Well, welcome everybody. Is my mic on? Okay, let’s try again. Now we’re on. Okay.
Yes. All right. Thank you all so much for being here today. As you can tell, this is a very popular event and I want to thank you all so much for coming. We had a little inadvertent publicity at first and so a lot of people who were not officially on the invitation list came and we have reserved these seats for those of you who were on the invitation list and who are residents of Robson Ranch.
Now um I’d like to welcome the governor, the speaker, and this amazing group of Texas legislators. They’re in Denton County Commissioner Precinct 4. So welcome. And I am Diane Edmonson. I am the commissioner for precinct 4 in Denton County.
I’m running for reelection and I’m so glad all of you all are here. You just you all can’t vote for me. And I want to give a special shout out to all of my neighbors that are here. All of our Robson Ranch residents. Raise your hands because we’re so glad you’re here.
You love our governor, don’t you? Everybody want to be here. Governor for this momentous um occasion. We’re absolutely delighted that the governor chose this location for the signing of HB9, Senate Bill 23, and Senate Bill 4. Anybody got any idea why he chose Robson Ranch?
There’s a rumor going around that there are a lot of seniors that live here. I don’t think it’s really true. I don’t see any seniors. Oh, well, okay, one. Anyway, we’re so glad to have you here because you were especially kind to the seniors in this legislation.
Um, we uh kind of have a lot in common, Governor. When I first became a commissioner, it occurred to me that we didn’t have a cap on what the seniors pay for county taxes and we didn’t have any kind of a homestead exemption.
So, in my first year, I championed those two things and they passed. But, I had it easier than you did. I only needed three votes and I think you needed almostund Jesus.
Exactly. Exactly. Especially he’s one of three. Well, that’s right. I was one of the three.
So, anyway, this this is a much much bigger deal than what my deal was. And we’re so happy because what you’ve done for seniors and those who are disabled and to the ordinary homeowner, we have increased that exemption to huge amounts. We’ve got our tax assessor collector here and I know she knows how important this is going to be. So, Governor, we’re so happy to welcome you here. And if you don’t mind, I want to take just a second.
We’ve got some other elected officials here that I’ I’d like to recognize.
Uh, Commissioner Brandon Gil. Commissioner. Hey, Brandon. There’s already three or four people running.
Jump in. Okay. I’m so sorry. It said COM, and that was supposed to be CO. Congressman Brandon Gill and then our county judge e Andy Eats, our tax assessor collector, Don Wei, and not the only cowboy in the room, but our sheriff Tracy Murphrey.
We have Judge Susan Peele who’s here. And then in addition to all of these wonderful representatives, we have a lot of senators, two of them from Denton County. So Brent Hagenboo and Tan Parker, thank you all so much for what you do for us. And I want all of you to know we love you here in Denton County, particularly in Robson Ranch. Governor, we have such a strong voting group here.
Uh I believe in your last election, the midterm election, that statewide was about 45% of the registered voters.
We more than doubled that here in Robson Ranch. So, y’all come on back anytime because we love voting for you. Well, uh thank you Diane for your introduction. Thank you for your service.
Uh it’s great to be back at Ropes and Ranch. I’ve been here uh many times. It’s a great place to be and there could be no better place to be here for the reason we’re here today. One reason why we are here today uh is because of the leadership both of Lieutenant Governor Patrick as well as uh Speaker Dustin Burroughs and on this legislation in particular uh the leadership of Senator Bettton Court and uh State Representative Morgan Meyer. We’re here today to talk about property taxes.
Let me hear it. Do you think your property taxes are too high? So do I. and I’m going to sign uh three pieces of legislation that lower those taxes.
Two of them deal with your homestead exemption.
As a kind of reminder, if you if you look at the the valuation of your house, uh a homestead exemption is going to exempt part of that value from taxation. When I became governor, that homestead exemption was $15,000. As we gather today, that homestead exemption is $100,000. I’m going to sign a law that will increase that exemption to $140,000. So, for the first $140,000 of valuation of your home, it will not be subject to the school district property taxes, which is the largest bulk of your property tax bill.
And uh this is Senate Bill 4 by Senator Bettton Court and by Representative Morgan Meyer. 16. Let’s hope all day. That’s right. Your homestead exemption has now gone up to $140,000.
Now, I know that many of you all are good at math. Some of you are better at reading. Uh for those who who concentrate on reading, uh if if you go from where the homestead exemption was when I first became governor, $15,000 to now $140,000, that’s almost a 1,000% increase. Now, the second bill goes into what Diane was talking about. Uh, because we do love our seniors, and I wish some were with us here today.
There’s some of you are seniors. Some of you identify as seniors. A senior is a senior is 65 and older. for for those who are 65 and older uh or disabled, that property tax exemption goes up beyond $140,000. It goes all the way up to $200,000.
So for the first $200,000 of valuation of your home, there’s no there’s not going to be any school property tax they have to pay. The the the reality is that the average section, meaning more than half of Texas seniors are not going to pay a school property tax at all after I sign this law. [Applause] September 1st for seniors and disabled. Their homestead exemption is now $200,000 in the state.
I want to put together several pieces of this puzzle so you can understand what was accomplished this session as it concern both the budget as well as taxes.
When when you add all the money together of what we’re devoting to new money for property tax relief, that’s $10 billion. For us to be able to maintain the property tax relief that we provided you over the past 10 years, it requires an additional investment of $40 billion. Add those two together and you know that we spent $50 billion this session on property tax relief. Let me show you how truly unprecedented that is. 25% a quarter of the Texas state budget is using money to return to you through tax cuts.
No state in the history of America has devoted such a large percentage of their budget to tax relief in the United States of America. And as far as I’m concerned, we’re not done yet. There you go. I think I think there’s more that we should do. The state of Texas has four constitutional provisions uh that are spending limits for the state.
Cities and counties, they don’t have those same spending limits. It’s time that cities and counties have a spending limit just like the state of Texas does so they cannot drive up your property taxes anymore.
[Applause] There’s also another type of property tax. It’s a property tax on businesses, but it’s not on the real estate property. It’s on the personal property of the businesses.
It could be things like tables or chairs, computers. It could be computers, could be phones, whatever the case may be. That that propert not not the land that would that would be a real estate tax. This is personal property, not non real estate property. Anyway, for businesses, the first $2,500 of that is exempt right now.
Well, that’s not very much. And so, we wanted to increase that by a lot. Uh, so, uh, the bill I’m going to sign increases the the business personal property tax exemption from $2,500 all the way to $125,000. This is particularly helpful to all the small businesses out there uh that will help them meet the cost of rising prices. And by the way, this all of these bills are by Senator Bettton Court and Representative Morgan Meyer.
This happens to be a house bill where uh Representative Morgan Meyer uh from central part of Dallas, correct, led the way here. The A team, why not For businesses in Texas, their personal property tax exemption is now up to $125,000.
As I mentioned to begin with, we wouldn’t be here today if it not had been for leadership of people like Speaker Dustin Burroughs. And I turn the mic over to him now. Thank you, Governor.
No country, no state, no city, and no county can tax and spend their way into prosperity. Right. That is why it is so important that we make sure that we have a low tax state. When you look at the amount of money that we are investing in our budget, and the governor brought it up and gave you the numbers, it is unprecedented and historic.
We continue budget after budget and especially this one to take more of our revenues and help drive and maintain lower property taxes in the state of Texas which is so important.
The increase in the homestead exemption from 100 to 140,000 is the right thing to do. More taxpayers will get to keep more of their hard-earned money. Our seniors doubling it to 200,000. It’s going to make it a much easier place for them to live to retire. And I’m going to make a bold prediction.
I think Texas could become a retirement destination because of doing things like this where seniors want to move here because of what we’re doing for them. And our small businesses, the business of Texas is business. And that is the economic engine right now. And our small businesses, letting them keep more of their hard-earned money, they’re going to put that money into growing their business, hiring more employees, expanding. That is the type of capital that they’re going to get to keep.
That will be a stimulus that will make our economy continue to hum. Which is why I’m so proud that the Texas House Chairman Meyer in the House worked with Governor Abbott who led the charge on this who named this a priority in his state of the state and Governor Patrick has made it a mission in the Senate and Bettin Court who I’ve worked with the property tax brother on many of these issues. help get these across the finish line so that all Texans can share and deserve in this muchneeded relief. Thank you, Governor.
Thank you.
And now, Senator Bettinport. Thank you, Governor. And I want to thank everyone here that voted for this and all those that will vote for it in November because you get to do the ultimate choice. you get the chance to say yes to $140,000 exemption on all your homes. Do I hear a desending vote?
I don’t think I will.
Okay. How about you get to say yes to a $200,000 over 65 uh exemption? Diane, I don’t think I’m going to hear any descending votes here, am I? And you get to say yes to a a business tax relief of $125,000, which helps all of our small businesses.
The amount of money we’re talking about here is extraordinary. The governor’s talked about the fact this has been a $50 billion commitment. And in just the last three years, between these bills that we passed, 22.7 billion of tax relief, now 10 billion more, we’re looking at saving the average home $1,750. When you say yes in November, but wait, we’re not done yet.
If you’re over 65, that takes you up to $2,342. But wait, there’s more because of work that Speaker uh uh Burls and I did when he was still a uh well, you I guess you were chairman, right, back then, right? Before you had the wise decision to promote Morgan to chair. Okay. Um, we’ve actually done something that’s even better every year as we raise the homestead exemption or cut the tax rate because we’re doing that now by six pennies.
Your over 65 bills go down and down and down every year. In fact, we’ve got senators here. I see Senator West was one of my early uh co joint authors on this. his uh Senate district will probably be close to 75 to 80% of his homeowners will be paying zero property taxes. Okay.
Adam Men and Hosa who flew all the way in from the valley. And why not? He’s got two counties uh that will have probably 80 to 90% of his over 65 exemption homeowners paying no tax at all. And why not? You’ve paid a lifetime of taxes already.
And so here, the state of Texas makes the massive commitment to make sure that you can stay in your home for as long as you want to because these exemptions once you vote for them in November will be there for as long as you own the home.
And uh and I think that is the testament to what this a team has done. I kided that it was Morgan and I, but you can’t get anything done in the Texas legislature unless you have in this case 180 votes because we did have one unfortunate soul who was wayward, but that’s another story. And it was not anybody on this stage. But more importantly, it’s going to be your exemption for life if you vote yes in November.
Your extension for life. And that means your your exemption will be with you and and your and your children and your grandchildren because this state once it’s enshrined in the Constitution. And I think I can speak, you know, for the lieutenant governor on this and everyone else on this stage will never back up from that commitment to Texas taxpayers. It’s a great day for Texas taxpayers. Let’s hear it.
And now, Representative Morgan Meer. Uh, thank you, Governor. It’s always great to go last. Um, but but what I would like to echo uh is the working relationship that we had uh in the House with the Senate, uh, Chair Chairman Benton Court, uh, Lieutenant Governor Patrick, fantastic working partners from day one of this session. When the speaker and I went over to meet with Governor Patrick and Chairman Bettin Court, it was a tone of how do we get this done?
How do we work together? How do we solve this problem? Which whether you’re in my district in in Dallas or in Harris County or in El Paso or here in Denton, it is one of the number one issues all of us while knocking on doors, we hear about.
We certainly hear about other issues as well. But I can tell you the one and most consistent issue is property tax relief.
And we are not sitting here today without the leadership of Governor Abbott, Governor Patrick, and Speaker Burroughs. And I think this issue exemplifies many of the issues that we had come before us this session where we were united to solve the problems of the citizens of the state of Texas and determined to do so from day one. And as a result of that, we have these type of results. So, thank you, Governor. Appreciate it.
Thank you very much. Let me just add a little bit uh further context of what we’ve done with regard to taxes.
For for one, as you heard Senator Bettton Court talk about, uh these are all also by way of constitutional amendment. So our vision is this, you know, we know there will be generations of other leaders leading the state. We want to make sure that we do more than just pass a law for this session that could be overturned by a majority next session.
We want to make sure that we pass laws that are enduring that would require twothirds votes, which mathematically would mean as it concerns increasing attacks.
Not in the lifetime of anybody in this room are you going to get twothirds vote to increase the tax. So there there’s going to be these three propositions, not just by law that I signed today, but also by constitutional amendment on the ballot this November for you to vote for. But that’s added to what we’ve already done constitutionally. You’ll help pass a constitutional amendment ensuring that for your lifetime there’s not going to be any income tax in the state of Texas.
There’s not going to be a death tax in the state of Texas.
Uh there’s there’s not going to be a capital gains tax in the state of Texas. Uh and now we’re going to be adding these to those constitutional prohibitions on taxes to make Texas uh the strongest, friendliest, taxfree state in the United States of America. among the the nearby representatives, one who is missing today for a reason and that is Representative Richard Hayes uh is celebrating his 50th anniversary on a trip uh with his family uh and he wanted to be here.
Uh now with that, we’ll open up to questions to the press.
Let me ask you about I know you talked a little bit about it. Jack, I appreciate you not wasting any time getting off topic. Hey, well, you you burned yours already. Uh but uh especially when you hear what I’m going to tell you and that is I’ve got a thousand of these on my desk that I have to get through and I haven’t gotten to SP3 yet and so I can’t tell you what the factors are.
I I’ll I’ll tell you this.
Listen, there’s there are meaningful positions and concerns on both sides of the issue and I’ll look into all of those and evaluate all of those. Go ahead. senators and yourself. So, first I I will tell you that the director of DPS, Freeman Martin, could give you a more precise answer. I’ll tell you basically what I understand was the fact, and that is that there was a person on the capital grounds with the gun who who seemingly had the intent uh to do harm to a legislator.
No more defined than that. Uh if if you’re on the capital grounds with a gun conveying that type of message, that’s a credible threat that has to be taken seriously.
You obviously saw what happened in Minnesota. We make need all to make sure that nothing like that ever happens in the state of Texas. So DPS is on heightened alert.
uh they they work not just within the confines of DPS, they have uh joint task forces arrayed around the state of Texas that all do communications where they’re gathering information uh both through social media sources as well as other sources to make sure they will have the the most robust source of information and be able to address this in advance. I’ve seen them do it hundreds of times so that they’re very effective at it. and they will work to ensure that not just members of the legislature but canly anybody in the public uh is is going to be free from some type of deranged attack like that.
Governor, so first I’ll tackle the first part of your question that you put in there. you said that that are deemed sanctuary cities.
I think LA may be in that category. As you know, there there is no sanctuary city in the state of Texas. I signed Senate Bill 4 uh many years ago that banned sanctuary cities in the state of Texas. That point aside though, uh both the Texas Department of Public Safety and uh the Texas National Guard, they work in collaboration both with Border Patrol as well as with ICE uh to make sure that that Texas is working now in partnership uh with the Trump administration to achieve their goal of removing people who are here illegally.
Two more questions.
Governor, going back to that over the weekend, I know Are we at the point where there needs to be security? Well, so here here’s what has happened repeatedly uh and that is that there will be threats that will arise about one lawmaker or another. could be at the state level or federal level, but a person here in in Texas uh where there will need to be an increase in security for that person. Uh and it it may exist for a week. Uh like as I understand it, the threat that existed on Saturday, that person has been arrested.
And so I think that that threat has been removed. Uh but we we still must stay on guard. But here’s here’s the point. the the DPS working with both federal and local officials that they will constantly gather information. If there’s anybody or any group of people who are under a potential threat, uh they will elevate uh both their threat assessment as well as their threat protection for those individuals or those group of people.
One more question. Governor, there was a budget surplus this year that allowed you guys to take these actions with the faith in the votes that you make. state is going overboard and doesn’t have enough funds to pay for everything. So, you make several good points. One is we have a budget surplus.
Texas has the largest budget surpluses of any state in the United States of America. And that’s because of the hardworking men and women who’ve made Texas the number one state in the United States for most new jobs added. And so, we have a robust economy that leads to that budget surplus. But we’ve been cautious with our approach to our budget knowing there could be an economic downturn. There could be a recession.
Uh and so we have what’s the amount in the rainy day fund now? 24 24 billion, right? 24 billion in our rainy day fund.
Uh and we have some other reserve money to make sure that we will be able to continue to maintain the property tax relief in the future that we provide today. Thanks everyone.
Thank you all..
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