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Dear Friend,

Thank you for the honor of allowing me to serve House District 61 again. I am truly humbled and grateful for this opportunity to serve at a time when there are so many tough issues facing Texas.

We had an enormous victory on Tuesday night when we picked up 22 new seats for conservative Republicans in the Texas House! A reporter asked me yesterday what the election means – I told him, first and foremost, it means Texans want smaller government and a government that spends much, much less. We will need your help in making sure that message is not ignored in Austin.

On a personal note – I would very much appreciate your prayers for all the members of the Texas Legislature as we have a daunting task ahead of us. Thank you again for your support. It is a pleasure to serve you in the Texas Legislature.

Sincerely,

Phil King

Contact Information:
817-381-8282

The Texas Association of Realtors today announced its decision to endorse Phil King in his election to the Texas House to represent District 61. Making the statement last week, Chairman Bill Jones commended King’s commitment to the interests of Texas homeowners.

“When lawmakers return to work in 2011, they will be faced with many difficult decisions,” said Jones. “That’s why we need lawmakers like Phil King who understand the critical role homeowners play in keeping our state’s economy strong, which is why we’ve pledged our full support.”

Currently, Texas ranks 44th out of 50 states in homeownership. Electing lawmakers who understand homeowners’ concerns and act accordingly to bolster homeownership in Texas is the association’s top priority this election season. As a member of the Texas House for more than ten years, King has supported policies and initiatives that are in the best interests of property rights and homeownership throughout the state.

“I am honored to have the endorsement of the Texas Association of Realtors,” King said. “As small business owners, Texas Realtors make the dream of homeownership more affordable for all Texans and I will strive to help support this important goal.”

As one of the largest professional membership associations in the state, the Texas Association of Realtors expects to be a considerable grassroots force for Phil King.

Contact Information:
817-381-8282

Weatherford – Today State Representative Phil King announced that a joint effort between his office, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), and Parker County would lead to increased safety for drivers on FM 1884 (Bethel Road) in Parker County.

King laid out a three-pronged plan that will be implemented this month to increase the safety of Bethel Road. The first two parts of the plan are short-term measures. King sent requests to local law enforcement offices including the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) requesting increased patrolling and enforcement of the dangerous road. DPS has already responded that they are stepping up patrols immediately. Additionally, the Texas Transportation Commission will vote later this month to decrease the speed limit on Bethel Road from 60 miles per hour to 50 miles per hour.

The third phase of the plan is a long-term solution. With the cooperation of Parker County, TxDOT plans to install 8-foot shoulders along Bethel Road along with turn lanes in a couple of places.

King explained, “I’m very pleased with the cooperative effort between the state and county to come together to develop a solution to keep drivers safe on Bethel Road. The narrowness of Bethel Road combined with the high speeds many travel on it with has made the road dangerous. I’m confident that this comprehensive solution will force drivers to slow down and create a safer environment for everyone traveling the road.”

TxDOT will begin the next step in implementing long-term improvements on Bethel Road by developing the detail design. Improvements to the 6.5 miles of Bethel Road from B.B. Fielder Drive to the end of Bethel will cost approximately $6.3 million. The project is anticipated to be awarded to a contractor by late 2011.

National Review Online

Rich Lowry

Texas already looms large in its own imagination. Its elevated self-image didn’t need this: More than half of the net new jobs in the U.S. during the past 12 months were created in the Lone Star State.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 214,000 net new jobs were created in the United States from August 2009 to August 2010. Texas created 119,000 jobs during the same period. If every state in the country had performed as well, we’d have created about 1.5 million jobs nationally during the past year, and maybe “stimulus” wouldn’t be such a dirty word.

What does Austin know that Washington doesn’t? At its simplest: Don’t overtax and -spend, keep regulations to a minimum, avoid letting unions and trial lawyers run riot, and display an enormous neon sign saying, “Open for Business.”

Weatherford Telegram

State Rep. Phil King

There is a lot of good economic news in Texas. We are one of only six state governments that didn’t run a budget deficit in 2009. We’ve had the largest 10-year growth in private sector jobs among all the states. We now host more Fortune 1000 companies than any other state. We’re the largest exporting state in the nation, produce more energy than any other state, and our unemployment rate has been at or below the national average for forty-four consecutive months. I could go on and on.

Unfortunately there is bad news, too. We are in the worst economy in 75 years. Until the Obama administration realizes that you can’t create a strong economy built on debt, massive new spending, and redistribution of wealth it’s simply not going to get much better.

So what can you and I do? Well, over the next year elected officials at every level – city councils, school boards, commissioner courts, the Texas Legislature and U.S. Congress – will face unprecedented budget shortfalls. Elected officials will face enormous pressure to raise taxes to close the gap. Their communities are growing and in many cases their voters are demanding increased government programs and services.

Austin American-Statesman

State Reps. Leo Berman; Wayne Christian; Rob Eissler; Dan Flynn; Kelly Hancock; Phil King; Tan Parker; and Ken Paxton

As state legislators, we are disappointed that Texas schools will miss out on $830 million in federal funding because of an overt political attempt to embarrass the Texas Legislature and the governor in the form of an amendment inserted into federal law by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin. The Doggett amendment requires the State of Texas to maintain education funding at current levels for each of the next three budget years 2011, 2012 and 2013 to receive the federal dollars under the emergency school aid funding authorized by Congress last month.

The language added by Doggett required the governor to guarantee these levels of funding when he applied for the federal education aid. However, since the Legislature writes the state budget every two years, Gov. Rick Perry was unable to make that guarantee, noting that “surely Congress did not intend to require states to violate their own constitutions and statutes in order for schools to receive this money. I am sworn to uphold state laws and our constitution, which prohibit binding commitments about future budgets or funding levels.”

Texas’ state budget for 2012 and 2013 will be drafted and voted on by legislators when we convene in Austin in 2011. Perry clearly is unable to guarantee to the federal government that the 82nd Legislature will appropriate certain, specific levels of funding to public education in good faith because the governor does not write the state budget and, in any event, the 2012-13 state budget does not yet exist.

Weatherford Democrat

Steve Boggs

State Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, addressed the Business Before Breakfast meeting of the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce Friday morning. Aside from touching on the familiar conservative talking points, King went out of his way to ask the public to stand behind their elected officials in the budget-cutting times to come.

For that, he deserves an attaboy.

There are budget-cutting times ahead, and everyone who holds public office right now is going to have to make some tough choices. Tax revenues are down, and this recession is showing no signs of letting up any time soon. Even the mighty Texas economy, the best in the U.S. by far, is expected to contract by $18 billion over the next two-year budget cycle.

It’s clear that there are but two choices: Raise taxes or cut spending. Texas doesn’t have the option of deficit spending because the state’s constitution doesn’t allow it. Unlike California, the state isn’t facing $40 billion in debt on top of a yearly budget deficit.

Still, there is work to be done. With revenues down and the federal government spending money like a drunken sailor, state lawmakers will roll up their sleeves and tackle an $18 billion budget shortfall come January. They should not take on debt, and there is no appetite for a tax increase at the state level, so that leaves but one option: spending cuts.

Contact Information:
817-381-8282

When the 82nd Texas Legislature convenes in January 2011, our state will face many challenges.

We must balance the budget without raising taxes in the face of a projected $18 billion budget shortfall. We must resist continued encroachments by the federal government on our liberty. We must secure our elections and our border. We must continue to reform and reduce property taxes – homeownership is increasingly at risk. We must allow the free market to thrive in order to get Texans back to work.

To advance our conservative constitutional principles in light of these challenges, the Texas Conservative Coalition has drafted a legislative agenda called our “Pledge with Texans,” which I have signed along with forty-seven other conservative state legislators. Click HERE to read the TCC Pledge with Texans.

However, we need help to ensure that implementation of our pledge is fully effective.

Here are three action items that courageous conservatives need to do to help:

1. Please read our Pledge online.
2. Please sign the Citizens Petition in support of the TCC “Pledge with Texans”. Click HERE to go to the petition.
3. Please forward this email so that your fellow grassroots activists can read our Pledge and sign the Citizens Petition.

Please also post the Citizens Petition link (http://txcc.org/citizens-petition) to Facebook and other social networking accounts.

The support of conservative Texans will be invaluable to our success.

Weatherford Telegram

Lance Winter

State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) brought before a packed house of Rotarians last week, a summary related to the Texas economy. His comments concerned the state’s budget, the ever-pressing school finance system and the economy as a whole.

King told the group that Texas had the largest 10-year growth in private sector jobs in the country and that in pre-recession 2008, more jobs were created in Texas than all of the other 49 states combined.

But with the good also comes the bad, he said, noting that the nation is experiencing the worst economy it’s seen in the last 75 years.

“I sit in on a lot of economic briefings and I would suggest that the economy will go further south in the not-to distant future,” he said. “The biggest reason is that you can’t have an economy prosper if it’s based on debt, social services and the re-distribution of wealth.

“You’ve got to have job creation in the private sector not the public sector [and] you have to have consumers spending money and having money to spend.”

He went on to suggest that everything the federal government is doing, in most of the states, is in the opposite direction of that.

“I don’t know how many times government needs to try Keynesian economics and socialism for you to be able to look at history and say, ‘You know, those just don’t work,'” he said.

On the bright side, King said the Texas economy is holding its own and that the 8.2 percent unemployment rate for the state remains below the national average of 9.7.

“Our unemployment rate has been at or below the national average for 41 consecutive months,” he said.

When it comes to the budget, King said Texas is set up on a two-year budget cycle and is currently without a debt balance.

“We don’t have a massive debt like the state of California does,” he said.

Contact Information:
(817) 596-8100

Austin – State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) received the formal endorsement last week of Governor Mike Huckabee, former presidential candidate and host of the popular Fox News talk show, Huckabee. King is seeking re-election to the Texas House of Representatives District 61 seat he currently holds.

Governor Huckabee stated, “Huck PAC and I are pleased to endorse Phil King. Since his election in 1998, Phil has made a lasting impact on Texas public policy; serving as the Chairman of the Regulated Industries Committee, one of the key committees in the Texas House, for three legislative sessions.”

Huckabee continued, “Phil is a commonsense conservative who consistently leads by example, and has rightfully earned a glowing reputation among his peers. I hope you will join me in supporting Phil King – we need him in Austin.”

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