Perry backsteps on lower business tax
DALLASMORNINGNEWS

More property tax cuts?

That's what Gov. Rick Perry's talking about on the campaign trail.

Maybe lawmakers will be able to reduce those taxes beyond what they did earlier this year - that is, if enough revenue is available in the kitty next session and legislators have met the state's ample school and health needs.

Such talk in the heat of a campaign seems premature to us.

But it's the other half of that new Perry campaign speech that makes absolutely no sense.

He says he'd like to roll back the rate on the new business tax.

Yes, that would be the same tax just hammered out to help fund Texas schools. Simply

unbelievable.

The ink's hardly dry on this tax, which

was approved in May - after four excruciating sessions - as a way to shift about a third of the funds for schools from local property taxes to Texas businesses.

GOP Sen. Florence Shapiro put it perfectly: "I don't see how we can lower the business tax rate when we haven't even begun collecting it yet."

We won't get any hint about how much cash the tax will raise until spring.

If it fails to provide enough money for the state to assume a bigger share of school spending, then legislators could face a gaping budget hole.

Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst already has warned of the possibility of another wrenching set of cuts by 2009 if the tax doesn't produce.

Lawmakers spilled blood for four consecutive sessions before finally approving that new business tax to replace the old loophole ridden franchise tax.

Now the governor wants to jigger with what took forever to do?

This particularly galls us because we recommended Gov. Perry for re-election partly as a result of his helping legislators - admittedly, in the final days - solve the school funding crisis.

No, he's backing away from what was a step forward.

Mr. Perry bases his projections on a possible surplus of $15 billion for the next two years. We really ought to think carefully about how best to use that once-in-a-lifetime bounty.

More property tax cuts are possible, but playing with the business tax would be a gigantic mistake.

By the numbers: $15.5 billion possible surplus for the next two years $9.7 billion estimated increased spending demands

$5.8 billion

remaining revenue for new programs or tax cuts

Source: Texas Legislative Budget Board

Attack on actor reveals Limbaugh's priority: showbiz

Talk about ad hominem attacks.

Many viewers were shocked by Michael J. Fox's new TV ad.

The still-boyish actor swayed and shook, revealing the symptoms of advanced Parkinson's disease. Fox's pitch: that embryonic stem cell research could produce a treatment or cure for his illness. His ad supported a U.S. Senate candidate who backs the

research.

Clearly troubled by the ad, radio host

Rush Limbaugh lashed out.

Not at the cruelty of Parkinson's. Not at the concept of stem cell research. Instead, Limbaugh attacked the man.

"He is moving all around and shaking," the radio host scoffed on his show. "And it's purely an act ... he is acting like his disease is deteriorating because (candidate) Jim Talant opposes research that would help him, Michael J. Fox, get cured."

Later, Limbaugh changed the script a bit, proposing that Fox intentionally triggered his symptoms by not taking medication. (In fact, Fox told Katie Couric of CBS News on last Thursday that his symptoms were a side effect of medication and that without his pills he cannot talk).

Several news cycles after his tirade, did Limbaugh give a hypothetical apology. "I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong," he said, "and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act, especially since people are telling me they have seen him this way on other interviews and in other television appearances."

Certainly, Fox must have calculated that the imagery in his ad would be unsettling. Some viewers, he must have guessed, would object to such an emotionally charged take on a campaign commercial.

But others, he probably surmised, would be persuaded that diseases such as Parkinson's urgently demand research, including experiments using embryonic stem cells.

Then there was Rush Limbaugh. First and foremost a showman, Limbaugh couldn't see beyond the man onscreen.

Limbaugh seemed incapable of considering that Fox has little reason to show his symptoms to the public, beyond advocating for a cure.

Only a compulsive showman would fixate not on the disease, the ad or even the issue - but on the fellow entertainer getting some attention.

For Limbaugh, the instinctive response was to stage an even more disturbing show.

-- Houston Chronicle