News

State Representatives Phil King, Dan Flynn, Aaron Pena and Ryan Guillen

The purpose of Proposition 7 is simply to conform the Texas Constitution to the current structure of the Texas Military Forces: the Texas Army National Guard, the Texas Air National Guard and the Texas State Guard.

The Texas State Guard is a volunteer force of about 1,800 guardsmen from all across the State of Texas and is a “first responder” to natural disasters and other emergencies. Over the past two years members of the Texas State Guard have volunteered over 42,000 working days supporting local and state authorities responding to hurricanes, fires, floods and other state declared emergencies.

Article 16, Section 40 of the Texas Constitution was originally written to prohibit civil servants (elected officials and government employees) from holding two different positions with the government at the same time. However, the Constitution also provides several exceptions to this rule – most notably for military service. For instance, if a school teacher, city councilman or police officer serves in the Texas National Guard or the Naval Reserves, there are exceptions for that military service.

The role of the Texas State Guard, first organized during WWII, has grown dramatically over the last eight years and it has become vital to emergency response in Texas. Guardsmen, among other functions, provide shelter management, medical support, assist in evacuations, communications and damage assessment. Most recently, an engineering detachment was organized to assist small communities in reestablishing critical services, such as water and wastewater, after natural disasters such as a hurricane or flood. Recruitment efforts are underway to reflect the fast growing missions of the Texas State Guard.

Many of our guardsmen have jobs with various local, state and even federal government entities. They are teachers, judges, police officers, firefighters who are committed to the State Guard’s motto of Texans Serving Texans. Proposition 7 is simply clean up language to clarify that all Texans are eligible to serve regardless of their employment.

Please join us in supporting the Texas State Guard in its vital service to our state by voting YES on Proposition 7.

Learn more about the Texas State Guard at www.txsg.state.tx.us Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) represents House District 61, Rep. Dan Flynn (R-Van) represents House District 2, Rep. Aaron Pena (D-Edinburg) represents House District 40, and Rep. Ryan Guillen (D-Rio Grande City) represents District 31 in the Texas House of Representatives. All are officers in the Texas State Guard.

KVUE News Austin

Quita Culpepper

The Texas State Guard is there to deal with hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters. The all-volunteer force helps fire and rescue crews in the field and take care of natural disaster victims. KVUE’s Quita Culpepper reports.

Click here to watch the news clip.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Jack Z. Smith

Retail electric providers in Texas’ deregulated market are offering residential rates that in many instances are lower than those of some municipal power companies, electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities that are still under rate regulation, a Star-Telegram survey shows.

A decade after the Texas Legislature passed a law authorizing deregulation, retail electric providers compete intensely to win new customers. They have sharply lowered rates in response to a plunge in prices for natural gas, which is burned to generate much of the electricity produced in Texas.

Deregulation critics have frequently noted in the past that residential electric rates in the deregulated market were considerably higher than those charged by municipal power companies, called “munis,” rural and suburban electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities, or IOUs, in areas such as the Texas Panhandle and East Texas that are outside the deregulated market. But that price gap appears to be narrowing, the Star-Telegram analysis shows.

San Antonio Express-News

Arlene Wohlgemuth

As Congress continues its health care debate, the American public is focused squarely on the implications that current federal proposals will have on our nation’s economy, health-care system and fiscal future.

“The Prognosis for National Health Insurance: A Texas Perspective,” the recent report by internationally renowned economist Arthur Laffer for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, concluded that a reform based on President Barack Obama’s principles — including an estimated $1 trillion increase in federal government health subsidies over 10 years — will accelerate health-care inflation; slow our economy, cost every Texas resident an additional $4,265, and still leave about 30 million Americans uninsured.

But Laffer’s report also addresses a critical angle that has been largely missing from the debate so far: what effect these proposals would have on the various states. As his research found, a larger government role in health care would impose a huge budget burden on Texas.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Jack Z. Smith

There’s a new Texas two-step.

Natural gas prices and retail electric rates are moving in tandem — steadily downward — a trend that could leave many energy consumers dancing with delight.

As of Thursday afternoon, powertochoose.com, the comparison shopping site overseen by the Texas Public Utility Commission, showed 31 retail electric-rate plans priced below 10 cents per kilowatt-hour in the Oncor Electric Delivery service area that includes North Texas.

There were 33 plans priced from 10 cents to 10.9 cents per kwh.

Thanks to plunging natural gas prices, many Texans can secure electric rates that are 25 to 40 percent lower than what they were paying last summer. Rates had soared as a result of spiraling prices for natural gas, which is burned to generate much of Texas’ electricity.

Financial Times

Newt Gingrich

California is in bad shape. It is likely to get worse. As America’s most populous state faces a $26.3 bn budget gap, lawmakers in Sacramento have had no choice but to make desperate spending cuts. Their latest solution? The legislature is debating a plan to release 27,000 prisoners early to save money on correctional facilities.

California, like so many other states facing budget shortfalls, is a victim of decades of reckless spending and unsustainable budgets. It was not always like this. The Golden State’s government services and public institutions – including its prisons – were models for the country in the 1960s and 1970s. But Californian policymakers stopped planning for the future. The state’s population ballooned from 23m in 1980 to 36m in 2008, and demographics shifted dramatically due to immigration. Roads, schools and prisons built with 1975 in mind are now crumbling and overcrowded.

Albany is just as paralysed as Sacramento. New York State legislators, both Republican and Democrat, avoided difficult decisions and kept spending unsustainably high for years. In New York, per capita Medicaid spending is double the national average. New York also has the highest per-pupil spending in the country, but ranked only 22nd in academic achievement in a US Chamber of Commerce state-by-state study of school systems. Even as private sector jobs evaporated, the state awarded 160,000 public sector employees a 3 per cent pay raise this spring. In the face of falling tax revenues because of last year’s crash on Wall Street, legislators increased total spending by 9 per cent. The result: a $17bn deficit in 2009.

Contact Information:
(817)596-8100

Today, State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) announced that veterans with a service-connected disability may reduce their property taxes in 2009 by filling out a simple exemption form at the Parker or Wise County Appraisal District office.

“This exemption has been a long time coming and is going to give veterans an exemption that they so greatly deserve.” King stated, “It is my hope that the State of Texas will continue to find ways to give back to those who have done so much for us.”

A veteran’s percentage of service-connected disability determines the amount of the exemption – from a $5,000 to a $12,000 deduction from the veteran’s property value.

The disabled veteran exemption is available to:
• a disabled veteran;
• a surviving spouse of a deceased disabled veteran, as long as the spouse remains unmarried;
• a surviving minor child of a disabled veteran, if the veteran’s spouse is deceased and if the child is both under 18 and unmarried;
• a surviving spouse of a person killed while on active duty, whether the spouse has remarried or not at application time; and
• a surviving minor child of a person killed while on active duty, if the child is both under 18 and unmarried.

Any eligible person who has not received this exemption should apply by April 30 of the year in question. An applicant may claim the exemption on only one piece of property, such as a home or any other property the applicant owned on January 1. The applicant must be a Texas resident to qualify.

The appraisal district may require proof of the disability, such as documentation from the Veterans Administration or the branch of the armed services in which the veteran served. Applicants may need proof of marriage, age or spouse’s or parent’s death.

For more information about the property tax exemption for disabled veterans, contact the Parker County Appraisal District at (817) 596-0078 or the Wise County Appraisal District at (940) 627-3081. More information is also available from the state Comptroller’s Property Tax Assistance Division at (800) 252-9121.

Dear Friend,

As you know, I’ve been very outspoken in my opposition to the healthcare plan that the Democrats and President Obama have been propagating in Washington. A couple of weeks ago I joined several of my colleagues in the Texas Legislature in sending a letter to the Texas Congressional delegation urging them to oppose the plan as well.

Yesterday I came across this organizational chart (please find link below) of how the healthcare plan will work if it is passed. I hope it scares you as much as it did me. Please take a look at this chart and share it with all of your friends. The federal government has shown that they are unable to run Social Security, Medicare, and many other programs, so why do they now think they can create the largest government program in our nation’s history and have it work properly?

Please join me in voicing your opposition to this plan to your congressional representatives today. It’s a pleasure to serve you in the Texas Legislature.

Sincerely,

Phil King

Contact Information:
(817)596-8100

This week State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) joined Governor Rick Perry in Dallas at a ceremonial bill signing for House Bill 469. King authored HB 469 this past legislative session to keep Texas as the leader in energy innovation by continuing Texas’ significant progress in energy diversification.

“If we are going to bring down the cost of electricity we must learn how to build a clean coal power plant,” King said. “This legislation will incent investors, in a competitive, free market manner, to take the economic risk of building the first ever clean coal/carbon sequestration plant, ultimately creating jobs and new technology. This bill is great for the environment, and truly a winner for Texas.”

HB 469 is based on a free market solution to expanding our energy portfolio in Texas. It will offer tax breaks to bring out the best in private industry to develop and build the first clean coal plants in the world using this innovative technology that captures 70 percent of the carbon dioxide resulting from the generation of electricity by the facility. The bill also gives a severance tax break to oil production companies that use carbon from these plants for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), a process by which carbon is injected into an oil field to recover oil that would otherwise be unreachable by using standard methods.

“Not only will these plants be a boost to the economy, but the carbon used from these plants will allow Texas to recover billions of barrels of oil that we wouldn’t have been able to reach otherwise,” King explained. “That’s why this legislation was such a unique energy solution for Texas. It promotes our energy diversification and keeps us at the cutting edge of energy technology, but also helps us further stimulate our economy by recovering hard to reach oil fields.”

The construction and operation of these clean coal projects in Texas will be a huge addition to the Texas economy. The positive economic impacts of this legislation are numerous, including placing Texas as the leader to develop and export this new technology to other states, creating over 2,000 jobs per plant and pouring billions of dollars in to the economy in capital investment.

Contact Information:
(817)596-8100

State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) today cited fiscal restraint and common sense economics for Texas’ booming economy and why Standard & Poor’s (S&P) raised Texas’ credit rating from ‘AA’ to ‘AA+’ this week.

A statement from S&P on Tuesday explained, “S&P raised its issuer credit rating (ICR) and general obligation (GO) rating on Texas to ‘AA+’ from ‘AA’ based on the state’s continued economic diversification, and expectation that state officials and policy makers will remain committed to the maintenance of an adequate level of reserves in the Economic Stabilization Fund (rainy day fund).” The statement went on to say, “The ratings continue to reflect our opinion of the state’s large and steadily diversifying economy, which despite the recession continues to perform better than the nation in terms of both economic activity and employment.”

King stated, “Conservatives fought off many attempts this past legislative session to unnecessarily raid the rainy day fund and now we are seeing the positive effects of taking that stand.” King went on to say, “Texas has it right – we have ensured our ‘savings account’ is intact, have kept taxes on families and businesses to a minimum, and have kept our government programs in check – that’s why our state is blowing the rest of the nation away in key economic indicators like employment and trade just to name a few.”

King concluded, “If congress and other states would use the ‘Texas Model’ as the standard for how to operate instead of creating more big government programs and raising taxes on business and families to pay for those programs, this country would be a lot better off.”