. It is a tax rebate
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
I'd buy that if it were tied to the actual amount of sales taxes each individual/household paid.
DocCharcolate | 18 hours ago
I’m with you man, fuck all these politicians promising to send out checks regardless of their party. They’re fucking us over but think throwing us a few bucks will keep us content (sadly, it works on most people)
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
Caesar increasing the grain dole.
BeardPatrol | 2 hours ago
To be fair, inflation kinda punishes people with rainy day funds.
Spend it all and live paycheck to paycheck, murica.
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 10 minutes ago
yes, now the states is invested invested in some low risk options that probably keep up with inflation
Background_Laugh5474 | 18 hours ago
So you approve of the Clinton administration.
Lknate | 18 hours ago
That was Bush II
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
Huh? I mean I don't especially approve or disapprove. He didn't do this if that's what you're talking about.
Alone-Supermarket-98 | 18 hours ago
... she said. "It's unorthodox, especially for a Democrat to be proposing this?"
Really? This is literally the first page of every desperate politicians playbook, from Hochul in NY to Trump in DC.
Unorthodox would be to shrink the bloated government and cut taxes, but no politician ever imagined that.
DistinctlyIrish | 9 hours ago
Taxes aren't the problem. Regular costs are. And as long as we keep denying the role real estate costs play in driving up inflation and fucking up prices for everyone across the nation because we are all paying for each other's rent and mortgages when we buy goods and services and if those rents and mortgages keep going up then the prices of goods and services are gonna go up too because nobody wants to work for less than it costs to live so they charge more for their labor, and the products they make have to be sold for more to make up for the increased overhead, and then people buying those products are spending more on them than they used to so their budgets are affected and they aren't able to spend on as many different things because more and more of it gets eaten up by fewer and fewer expense items as they continue to rise in price. It stalls the economy and allows the already wealthy to have an even bigger advantage because they're able to use their existing wealth to secure loans for new property which they intend to never sell but only rent for as much as they possibly can. Then they swallow up more and more property and continue to charge more for it and everyone else gets squeezed until they're forced to sell whatever property they owned just to get some financial breathing room and then they're forced to switch to renting which means they never build equity and just funnel more wealth into the hands of the already extremely wealthy.
Taxes, if anything, are too low in this country. If we want a first world country we need to fucking pay for it, it isn't free and it never was. We had it because we paid for it, we stopped paying enough for it and people are acting like somehow if we pay even less for it we'll somehow get it back. The taxes need to be used better too. No more fucking vouchers, and maybe tell the "defense" industry to start making some shit that will "defend" us from the effects of climate change which will save us trillions in the long run instead of making bullshit weapons that became obsolete once modern drone warfare became a reality.
bloodrider1914 | 15 hours ago
Tons of Republicans promise that all the time. They definitely cut some taxes, but of course no real government shrinkage ever occurs.
Although TBF here in Texas our state government is fairly bare bones as it is, there's not much to shrink
slo1111 | 2 hours ago
All this money in surplus comes from taxes. Why should it not be given back to the people of TX?
zeroman987 | 3 hours ago
You are operating on an unproven premise that government is bloated, when the opposite is true. But let me guess you want to cut services that benefit the poor and cut taxes for the rich. That has always worked in the past and has never backfired (see Kansas).
The government exists to deliver services to the citizens of the organizational unit that gave consent to be governed. If you are cutting services, why have a government at all?
If the bill for your necessities exceeds your income, the solution is to increase your income, it is not to call the city to have your water shut off. The cost of having a functioning society exceeds the tax income.
If the rich want to continue living in a society where they are wealthy, they need to pay up. If society breaks down people are not going to care about laws, and they will just take whatever non-money resources the super rich have hoarded.
ConLawHero | 12 hours ago
No joke. Texas is a bit over 50% larger than NY but their budget is only 25% higher than ours.
Our legislators and governor (who, in my opinion, is the worst governor we've had in recent history) spend like drunken sailors and they just want to "tax the wealthy" to pay for it.
Don't pay attention to the fact that we're one of the top outbound states, the top 2% of income earners pay over 50% of the taxes, and the top tax rate is 10.9% plus up to another about 3.9% if you're in NYC. So the wealthy are already paying a disproportionate share and they are leaving or never coming here to begin with.
cartiermartyr | 17 hours ago
It's weird, im born and raised in texas, I was only a couple years old when we switched from a blue state to red, supposedly every 30 years the state flips and that would be this year, but I dont think she has the motion to win anything. I think most of us texans are sick of how things have been here, especially since 2015, but we'll see, she could campaign on anything else other than this though.
punarob | 16 hours ago
There was no Fox "News" of any significance back then which is why all the batshit/slave states have stayed permanently red.
cartiermartyr | 5 hours ago
I mean probably, Im just talking about Texas here, we used to be very blue and for a long time too, great things and odd things came out of it, we were a Mormon state during the last blue admin and people couldn’t buy cars or appliances on weekends until a few years after we became red
SidFinch99 | 18 hours ago
Literally wants to use their reserves to give a one time payment.
Better idea, since the article says the fund she wants to use to do this primarily comes from oil and gas production, keep the rainy day fund in tact, use future surpluses to fund sustainable programs.
justherefor23andme | 18 hours ago
It will be intact. It's got a minimum required balance of 12.4 billion and will reach its constitutional cap of 28.5 billion soon.
already-redacted | 15 hours ago
That's called a tax credit, no?
People are acting like “giving money back” is some radical idea, but Texas has repeatedly used budget surpluses for taxpayer relief; mostly property tax cuts. This proposal just changes the delivery method from lowering future tax bills to sending a one-time rebate.
~~That said most of these comments don't come a place of economics and have no nuance to economic method.~~ <meh I digress>
No-Computer7653 | 18 hours ago
Inflation bad? Make it worse with this one cool trick.
The lack of self-awareness that poorly targeted stimulus was the largest cause of inflation and suggesting more poorly targeted "stimulus" (its not, consumer spending is solid) to combat it is utterly insane.
Better_Goose_431 | 17 hours ago
How inflationary is it when Texas can’t actually print money?
No-Computer7653 | 17 hours ago
You think the federal stimulus is money printing?
BluCurry8 | 5 hours ago
Absolutely. This is just a tax credit. States cannot carry debt like the Federal government.
No-Computer7653 | 5 hours ago
You have no idea what money printing is.
If it's debt then, by definition, it's not printing.
BluCurry8 | 5 hours ago
You don’t belong in an economy sub.
No-Computer7653 | 4 hours ago
lol who is it who thinks a tax credit is printing again? If you are going to throw stones you have to not be insanely wrong.
Tell me all about how induced consumption is somehow more inflationary when a state does it vs the feds.
You don't even know what inflation is do you? /r/politics is more your speed, they can count to potato too.
BluCurry8 | 4 hours ago
🙄Here you are again fundamentally ignorant.
No-Computer7653 | 2 hours ago
Tell me all about how issuing public debt increases the supply of money. You deserve a nobel for breaking consensus so hard.
Silver-Literature-29 | 18 hours ago
I would rather increase the cap and save more before doing this or spending it on normal budgetary line item. I can see one time capital expenses being OK to use the money that is guaranteed not to exist as oil resources run dry.
BillWilberforce | 18 hours ago
Shouldn't she be trying to fix the infamous Texan electricity grid. Which goes down whenever it's too cold or too hot? It should seem like a more effective use of the funds instead of charging people $9,999 per KW/H.
ImDonaldDunn | 18 hours ago
This is not the kind of thing that should be done except in extreme economic circumstances like the Great Recession or COVID. The money would be better spent on targeted relief, but I guess that is difficult given the makeup of the legislature.
BluCurry8 | 5 hours ago
I would argue that the Covid payments to people who were working was stupid. Giving to social security recipients doubly stupid. Giving money to major corporations that should have had pandemic insurance equally stupid. That money should have gone to Main Street businesses who actually had to shutdown. Corporate America should have had to take loans.
Dull_Bird3340 | 14 hours ago
Omg, what kind of politician promises something like that?! I mean, trump never sunk that low, right? He only promised DOGE payouts and tariff bonuses and trump bonds, those were all real, not like hers
_ii_ | 18 hours ago
The 51% vote to take from the 49% isn’t just a theory anymore. Vote for me and I will “work” for you. No, no, no, not YOU, I already have your vote locked, the other YOU who I want to lure to my side with other people’s money.
qwertyman123457 | 12 hours ago
Politicians should start investing in things that brings actual benefits like infrastructures and not some useless lazy keynesianism. What is the point of this? What benefit does this bring?
thatturtletouch | 3 hours ago
Voters aren’t smart enough to realize that infrastructure brings more long term benefits than being handed a check. The American voter is focused entirely on “what’s in it for me right this very minute?”
DTCCCanSuckMyLeft | 18 hours ago
You got so many talking points and proof of the blatant corruption of your opponent's party, and you resort to fucking checks to try to gain votes?
I'm sorry. You are just completely stupid and you have missed the plot completely.
PlayItAgainSusan | 18 hours ago
Ha she thinks she's trump eh? I do hope she wins, in which case she won't have to do anything she said she would. But in some strange Texas dream in which a normal human being wins high office- it would cost less than greg a's "initiatives" and actually positively touch citizens and the local economies.
BluCurry8 | 5 hours ago
🙄. Did you bother to read the article? Many states did the same thing when they had surpluses. God forbid you give people back their own taxes.
PlayItAgainSusan | 5 hours ago
Ha. Yes. Did you bother to read my comment? This is Texas. You don't get anything back.