Honest property tax reform in Texas

Even though I'm a renter, not an owner, I support the Lege raising the homestead exemption. BUT?

There's two things they're missing, both of which I've mentioned in newspaper columns before. One is surprising it's not adopted, or more, "surprising." The other is not at all surprising.

The former is to index the homestead exemption level to inflation. In a sense, it is surprising this hasn't been adopted. But, in another sense, it's "surprising" because at both state and federal levels, both duopoly parties like to play politics with consumer-level fiscal issues like this. (Sixteen years ago, in this space, I called for Nancy Pelosi and Dem Congresscritters to make a COLA part of the minimum wage increase. Didn't happen and look where we are now.)

The second is a no way in hell here in Tex-ass. That is to eliminate the caps on property evaluation hikes.

Yeah, this was based on Prop 13 in California and it's just as bad, and even more, just as hypocritical here as there.

Yes, hypocritical in that it's anticapitalist. It also discourages movement, mainly intrastate but also interstate to some degree, in these states. That's because the uncapped value of the home hits the new buyer, who may not want to pay. And, it hits you the seller and previous owner when you want to go to a new place.