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General Appropriations Bill.
CSHB 1, as reported to the Senate floor, would appropriate more than $239 billion (excluding Hurricane Harvey relief funds) for the upcoming 2020-2021 biennium. This represents an increase of 10.4% in all funds over appropriations for the 2018-19 biennium.
The population of Texas continues to grow, as does inflation, so it makes sense that there will necessarily be an increase in total dollars appropriated relative to the previous biennium. In order to check the rate of growth and keep spending from becoming fiscally irresponsible and overly-burdensome for Texas taxpayers, the budget should be pegged to population growth plus inflation. For the upcoming biennium this would allow for an increase of approximately 8% in spending from all funds.
CSHB 1, as reported to the Senate floor, spends too much money without providing for significant meaningful property tax relief. We oppose this bill unless amended to provide substantive and lasting property tax relief and reduce spending to be in alignment with the population growth plus inflation metric.