​Top Stat: U.S. private employment in July remains down 11.9 million compared with peak in February but is up 7.8 million since April.

​Texas is not immune to the problems that trouble pension systems across the country. In Texas, state and local governments employ about 16% of workers. Most of them have a defined-benefit pension plan that promises a regular payment to retirees based on guaranteed formulas and irrespective of investment returns. Underperforming investments and generational accounting issues are exhausting these plans leaving them with mounting, unsustainable liabilities. In fact the Texas Pension Review Board (PRB) noted in its 2019 report to the Legislature that “despite a nearly 10-year bull market following the 2008 market downturn, the unfunded liabilities of many public retirement systems both across the country and in Texas continue to rise.”

(The Center Square) – Several Texas counties have chosen to not raise county property taxes this year, keeping rates the same or lowering them in some cases. But 38 taxing entities have tried to increase property taxes over the state-mandated cap requiring taxpayer approval, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt said.

At a Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) panel discussion last week, the Houston-area senator who serves as the Senate Property Tax Committee Chair said 16 counties and 23 cities attempted to increase taxes over the limit set by the legislature.

Austin was among them. The Austin City Council recently voted to increase taxes above the limit enacted by the legislature last year, and voters will either approve or reject it this November. Several cities rejected increases in property taxes, including Dallas and Longview.


For the fifth year in a row, Collin County announced it was lowering its property tax rate in order to keep homeowners’ bills roughly unchanged from the previous year. In the past decade, the county has adopted no increased revenue rates nine times.

Previously referred to as the effective rate, the no-new-revenue rate collects the same total amount of property tax revenue as it did the previous year. However, what homeowners owe might go up depending on their property’s value increasing. A static or lower rate on a higher value still results in a higher tax bill for some.

In Denton County, the new tax rate is below the current tax rate and the no-new-revenue tax rate. Plano County’s budget is based on a “no-new-revenue” property tax rate.

Tarrant County also kept its property tax rate the same, which is slightly below the no-new-revenue rate. But because of rising home values, the average property tax bill will increase by roughly $9.

“The problem with Texas property taxes has always been as property values go up, tax rates never came down," Bettencourt said. "So values inched up and in some cases increased by 10 percent each year and were never offset by taxes going down.”

Bettencourt helped pave the way for property tax reform in the last legislative session. SB2 reduced cap on potential property tax increases for the first time in 30 years, from 8 percent to 3.5 percent. HB3 placed a hard cap of 2.5 percent for school districts. Both were combined in the property tax bill signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Any attempt to increase taxes over the caps requires approval by voters.


Dr. Vance Ginn, chief economist at TPPF, said that the rollback rate was established in 1979. In 1981, it was raised from 5 percent to 8 percent when inflation was running double digits. But over the past 25 years, inflation hasn’t been above 4 percent.

In 2019, it was time to adjust the rates, Ginn said, to protect homeowners from ongoing increased taxation. It couldn’t have been more timely, he said, since within less than a year more than 4 million Texans filed for unemployment during COVID-19 restrictions and state and local governments were seeing less revenue.

It’s problematic that local governments “need to expand their budgets in some capacity by more than 3.5 percent,” Ginn said, “when Texas families are often times seeing their incomes fall dramatically from having some sort of income down to zero, [… receiving unemployment], and some of these local taxing entities are saying, ‘You know what, we need to raise our taxes more. By the way, the way we are going to do that is spending more along the way.’”

In Harris County, property taxes increased by 29 percent from 2014 to 2018, whereas population growth and inflation increased by 11 percent, Ginn said. The comparison between taxes and population growth and inflation is often used as a metric to determine how much the burden of government should grow to stay within the means of taxpayers, he said.

According to a recent WalletHub study, Texas ranked 32nd highest among 50 states for its overall tax burden of 8.2 percent. Texas property owners paid 3.95 percent in property taxes and 4.25 percent in sales and excise taxes.


It took a decade to get tax relief on both sides, Bettencourt said, adding that, “The pressure to spend more taxpayer money is ingrained in government.”

​https://www.thecentersquare.com/texas/lawmaker-at-least-38-local-government-in-texas-have-attempted-to-raise-property-taxes-above/article_405dab90-e2e3-11ea-8ebf-73ae9654a1f2.html

​President Donald J. Trump recently signed four executive actions in response to a congressional stalemate on the next round of COVID-19 relief, drawing praise from a Texas economist.

Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) Chief Economist Vance Ginn provided brief overviews on the use of federal Disaster Relief Funds (DRF) to boost state unemployment insurance funds, the payroll tax issue and enhanced unemployment insurance.

“The goal of President Trump’s four executive actions on Aug. 8 is to provide financial assistance at a time when Congress hasn’t acted to help struggling families due to the disruptions caused by COVID-19,” Ginn wrote. “Currently there is uncertainty regarding these actions that could weigh on employer and employee decisions until further clarity is provided.

While these actions may increase uncertainty that hinders economic activity, they can help American families in the short run by providing additional aid until state and local governments, hopefully soon, safely fully reopen society.”

TPPF Chief Economist Vance Gin | Photo courtesy of the TPPF Ginn offers an informed perspective, having recently served more than a year as the associate director for economic policy for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). His role was to advise the OMB’s director on economic and fiscal policy matters, manage a team that sought evidence of good government and modeled the economic assumptions in Trump’s fiscal-year 2021 federal budget, which proposed a record of $4.6 trillion in cuts to the national debt over a decade.

Ginn said the Aug. 8 executive actions do not increase the deficit directly.

“The $44 billion for the federal enhanced unemployment insurance is paid from the funds available in FEMA’s disaster relief fund," he said. "And the deferral of payroll taxes is just a deferral so doesn’t add to the deficit unless Congress forgives those taxes through legislation later. Also, the Social Security Trust Fund won’t take a hit as money will be transferred from the General Fund to it until the payroll taxes are paid or forgiven, which is what happened after the 2010 tax bill under the Obama administration cut the payroll tax by 2 percentage points.

"Regardless, there is a need to get businesses operating and workers working again by reopening society so problems related to the lives and livelihoods of Americans along with our fiscal solvency aren’t put further at risk.”
Ginn said Trump's moves could put more money in taxpayers’ pockets as well as helping people find jobs as state and local governments loosen their lockdowns.

“This could happen by deferring the payroll taxes and employers not withholding it to possibly pay it later and then by the $300 per week in enhanced [unemployment insurance] not being so high that 68% of Americans who make less than the $600 per week previously provided,” he said. “Again, the key is to get businesses operating again and for workers to be connected to a job that will help to increase economic activity on the supply side that is critical for us to have a stable and strong recovery.”

Ginn said that more can — and must — be done to speed economic recovery.

“Families across America are struggling from being unemployed and being uncertain whether they can keep their business open or when they will get a job or be called back,” he said. “In order to help the American people, we need accurate and reliable COVID-19 data that includes timely demographic information to understand more about its contagion and effects so hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and vulnerable populations are assisted with necessary resources as governments reopen society for everyone else. Along with that, there is a need to rightfully provide funding to businesses that were stripped of their resources from governments during lockdowns.”

The TPPF supports a targeted, short program called the Workplace Recovery Act, which covers businesses‘ net operating losses so they can keep workers onboard and rehire others until this lockdown situation is over.

“Fortunately, Congress could reauthorize the available $1.3 trillion from its other already passed legislation for this program and scrap the rest of the measures under consideration that aren’t targeted or timely,” Ginn said. “In addition to state and local governments reopening society and Congress passing the Workplace Recovery Act, there is a need for governments to get their budgets under control by reducing wasteful spending so that this redistribution of incomes through the government sector doesn’t further slow economic activity. 

“Another thing is ending unnecessary regulations, particularly those that were suspended during the lockdowns,” he continued. “By following this approach, American families can have some calm from increased certainty about their future during a chaotic time, which is what the president seems to be trying to provide even as Congress does its best to make the situation worse.”

Ginn earned his doctorate in economics at Texas Tech University and has taught at Texas Tech and Sam Houston State. He joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation in 2013 and worked there until joining the Trump administration in 2019. He returned to the foundation in May.

Ginn said his goal at the TPPF is to preserve the state as a place where Texans can build their careers, raise their families and live their lives freely.

​https://lonestarstandard.com/stories/548530015-texas-economist-explains-benefits-of-trump-s-executive-orders-for-covid-19-unemployment-relief#.Xz2ZjJo4Ogs.twitter