S001 E032 - Paxton Loses At SCOTUS Yet Again

In this episode of Seeing Red, hosts Garrett Fulce and Andi Turner discuss scandal-plagued former representative Jonathan Stickland’s new businesses and his connection to RPT chair Matt Rinaldi. They also analyze the fundraising numbers for the upcoming Senate race and the potential impact of the DSCC targeting Texas. The hosts also touch on Ken Paxton’s misleading claim of victory at SCOTUS and the challenges of eliminating property taxes in Texas. Lastly, they explore the controversy surrounding a cement plant in Grayson County and its potential impact on the semiconductor industry.

0:01:48 Jonathan Stickland opens new businesses with RPT chair Matt Rinaldi.
0:05:00 Colin Allred raises more funds than Cruz.
0:05:49 Texas is a target for the DSCC.
0:08:21S peaker Johnson faces challenges.
0:12:20 Marco Rubio discusses supporting troops and border issues.
0:17:24 The potential for an October surprise and its influence on the election
0:18:14 Explaining the implications of Trump’s trial and potential reelection
0:20:53 Discussion on the recent Supreme Court  and Paxton's claim of victory
0:21:33 Explanation of the case involving property owners affected by flooding
0:25:11 Ken Paxton’s losing streak and lawsuits
0:26:01 Lawsuit against Lina Hidalgo’s Universal Basic Income
0:30:34 Interim charges to study property tax elimination
0:36:45 Property tax appraisal and reform in Texas
0:39:38 Concerns over a cement plant in Grayson County
0:43:41 Opposition to the cement plant due to potential pollution
0:48:52 Call for TCEQ to pause the permitting process for the cement plant
0:50:03 Conclusion and invitation to subscribe to the podcast

Follow us on all socials at @theseeingredpod and online at our website Seeing Red Podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Paxton claims victory at SCOTUS but really loses. Dan Patrick asks the Senate to explore eliminating property taxes, and scandal-plagued Jonathan Sicklin has opened up several new businesses with the help of RPT Chair Matt Rinaldi. We get into that and so much more on this week's episode of Seeing Red right now.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Welcome to the Seeing Red podcast with Andy Turner and Garrett Fools checking up on Texas policies and politics, with some federal issues thrown in, like the assault weapons ban, interest rate hikes. You get it, but it's mostly Texas, since we can't ignore the big stuff either. And now here are your hosts, Andy Turner and Garrett Fools.

Speaker 3: 0:42

Hey everybody, welcome back to this week's Seeing Red. We're glad to have you all. If you've joined us on YouTube, you will notice some new graphics, and God bless Garrett and all the hard work he puts in on the editing on this. I know it would take me years to figure it out. He's just right there with it. So thank you very much and if you are on our podcast, welcome back. If you are new, we are thrilled to have you. We have much to talk about today. But Garrett, oh my God, what is Jonathan Stickland up to now?

Speaker 1: 1:16

Oh Lord only knows. It looks like the scandal-plagued former whatever with the FinTechs' liberty and current owner of pale horse strategies or operator, or whatever his title is. Um has opened a couple new businesses uh. He labeled one rat master holding, uh, which is apparently his old gamer tag from I don't know, xbox live or world of warcraft or whatever game he used to play. Um and uh's like Ratmaster Holdings LLC or something, and he opened up another one with some sort of patriot name in it.

Speaker 1: 1:54

What's interesting is that the person who organized it whenever you create a business, you have an organizer someone male can go to things like that is the illustrious chairman of our Republican party, matt Rinaldi. So you know, stickland has been largely out of the public eye since October when he was found to be meeting with Nick Fuentes, there was large outcry from Dan Patrick. Tim Dunn, the person who fund, who funds, defend Texas, liberty and a lot of the ventures that Jonathan Stickland is involved with, said that it was a mistake, a blunder. No, I think he Dunn said it was a mistake and Patrick said it was a blunder, but largely Jonathan Stickland who, once again, he just named his company Ratmaster Holdings. He just named his company Ratmaster Holdings.

Speaker 1: 2:44

He was an online antagonist. Some might call it a troll. I don't want to characterize it one way or the other, but he's had a diminished social media and online presence since this controversy. But it looks like he's trying to get back into the game a little bit one way or the other or at least the very least keep making money off of the system as it exists currently. So it's just. I think it's interesting that Matt Rinaldi is, you know.

Speaker 1: 3:24

He represents Jonathan Stickland and the Wilkes brothers as an attorney while also Running the being the chairman of the RPT, and when you're an attorney you have certain responsibilities to your clients. So when those people have direct interactions with the board you're governing, it kind of gives pause to whether or not you're acting in the best interest of your clients or the best interest of your constituents, which are the Republican voters, republican voters of texas, right, yeah, and I'm sorry, but rat master, just seems highly appropriate.

Speaker 3: 3:49

My opinion, just my opinion, but it does seem very act.

Speaker 1: 3:56

I also want to make sure that we give credit where credit's due. Our friend, friend of the show, mark mcca, was the one who broke that story. So go read his article on his website, thetexasvoicecom, to kind of get more of the granular details of that. But it's just. You know, matt Rinaldi is happy to help, you know, over here with making sure Jonathan Stickland can get his companies up and running and fundraise, however that works. But the RPT fundraising numbers are still not that great and I'm not sure if the Q1 stuff has come out yet from the federal side. But we don't have enough money in the account to really push back. And it really came to bear this week when the campaigns, the federal campaigns, released their numbers and it looks like colin, all red uh in his q1 fundraising like direct campaign contributions had like something like 9 million, 9.5 million, 9.1 million, something like. That crew is only running 6.5, but he has a number of other accounts that people donate to, so they brought in about the same amount of money.

Speaker 1: 5:10

I think Cruz still has a cash on hand advantage to date. It's not as large as you'd like it to be when you're the incumbent of a state like Texas and the DSCC, which is the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is the official party apparatus for the Senate campaigns, has announced that Texas is one of their big targets because they don't really have a lot of other things to target. They're playing defense in like four states. They have really no offensive opportunities. Texas is one of their best chances. It's not a great chance by any means. Democrats putting money into Texas is usually a good thing because it's just money.

Speaker 1: 5:46

They're not going somewhere else yeah, it's not going somewhere else, yeah but you have the situation where, on the national level, they're going to need to put money someplace, because they want to. They're going to have to spend money. Texas is likely going to get a lot of it and Cruz is going to have to match those numbers. I mean, beto ended up out-raising him last time and got it within three points, even while Abbott was winning by ten points. It's going to be a different scenario this time. Allred has been playing kind of trying to claim to be a moderate. Lord only knows he's a national Democrat. He's not going to be a moderate against the senate, but that's the way he's playing it. And he didn't take any crazy left-wing positions in the primary. Uh well, I'm sure he did, but like he didn't, he played it as well as he could.

Speaker 1: 6:40

He played it for a general. Let's put it that way yeah, he wasn't.

Speaker 3: 6:42

He, at least from what I saw. I didn't see anything that was extreme left.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Right, he wasn't Beto saying he's going to go take your AR-15s, right.

Speaker 3: 6:57

Learned that lesson.

Speaker 1: 7:00

He probably still will, but he didn't say it so there's no copy that they can run an ad to do it. I actually got a.

Speaker 3: 7:05

He probably still will, but he didn't say it, so there's no copy that they can run an ad to do it. I actually got a press inquiry the other day, apparently speaking of AR-15s. Apparently there is a bill and it was filed on March 6th. It has not gone to markup, it is going nowhere, nowhere. But a Democrat out of Missouri, whose name I cannot remember, filed a bill that said when there is a mass shooting, congressmen will not receive their pay, or receive far, far less, until this is resolved. And I did not take the call because it's not a state issue, but I got to tell you there's no chance in the heck that the congressmen are going to vote to curb their salary.

Speaker 1: 7:56

No, they never have.

Speaker 3: 7:57

There's no chance, like on either side. It's like the dumbest bill ever. I mean, I understand, believe me, I understand the press, and they have a tough job to do. I get the feeling, though, that maybe this guy is a little younger and looking to stir the pot, and I went and looked at it and it was introduced March 6th and it hasn't gone to markup Like it's going nowhere and it's got no responses.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Anyway, sorry, I mean there's a lot of legislation like that at the federal level, especially when you have this Congress that's so close to being just a split government that it's not much can get through. I mean, the Republican coalition is more of a it's just not a governing majority, so there's no real governing majority in the House. So nothing's really getting done except for the most obvious things, and even then it usually takes pulling a lot of teeth. So it's frustrating to kind of have those issues pop up. But yeah, nothing's going to get done, especially on an issue like gun control. And yeah, no, of course, congress is never going to say no, we can't pay us, while whatever, like it is a.

Speaker 1: 9:14

I mean, I think the closest thing they ever had to something like that was sequestration. I don't think they're ever going to do it again. So that was when obama agreed that they would cut. There was some sort of negotiation, but there would be automatic cuts to the budget. It would be including military spending. So there was just. It ended up the Republicans and I mean, like you know, this is actually fine, and things just got cut for a while until Trump got there. So that's one of many issues when it comes to the federal government where it differs from the state.

Speaker 3: 9:46

And the speaker I was watching this morning. The speaker is Johnson or.

Speaker 3: 9:51

Johnson, speaker of the Congress, speaker of the House in Congress, is actually having a tough time and I watched briefly, I watched some statements he made and he considers himself a wartime speaker. Now, I don't have an opinion on the man one way or the other, but I got to tell you if you're a wartime speaker, it's kind of like being a wartime consigliere for any of you that may have seen the Godfather. The godfather I'm not seeing that from him, but perhaps he's alluding to something coming forward. But yeah, he's got some problems. He's got some real problems.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Well, there's a lot happening internationally where there's a lot of moving parts and America's enemies are feeling emboldened. You have Iran attacking Israel just openly, just throwing hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, china's agitating and you have Russia at war in Ukraine doing what it's less. Those are more Cold Wars with the West, but they're still active war zones. So there's a lot happening internationally because America has receded from the global stage and these other actors are trying to fill in the gap. And you can look at America's foreign policy over the past 40 years and see certain mistakes that were made or not made or what could be better.

Speaker 1: 11:20

But right now the situation is he might not be wrong, he might end up being a wartime speaker by the end of it, but you've got to keep in mind Joe Biden has some of the worst foreign policy instincts of any national politician in a couple generations. He's like the only person who said they shouldn't. He's famously told Obama he shouldn't kill Osama bin Laden whenever they had that opportunity to effectively kill him. Biden didn't think it would be a good idea, apparently, or something to that effect. Those are the kind of instincts that Biden has. And then he's like, oh, let's just withdraw everyone from Afghanistan right away. See how well that worked out.

Speaker 3: 12:03

Not a Texas senator, obviously, but Marco Rubio made the rounds on the Sunday circuit and they were talking about the bill to to finance Israel and and Ukraine I'm sorry, A little slow, drink more coffee, so and he said you know, look, you know, this is a question of supporting our troops that are over there. Absolutely I support Israel, but we can't have a discussion about supporting these guys without tending to our own backyard. And he was talking about border issues and and I was like good for you because, yeah, you can't, you can't be sending. Absolutely we need to be supporting our troops. There is no question. Let me be very, very clear about that.

Speaker 3: 12:57

But if you are not also protecting our own borders and I know that for people who don't live in Texas or Florida, arizona, you know Southern California this doesn't feel as imminent to them. You know people living in New York State or you know in Michigan or whatever. It doesn't feel the same because they're not in your backyard, backyard, right, it's not happening in your backyard and so, um, I I think that bill is going to be very interesting to see if they do manage to include some, some kind of um protection for our, for our southern border well, a lot of republican house members, a lot of.

Speaker 1: 13:39

They came up with a talking point where biden already has the power to do it, why pass more legislation? And it's more of an election. There's some election gamesmanship going on with that for sure.

Speaker 3: 13:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:58

I don't know the intricacies of immigration law well enough to opine too much on whether they're right or not. My gut is that it's just they don't want to give Biden a paper victory right now when he's still not going to do anything with it. And then he has. He can kind of push immigration to the side for a little bit, because that is the number one issue when it comes to voters across the country, and especially in swing, I think, state I guess kind of like Texas right when I mean immigration is just has been the number one issue on Texas voters mind since since COVID kind of dropped out of it.

Speaker 3: 14:34

Yes, absolutely no, no, no, it's also a number one issue across the country.

Speaker 1: 14:38

It's just not to the same degree as it is in Texas. It's like, if you look at the polling, it's the number one issue for voters is immigration.

Speaker 3: 14:45

Really, because I would have thought outside of people's number one issue. I would have thought, outside of very red states, that it would have been abortion.

Speaker 1: 15:02

Now, that's a number. It's a big issue certainly, but not number one and I'm talking about, like, general polling. Then you have looking at the difference between swing voters, number one issue and just the general population is number one issue Interesting. It's Interesting, that's just a different crosstab, for sure.

Speaker 3: 15:27

And that may or may not change. I don't expect it to change, but I mean, when I'm talking to people who are not like political nerds, like we are and I am proud to be a political nerd I try to explain to them that, like it's April and all kinds of things can happen between now and an election day and especially and everybody's familiar with the October surprise. So I don't know what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 15:54

But that's when hillary clinton with her emails that's when that came out was the end of september, early october, and she just couldn't recover from that well, kind of the october surprise was that, yeah, comey covey, comey james, comey um was reopening the investigation because they found more emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop. But the emails had come out a year and a half before, like that had been known for a year and a half, but there was that reopen. They closed the investigation and, like four months before the election, they just announced that they were going to be relooking into Anthony the emails they found on Anthony Wiener's computer. That because he shared it with the computer with his then wife, whom Abedin, who was Hillary Clinton's chief of staff. So you never know what it's going to be and it's always gonna be something.

Speaker 1: 16:45

In a different election, I remember in 2014, ebola popped up at the last second. There was just there was the ebola madness. Um obama made the the gaffe of saying that there was gonna be a referendum on him, which was not something the the president should say. In the second term midterm election um, because it's true, but you don't want the other side to be able to put it into ads, um, and then, yeah, I mean, you never know what. The don't want the other side to be able to put it into ads. And then, yeah, I mean you never know what the October side prize is going to be. It's usually not opposition research, it's usually just whatever. Some crazy story is going to pop up and be the thing that drives the media narrative through the end of the election.

Speaker 3: 17:25

Well, and then, of course, Trump is on trial. Yeah, I'm sure there will be an appeal, but that that verdict may come down well before october. Um, depending on you know how, you know, depending on how long it takes to present all the facts. But and I was watching I don't know what this morning and they were saying you know, this is the the only trial, that this is the only. These are the only charges that could ostensibly be tried before the election, and somebody was explaining to me that on on all the other charges that had to do with things he did during his presidency. If he gets elected president again, then those charges go away. However you feel about that, that's what happens.

Speaker 1: 18:14

I mean kind of regardless. If he wins re-election, even if he's in prison, he'd get released on January 20th and he'd be a free man while he's president. There's a pretty clear constitutional mandate that no state, no locality, no whatever can arrest and imprison the president while they're president. It doesn't mean they can't charge him or run a trial. It probably means you can't run a trial while he's president either. But if you've already run the trial and he's in prison, there's nothing to say that a felon or whatever say a little felon can't be on the ballot and win um.

Speaker 3: 18:52

So you can't like. You're a convicted felon. You can't vote, but you can be president, and I'm. This is not. I'm not talking about trump, I'm talking about anybody like I'm not right right, right right.

Speaker 1: 19:04

Because when you look at constitutional or constitutional requirements, uh, what it takes to you know, whatever it's pretty, it's pretty bare bones, what the requirements are. There's a lot, a lot of exclusions, um, and the supreme court has consistently held that states cannot add additional burdens or take burdens away or requirements away. Uh, for federal office, um, and this came up a couple times and historically one was like they called the LBJ rule. Lbj wanted to run for either House and Senate or Senate and President, or Senate and Vice President, and didn't want to give up a Senate seat or House seat. And Texas passed a law that allowed him to do both at the same time. And or Texas passed a law saying he couldn't run for two federal offices at the same time, and or or one Texas passed a law saying you couldn't do run for two federal offices at the same time, and then the Supreme Court came in and said you can, you can do it, there's no thing against it.

Speaker 3: 20:00

I remember that was kind of an issue, like there was a law on the books in Kentucky yeah, separate.

Speaker 1: 20:06

The state can't put a restriction on the federal government's requirements, so it's just. That's one of those things there's that the state can't put a restriction on the federal government's requirements, so that's one of those things. There's that, and it's also. I think Arkansas had passed a term limit, a congressional term limit bill at some point and the Supreme Court said the states can't do it. It has to be a constitutional amendment, since it's a federal court. So the states will oftentimes have term limits on their governors or even on their legislatures. California has one of the most, one of the strictest term limits in the country. I think you only have to be a rep for six years, three terms, um, and it kind of shows you that what happens whenever that happens is like the bureaucracy takes over, but anyways so.

Speaker 3: 20:51

So, speaking of federal things, gary, somebody's claiming a win at SCOTUS.

Speaker 1: 20:59

Yeah, yeah, kim Paxton came out big today, or big big yesterday, and said that he won a big victory at the Supreme Court of the United States. He won a big victory at the Supreme Court of the United States. The community notes on Twitter came in, as well as lots of reporting from just different folks across the Twitter sphere and in the media sphere, and it was like dude, you lost. You lost big and here's what happened, because you're not going to get this from Texas Scorecard, but here's what happened.

Speaker 1: 21:35

Uh, on this case, some property owners near i-10 east of east of houston, um, live on the north side of i-10. The state basically built this median along i-10 with the idea that if there were major hurricanes or flooding events, that the north side of I-10 would flood, but you would still have the south side open for traffic and they can make it two-way, which is a compelling government need. I mean, that makes sense and it worked. And during Harvey and during some other flooding in 2019, that area flooded the way it was supposed to and then flooded into these people's property, damaging it tremendously, and these people sued the state saying that you basically turned our property into stormwater storage and destroyed our property and this is an illegal taking under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

Speaker 3: 22:29

And, by the way, I just want to point out that your source on this is the actual SCOTUS record. Yeah, like this is not. We didn't get this on Twitter, or some media source.

Speaker 1: 22:38

This will bring the opinion.

Speaker 3: 22:40

Yeah, we read the actual.

Speaker 1: 22:42

So the support of the central sorry I was wrong they Paxton's office. So they sued in state court because Texas has a eminent domain. The state took something mechanism that they can use because you have the state has to allow you to sue itself but under the takings clause they still have that automatic right. Um, paxton's office, uh, sought to move the case and successfully moved the case from state court to federal court, and when it moved to the federal court they tried to dismiss it, they tried to get rid of it and then they had the case just kind of done in weird ways.

Speaker 3: 23:21

They mean the state of Texas.

Speaker 1: 23:23

The state of Texas tried to manipulate the case to. You know how they wanted to manipulate it. The trial court initially denied that, but the Fifth Circuit out of New Orleans, which oversees Texas, overturned that and agreed with the Texas Attorney General's office. Well, it went to the SCOTUS, went to the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the case should be remanded back to the state and dismissed in federal court. So basically their opinion was this isn't a federal issue, so you're kind of right that it should be dismissed in federal court, but it should go back to the state court.

Speaker 1: 24:00

So the landowners who originally sought to bring the case in state court are going to get their day in the state court that they wanted to have it in all along. So this is just another delay tactic from Ken Paxton are going to get their day in the state court that they wanted to have it in all along. So this is just another delay tactic from Ken Paxton. I guess if you wanted a lawyer he will go delay something for you but not necessarily when you go to Ken Paxton.

Speaker 2: 24:22

You also have.

Speaker 1: 24:22

Ken Paxton who we talk about it. But Ken Paxton, he got out of his charge, his securities charges, things, and he didn't admit any guilt and it kind of went away. But he has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, for that privilege.

Speaker 3: 24:41

And a few other things. But I'm still trying to figure out, like how he and he did put out a statement, a very public, public statement, which I read how he's claiming a win like I didn't really understand how that was. The scotus ruling was a win for him, it was a win for the landowners and the state of texas didn't want this case like they.

Speaker 1: 25:10

Like I'm so confused well, what's happened is people are starting to catch on to the fact that ken paxton kept saying he's the people's champion, but he keeps losing. So he's just trying to say, oh, we won whenever they have any sort of case, to kind of get in front of the fact that he keeps losing cases. And he lost this one nine zero. Every justice, including the six republican or conservative justices, were like no, paxton, you're out of, you're not doing it right. So either a he's just hiring bad people and they're not getting the job done, or, b they're doing exactly what he wanted them to do and they're still not getting the job done. Like paxton keeps claiming to be the people's champion, he's out there fighting but he keeps losing. It's frustrating to see he's also suing Harris County right now.

Speaker 1: 25:59

I was going to ask yeah, so Lena Hidalgo, the esteemed, honorable Lena Hidalgo from Harris County, who is under significant ethics investigation, or at least her office is under significant ethics investigation Some of her people are being charged or already pled Add up some sort of universal basic income.

Speaker 1: 26:22

This is the idea like you just give everybody in a certain area a set amount of money each month and Paxson's basically suing, saying it's not equal because they're only doing it in certain zip codes. I don't really know how that's going to go, because she's trying to give like $1,000 or $2,000 a month to every Harris County citizen that lives in 10 specific zip codes and they wanted to kind of test and see how does this improve outcomes or whatever else. And since it's a pilot program, I don't really know how Paxton's argument is going to hold up. I also haven't looked too hard to see if there's other legal arguments that they're making. That's just what it's being reported as those are the. That's the main argument. So I don't know how pax is going to do on there. I think he's. I mean, I don't think it's a good idea to do a universal basic income, especially the way that they're trying to do it in harris county.

Speaker 3: 27:20

So I don't because I mean for one thing and I'm not saying this is true of a large portion of any demographic, but there there's a certain percentage who will be like oh all, right, I'm getting a universal money per month, right? Money per month, x number of dollars, however much it is, I'll just learn, I'll live on that. And why get a job?

Speaker 3: 27:48

And I'm not saying that's not's not, that's not most people, but like like I don't want my time. No, if you have a job and you know, and I don't care if you're working at mcdonald's man, it's honest work. So you know, unless you cannot physically or you have a mental illness, unless there is a good reason for you not to work, you know you need to be working and that's why we have the system we have is to help those people who are low income.

Speaker 1: 28:19

Sure and that's more of a general argument against UBI. Yeah, and that's a general argument against universal basic income.

Speaker 1: 28:28

There are some conservative arguments for universal basic income if it's paired with, like, massive reductions in like social security, medicaid etc. Where like it's cheaper just to give everybody some money or whatever amount of money that it is to administer those programs for fraud and everything else, because those, those welfare programs are massive, most of the money doesn't end up getting down to the people who it's ostensibly for. So there are some arguments where it's like let's just give everybody money and then it's whatever. I'm not really sure how I feel about that. I mean, once again, this is nuanced, kind of boring policy when you get down to it and I don't really know I haven't spent the time to figure out what's what, what I think one way or the other on it.

Speaker 1: 29:13

I'm generally against the welfare state generally. So instead of just giving people UBI, I would look at limiting the, the welfare state as a whole. But there has to be some some social safety nets for sure. It's just I think it's kind of inflated at this point. So that's I. All that to say is, I don't know if I just I don't feel comfortable with the odds of any lawsuit that ken paxton's office brings and I don't want to give lena hidalgo and harris county democrats the opportunity to claim a victory anytime ever, like I want. It just seems like if kim paxton's involved, I feel like we're gonna lose so I mean praying that he wins one yeah, the whole thing seems I.

Speaker 3: 30:09

I really want to dig into this more, but we didn't. You know this, this all just came up so we didn't have a chance to like really do a deep dive into it. We'll get to it later.

Speaker 1: 30:18

Well, we get into it whenever we, whenever there's a decision on it one way or the other.

Speaker 3: 30:22

Right. So, and speaking of Texas, the lieutenant governor had had issued late last last week I think it was uh some interim charges yeah, explain what those are so they're out of session.

Speaker 3: 30:40

Uh, the entire state capital is out of session. They will not be in session until next january. During session they can have um, I'm sorry, yes, not during session between sessions, called the interim. They can. They can have committee meetings, they can have study groups they can. They can research all kinds of things. And one of these charges, in other words, hey, y'all go study. This is to get rid of property taxes in Texas period I think it's technically is the.

Speaker 1: 31:23

it isn't telling them to do it. It's telling them to research the feasibility or research like what can happen with it.

Speaker 3: 31:30

All right, okay, that's fair. Yeah, that's fair. And while I, you know, I'm all about like less taxes, sure, I have some questions and you correctly said you know the feasibility. For instance, your property taxes go to part of your property taxes go to support the public schools, and however you feel about public school education is up to you and I am not here to tell you how to feel about that. I have my own thoughts. But for today, you know there is an obligation to provide education, free education. If we have no property taxes, how does that get paid for? And I await anxiously the answer to that because I would love to do away with property taxes. I love the idea that when you pay off your mortgage unless you live in an HOA you own your house, free, clear and like, if you want to keep it and retire in it, you're good to go well.

Speaker 1: 32:38

So you have state taxes, you have local taxes, you have federal taxes. Most of the federal taxes people are going to pay are going to be income taxes. In Texas, most of your state-level taxes are going to be from things outside of, are going to be from sales tax. Most of the sales tax goes to the state. I think 2% of it, not percent 2. The state sales tax in Texas is about 8.25% In most of the state. Two of those pennies per whatever dollar go to the local, go to different local options, but I think it's something like six of those cents go to the state. And then you also have business tax, like the franchise tax and a bunch of other fees and stuff that go towards state government. So most of the local taxation comes from property taxes. So it's your local entities, it's your cities, it's your counties, it's your community college district, it's your school district, it's mostly the school district. Usually about 50% of your property tax bill is going to be your school district bill. And you know they're kind of getting out of hand because property tax, property values, are going up. Well, there are a number of reasons why property taxes are kind of. If you're going to have a tax. Property taxes are pretty good. Um, it's mostly because taxes, property taxes, are stable during different economic environments. They don't go up crazy just because a lot of people made a lot more money and they don't disappear because no one's spending money if there's a recession, like a sales tax. So it kind of ensures a reliable amount of money each and every year because property values don't fluctuate that crazily typically. And then obviously they support local, local issues. But they also give localities an option to kind of manage what's good for that community, like a lot of stuff gets passed, a lot of the tax rate stuff gets passed via bond and they we have all these vater v-a-t-r-e elections that we've talked about in the past, where the government entity at this point have some other reforms they've made. If they try to increase something over 4%, the tax rate over 4%, then it goes to a vote for the people to decide whether they want to pay more taxes, and so you have a lot more local input on what those tax rates should be. So it's not great.

Speaker 1: 35:05

Thomas Sowell historically has been for property property taxes, but it's been on the unimproved value. Uh, he doesn't think people should be penalized for adding, um, adding value like the for structures. So so as land becomes more valuable because it's in a downtown area, the price should increase. But just because you put a house on a piece of land and you put a nice house on it versus a small house, you shouldn't be penalized for adding that extra value. And I kind of tend to think that there's going to be a property tax reform. We go in that direction where we're only going to tax the land value and not the improvement value. So those are some of the main kind of justifications for property tax. But it's a tax.

Speaker 1: 35:50

People hate taxes. You don't want to be for any kind of tax. You just kind of want them to all be lower and for the government to not spend as much money. But you have to have the question of where do you want to take the money from? Do we want to have less money going to public schools? We want to have less money going towards public schools. We want to have less money going towards roads. What is the thing you want to cut? You can't just be like I want to spend 20% less, like that's great, I want to make 20% more money.

Speaker 3: 36:14

Right, okay.

Speaker 1: 36:16

So, but how am I going to make that 20% more money? Am I going to get a part-time job? Am I going to, you know? Am I going to spend 20% less? How do you want to do it? I think that this is mostly going to be a case where the RPT had one of their things. Whenever we voted on the Republican primary, one of the propositions of things we'd look at or wanted to have as a priority would be the elimination of property taxes.

Speaker 3: 36:48

Right, great Sounds like a great idea.

Speaker 1: 36:49

In theory it's a fantastic idea. Let's go ahead. But I think this is more of an idea for Dan Patrick to appease those people to appease, just like the people in the party who are doing that and basically it's going to come down and say no, can't get rid of it. You also got to keep in mind there's somebody like Paul Bettencourt, senator Bettencourt, out of North Houston, he is. His job is a property tax appraisal, like defender, like basically somebody who argues for property tax. Your property tax appraisal I don't remember what it's called, that's what his entire business is. But yeah, he's for property tax. Your property tax appraisal I don't remember what it's called. That's what his entire business is. Yeah, he's a property tax expert, but he also has a vested interest in certain things.

Speaker 1: 37:33

Whenever you have any of these property tax comes through, he ends up having a huge say in whether or not, how property taxes are going to be reformed. Property taxes are going to be reformed, which is one of the reasons why a lot of people think the Senate pushed for a larger for your deduction to go from 40,000 to a hundred thousand. Really, over the past four years it went from 20,000 to a hundred thousand is that you still would need somebody to go fight your appraisal, to have somebody go fight your. If your appraisal went up and instead of the governor and house's major plan would have been to spend a lot more money towards compression, which is the idea that, uh, there are certain local tax rates and that the state government would use state dollars to pay that and so that people would have a rebate on their next year's taxes. So it's kind of conv a convoluted way because, like you know, you mentioned before like why don't we just do like a rebate or something as a tax credit for, like, instead of ESAs?

Speaker 1: 38:37

It's because taxes doesn't have an income tax. You don't really have that system set up in place to give money back to people, since it's only property owners who are paying the vast majority of stuff. So you'd have to build out a ton of government infrastructure to give those types of monies back to people. So that's kind of where the property taxes land as an issue, where it's like we can get rid of it. I think largely this is just a dog and pony show to say, oh, this is the possible feasibility, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be very realistic unless the Senate comes out and says we're going to want to cut a bunch of stuff, but then people never want to cut their services either. So you might have Dan Patrick come out with some funny math and say, oh, we're going to do it anyway, and then that you know.

Speaker 3: 39:28

Dan Patrick come out with some funny math and say, oh, we're going to do it anyway, and then it's just going to be. That'll be the next issue that people fight over. It's going to be a very complicated issue, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 39:34

But I also want to talk about one last thing, absolutely Because Lieutenant Governor sent out a letter yesterday to the TCEQ Texas, basically the Texas EPA.

Speaker 3: 39:48

Commission on Environmental Quality.

Speaker 1: 39:50

Environmental Quality yeah, there was a cement plant in mine that's looking to get approval to go into South Grayson County, which is Grayson County is where my family's lived for 120, 130 years.

Speaker 3: 40:05

I wonder how you caught that. Okay, now I know.

Speaker 1: 40:09

So there's been some forces in Grayson County since like the turn of the 19th century or 1900s, and so there's this plant going in, but there's been some massive investment that's gone into Grayson County over the past three years from both Texas Instruments and from Global Wafer, which are like we're talking about $3 million projected from TI and $5 billion from Global Wafer. The Global Wafer facility is already under construction and nearly done. The TI first phase is under construction.

Speaker 1: 40:49

What happens with a cement plant, though, is that, basically, there's an issue where there's going to be a lot of air issues that come from a cement plant. It's one of the largest types of pollution polluters in the in the in the country. It's up there with like natural gas, like um or oil refining that kind of thing, and it just puts up a lot of particulates in the air. Causes apparently can cause cancers and reproductive issues and all sorts of asthma and copd problems. Excuse me as I cough thinking about it, but the. So you have that kind of that structure being looking to get approval to be built. You also have all these billion dollars of investments already going into this high-tech field, when a cement plant can really go in anywhere, anywhere, and a cement mine can go in anywhere there's limestone.

Speaker 3: 41:48

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:48

Right, yeah, but this company that's trying to put it in is owned. It's called Black Mountain. Apparently, black Mountain has hired former state rep Chris Patty, who Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick does not like. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick does not like. He put out a tweet after Patty left the state ledge and went into the lobby and it was being like, and then, like I don't remember which reporter had tweeted this, so I apologize, but apparently that Patrick like added the different clients, like TXU Energy, et cetera, and said, hey, just want to let you know that Chris Paddy will have absolutely no access to my office because of his behavior on the grid issues or something from a couple years ago. It was just like okay.

Speaker 1: 42:45

So who knows if this is personal? I don't think so because, like I was talking to Saul from, like there was all these town halls over this issue and Grayson County put out like five or six, maybe even 700 people to this town hall. Now, it was between Sherman and Denison there was a combined population between the two is about 60,000. And they got five to 700 people to show up on a Monday night to go complain about water, air issues. Right, I've never in all my time living in Grayson County. See more than that.

Speaker 3: 43:21

Many people show up any place except for high school football, that's the only thing that can get that kind of crowd Friday night lights, baby I don't even think the churches get that many people.

Speaker 1: 43:30

Any given church gets that many people on Easter. Maybe a couple of churches get that many people on Easter. But like that's about it Church, god, football and apparently this issue Some factories.

Speaker 3: 43:42

Yeah, so when you texted me about this issue of course I'm married to an expert in semiconductors, microchips this said the other thing and so I was like, all right, explain this to me, walk me through this like I knew some. And of course what you had said to me, you know, jived with what I knew. But I wanted to know and for those of you who are not married to experts, you know from having seen concrete, poured, mixed, whatever, that there's all this powder away from this billion dollar semiconductor plant. The wind can still push these little tiny particulates through the clean rooms and get into like a microchip, which will destroy the microchip they're trying to build. Also, those microchips go into, you know, into a wafer. I think I have that right.

Speaker 1: 44:49

I'll have to check with mr semiconductor yeah, the wafer is like the, like the core of it, that things okay, so the wafer is inside the the chip.

Speaker 3: 44:56

So but if you're making, if you're making the wafers and you get dust in the wafers, it doesn't matter if it gets into the chip, it's still. So this you know, and I just remember, it's like at least a billion dollar industry being built five miles away. And there's no, unless did you say the name of the company was BlackRock?

Speaker 1: 45:24

No, it's Black Mountain.

Speaker 3: 45:27

Yeah. So I mean if Black Mountain can come up with some way to mitigate this.

Speaker 1: 45:34

Sure. But so I mean, there's just like we're not hearing anything.

Speaker 1: 45:40

You have those investments going in that have already been like approved and they're already being built investments going in that have already been like approved and they're already being built. You also have, like thousands of homes being built right near where this cement plant is going to be going into. They're already the plats are already done. That's already being developed. You have 10 to 15 000 new plats within 10 miles because of people coming up uh, up 289 to gunner, which is like the next step after prosper, which is where where Dallas is pushing up into. So you have all these people who are supposed to be moving into this area all to have one mining operation here. Also, the wafer part of this isn't being talked about enough. Like right now, the overwhelming majority of the highest tech semiconductors are being produced in Taiwan. Now you have a whole supply chain of semiconductors being created in Southeast Asia, with all these different countries having specialized in different aspects of it and moving around, but Taiwan is kind of the linchpin of this highest aspect of it, and what we found during COVID was when the supply chain gets messed up, like, it drastically reduces just the amount of stuff you can build. That's up to today's level of technology, with China getting angrier or more and more aggressive towards Taiwan and starting to posture more than they might try and invade any sort of issue there would put our computing and semiconductor production back in the United States back at least five years and we would not have that type of growth.

Speaker 1: 47:23

So what we're trying to do right now is we're trying to catch up our manufacturing. These are good manufacturing jobs, these are six-figure manufacturing jobs that are going to Texas, all so that one mine can build a plant. And I think Senator Springer said at the TCEQ town hall you know Texas, we've just gotten used to winning so much. We win all these different bids all the time. Maybe it's time for Oklahoma to get a win, like let this go somewhere else. And it's like, yeah, we don't have to win every single thing and we need to make sure we have a balance. That's why we have zoning. You don't want to have a school next to a bar. You don't want to have a school next to a bar, you want to have a strip club next to a church you want to have.

Speaker 1: 48:11

There are certain places, right? Yeah, you don't want to have a mine in. You wouldn't put a mine in downtown houston, like you don't want to have these things close to large population centers or fast-growing population centers. So I'm hoping that TCEQ puts a pause on this permitting process and allows the legislature to come in and review it so TCEQ can get instruction from the legislature, from the people, people, so that they know what, where and when to approve this type of facility yeah, and, and, and.

Speaker 3: 48:54

I can't believe, I can't think that with this kind of public outcry, with lieutenant governor, with um, our friend, friend of the show, um, senator drew springer with the attention that he's getting, that this isn't going to at least be pressed pause, if not be moved elsewhere.

Speaker 1: 49:15

Yeah, I don't know, who knows, Sometimes they're obligated to move certain ways and then it would go to the courts. Who knows? I just know that the players it's gotten political, so it's probably going to get jammed up for a little bit. So we'll see how that, how that, plays out. But you know, Andy, I think we had a good show today. We kind of changed up the format a little bit and we went a little bit longer than I was expecting us to go. But if you're watching this on the YouTube channel, please like and subscribe. We have episodes every Wednesday and our Twitters are at the Seeing Red Pod. That's also the Facebook and our email is at hosts at seeingredpodcastcom. So thank you so much for joining us and listening to us on the podcast or watching us on YouTube, and we'll see you next week.

Speaker 3: 50:03

See you next week. Bye, guys.

Speaker 1: 50:05

Bye guys.

Speaker 2: 50:08

You've been listening to the CN red podcast. It's always Texas politics and beyond. We present the facts and opinions the CN red podcast with your host, andy Turner, and Garrett fools. Thank you and tune in next week. And please do us a favor, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss a single episode.