Mess With Texas

State school finance systems can be horrifically complicated. My first job out of grad school was to be the guy holed up in a back office in the corner of the Indiana Statehouse at 3AM during the legislative session writing long computer programs designed to simulate every tiny nuance and detail of the state's byzantine system for distributing money to and getting taxes from local school districts. It was actually kind of a cool job in an uber-geeky policy wonk way; one thing you figure out is that when you're one of only five people in the entire world who understand how a complex system works, you have a disproportionate--even inappropriate--influence over how that system is shaped.

Big state-level fights over school funding systems can be similarly complex and difficult to unwind. On the surface, Texas seems like a perfect example; the state has been mired in a protracted struggle to reform a funding system that's been ruled unconstitutional and is growing more inequitable by the year--the funding gap between high- and low-poverty districts there has nearly tripled in recent years. There's not enough money in the system, and people are already mad about property tax levels as they stand. Thus, a large injection of state revenues is the only viable option.

But while this article details the range of complicated tax proposals being bandied about in Texas as possible new state revenue sources--mucking around with business franchise and commercial receipts tax structures, going to the cigarette tax well once again--the political contortions and bitter arguments with various undertaxed constituencies are all really unecessary. Texas just needs to do what more than 40 other states already do--enact an income tax.

Everyone in Texas knows this. But income taxes are seen as kind of socialist and inherently un-Texan. So state policymakers are forced to beat their heads against the wall trying in vain to wring money out of the existing regressive and inadequeate tax structure while local schools suffer the consequences. Some things aren't as complicated as they seem.