DALLAS — While state lawmakers are eager to tackle a number of issues during the upcoming legislative session, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says one priority stands above the rest: lowering property taxes.
The Republican leader wants to raise the homestead exemption for Texas homeowners, which reduces the taxable income value of a Texan's primary residence, from $40,000 to $60,000 -- and maybe even as high as $70,000.
“When I came in, it was $15,000,” Patrick remembered while discussing his proposal on the latest episode of Y'all-itics.
If you’re doing the savings math for yourself, you pay around $3,000 for every $100,000 value of your home. And Patrick says the average home in Texas is worth around $350,000.
"If you can get it to $70, $80, $90, $100,000 over the next couple of years, you’re talking about taking a third off the top," Patrick said. "So, that would be a $3,000 saving."
Patrick said he’ll also be focused on "parental freedom" during the upcoming session, proudly pointing out the fact he’s the only statewide elected official who passed school choice (although it didn’t make it out of the Texas House during the last session).
"Parents deserve to have the freedom to decide where their kids go to school," he told us.
As examples for those who might want to leave public schools, Patrick pointed to parents of children with disabilities seeking schools with better services, or a child attending a failing school or a student at a dangerous school.
Any school choice legislation would have to include public money those parents could use to help cover the cost of a private school. Critics argue this would rob public schools of much-needed funding, and would ultimately harm students who remain there. But Patrick argues that public schools have no money on their own; instead, he said, it's taxpayer dollars, and therefore parents themselves, that fund those schools. And since the overwhelming majority of our students in Texas attend public schools, he said those schools would continue to receive the lion’s share of the funding.
"In terms of what we fund, of the 6 million kids roughly [in Texas], 5.5 million go to public school," Patrick said. "It’s always going to be 90% or more going to public schools."
Patrick also told Y'all-itics that he supports a mandatory 10-year sentence if someone commits a crime with a gun. He calls this issue a "no brainer" and thinks he can get consensus on passing it.
One topic the Republican doesn’t think will be addressed during the upcoming session, though, is the state’s abortion law -- even after a couple of lawmakers, including Republican state Senator Robert Nichols, said they would support adding abortion exceptions for rape or incest.
On this latest episode of Y'all-itics, Patrick said it’s important to remember that, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overruled the protections offered under Roe v. Wade, Texas and many other states reverted back to laws they had on the books before Roe. And, here in Texas, he said it's Democrats who are to blame for the lack of rape or incest exceptions in state law.
"Our original law that’s on the books now was written by Democrats -- all Democrats" Patrick said. "We had few Republicans back then, few Republicans in the state. They did not put in an exception for rape or incest when they passed that law."
As Patrick pointed out, that original law dates back to the 1920s, and pre-Roe laws criminalizing abortion in Texas can be traced as far back as the 1850s.
The 88th Texas legislative session begins on January 10, 2023.