Last week, the Texas House of Representatives approved its version of the Texas budget for the next two years.
The House budget would appropriate $337 billion for the 2026-27 fiscal biennium. Texas is one of about 19 states that operates on a two-year budget cycle.
The budget is not yet finalized; the Texas House must now negotiate its differences with the Texas Senate before passing the budget and sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature. But it is already stirring up controversy.
Twenty-six members voted against the budget bill, Senate Bill 1. That is the most no votes against the Texas budget since 29 members voted against the budget in 2013. Nineteen of the no votes were Republicans.
“This proposed budget is far from what Texans deserve,” said Texas Rep. Andy Hopper (R). “I voted against SB 1 because Texans deserve real property tax relief and for their tax dollars to be spent wisely. This budget included billions of dollars to promote racist DEI and grows state spending by 8% this biennium and by over 40% over the last two bienniums.”
The controversary over the budget is linked to the election of speaker of the Texas House back in January. Republican Rep. Dustin Burrows was elected as the speaker by a coalition of 49 Democrats and 36 liberal and moderate Republicans. The majority of the Republicans in the House, 52 members, voted against Burrows.
Rep. Mitch Little (R) predicted the strife over issues like the Texas budget back in January after the speaker’s race.
“It’s going to be borderline chaotic,” he said. “You'll see a lot of conflict rubbing back and forth between the Senate and the House. I think you'll see the conservative Republicans fighting tooth and nail to advance their priorities.”
All of the Republicans who voted against the budget also voted against Burrows for speaker.
Many grassroots Texans are also upset about the budget. One, JoAnn Fleming, who leads Grassroots America, commented before the vote about how the Texas House had blocked public testimony on the budget.
The House exhibited “willful contempt for ‘Consent of the Governed,’ blocking public testimony on the bloated state budget, which - like the Senate Budget - INCREASES FUNDING for gov't entities engaged in DEI and gender ideology, among other utter nonsense,” she posted on X.
Rep. Daniel Alders (R) voted for the Texas budget. On X, he posted a statement defending his vote even though the budget contained little new support for property tax relief.
“Before we hand out more property tax relief at the state level from other revenue sources, we MUST curb the ability that local entities have to erase that relief by abusing their authority at the local level,” he wrote.
Since 2019, the Texas Legislature has increased spending for government schools by $23.6 billion in an effort to slow the growth of property taxes in Texas. Another $6 billion is in the proposed budget. However, the lack of results of these efforts have left many Texans frustrated. During that time, property taxes have continued to climb, increasing by more than $23 billion.
“They could have also appropriated even more money (given a nearly $24 billion budget surplus) to buy-down M&O property tax rates even further,” wrote Jeramy Kitchen, president of Texas Policy Action. “Instead, lawmakers in both the House & Senate just passed a budget that continues a trajectory of growing government, squandering yet another historic opportunity to put Texas taxpayers on a path to the elimination of the tax altogether.
