Let someone else pay for it....

All states have programs they need to fund and services they need to provide. From Medicaid to Schools, from Hospitals to Roads, all need money. Where does this money come from? It comes from taxes and other sources of revenue in the state. All states in the United States use a combination of three sources to get a majority of their revenue; sales taxes, property taxes, and income tax. Some states, like California, use all three. Others, like Texas, just use two; sales tax and property tax.

So what's the difference? Why does it matter that Texas has one of the most regressive tax systems in the country? It matters due to the fact that because the tax system is regressive, poorer people actually shoulder more of the burden of the cost of services. Texas is actually one of the "terrible ten" -one of the states with the most regressive tax rates in the country. And it suffers from not having an additional taxation system besides sales taxes and property taxes; most of Texas's schools and hospitals are woefully underfunded. Texas is leading the nation in the amount of children without heath insurance; has more subprime morgage loans that anyone else in the country; and is second in the nation for the gap between the rich and the poor. It has some of the lowest scores in people below the poverty level, who have food insecurity, and malnourishe ment, and has some of the lowest in heath care professionals per capita. Texas should be a better state than this-and it can. With a progressive income tax, it could adequately fund it's programs; it could get it's students out of the educational cellar by giving them the tools they need to succeed.

But despite the deplorable state the state's programs are in, the legislature passed an amendment to the constitution that severly limited the capacity in which texas could pass a state income tax, and also use it; to use it, they'd have to reduce property taxes (which California did, and now is causing their budget all kinds of problems).

Texans deserve a government that works for them; that can actually fund their schools, hospitals, and take care of their disabled. Texas is supposed to be the best state in the United States; its time that it started taking the measures to live up to that name. That is why Texas needs a progressive income tax in addition to the taxes already in place. To ensure that every resident of Texas, both young and old, get the education and care they deserve.