Since we’ve recently linked articles that suggest local talker Dan Patrick is behaving more and more like a politician, it’s only fair (and balanced) to link to Gardner Selby’s recent story about Patrick in the Austin American Statesman:
He said he sought to succeed retiring Sen. Jon Lindsay in frustration over the GOP-majority Legislature falling short of cutting school property taxes, retooling how schools are funded and addressing illegal immigration.
Patrick touts a mix of goals not always associated with Republicans: higher teacher pay. Removing school administrators. Enhancing access to health insurance for children of the working poor. Spending surplus revenue on lowering property taxes, and paying for the cuts in future years by whacking away at the state budget.
He says that lowering the state cap on annual property appraisal increases from 10 percent to 5 percent should be on the Legislature’s agenda (it’s not yet), adding: “A tax cut without a cap is basically meaningless, because it will all disappear in two years. And we’ll be sitting here in 2008 and be back to where we were today in terms of property taxes, and we’ll have all these new business taxes. And business taxes affect everybody.”
Of the two-thirds consensus requirement before measures win debate, Patrick said: “I want to see every major issue have good, old-fashioned honest debate.”
The appraisal cap is Patrick’s biggest issue, and his most likely winner.
