Greg Abbott talks about what's going on in Texas and how he's going to deal with the Democrats going back to session, Beto Ocasio-Cortez, the FAA, and much, much more!
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00:03:27.880We are excited to have Greg Abbott on.
00:03:30.780Named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2024.
00:03:36.000He's running the eighth largest economy in the world.
00:03:39.340Texas, made in Texas, never been a bigger brand.
00:03:42.860We are home to more than three million small businesses that employ almost half of all working Texans.
00:03:50.380Texas led the way out of the 08 recession, and it's leading the way again because the government doesn't tell everybody exactly what to do.
00:04:00.200It is a great place to run a business.
00:04:02.660And I think if he can get his property tax reform through, he will also make it a great place to live.
00:04:13.400It's getting a little expensive, but he knows that and he's working on it.
00:04:16.440He's here to talk about the Texas redistricting.
00:04:20.360Looks like, at least, Governor, welcome to the program.
00:04:36.020The Democrats say that they are coming back to put all this in context to make sure the audience knows what's going on.
00:04:42.960So the governor has the ability to call a special session the last 30 days.
00:04:48.120This one was scheduled to end early next week.
00:04:50.840But yesterday, the House and Senate agreed they were going to adjourn at the end of this Friday.
00:04:58.200And I said that I was going to call back another special session beginning immediately.
00:05:03.260And it was after that that the Democrats, I think, learned that their fate was they were going to have to take up permanent residency in Illinois or California, wherever they were.
00:05:12.080If they did not come back and that's when discussions began that they were going to be actually coming back.
00:05:18.100And so the word on the street and the word in the news is that they are coming back and they will be part of the special session that begins either on Friday of this week or Saturday of this week.
00:05:30.160But again, we'll see when and if they show up, we will be prepared.
00:05:35.700If they don't show up, we will be prepared if they do show up.
00:05:38.860Either way, I'm going to say this, and that is these congressional district maps, they're going to pass as well as the other items on the agenda.
00:06:06.620And we have almost two thirds of the Texas House made up of Republicans because we do not have actually two thirds.
00:06:14.180It means that the one third, a little bit more than one third of the Democrats, they can break the quorum under current law.
00:06:20.100By the way, current law that needs to be changed.
00:06:22.020But that point aside, there will be plenty of votes to make sure that the map that passed out of the Texas Senate will also pass out of the Texas House.
00:06:31.520Gavin Newsom has just demanded that you stop your redistricting efforts.
00:06:37.640He said he was going to retaliate by adding five more Democratic seats in California to cancel out the five that Texas is going to add.
00:06:46.220He said, Governor Abbott, you are not entitled to five congressional seats.
00:06:59.700So for one, there's so many things wrong with that in Texas, for us to redraw congressional lines and make sure that people in Texas are going to have the ability to vote for the Republican candidate of their choice in these congressional seats.
00:07:18.980All it requires is for the governor and call a special session on it and for a majority of the Texas House and Senate to vote on it.
00:07:25.940In California, they have to go through this complex constitutional process, which really means they would not even be able to get it done.
00:07:32.720But that point aside, if they still really wanted to get something done, it's impossible because they are so gerrymandered in the first place.
00:07:43.480They have almost eliminated all Republican members of Congress out there.
00:07:47.580Glenn, this is the biggest issue that surfaced because of this redistricting battle, and that is most Americans had no idea how much California, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts had gerrymandered their state so that they had purged pretty much every Republican from the United States Congress.
00:08:07.640And so California with Gavin Newsom is kind of like someone showing up to a gunfight but forgot to bring the bullets because he doesn't have any bullets to shoot in this fight, whereas Texas has plenty of bullets to shoot to make sure that we will maintain a congressional district in Texas that's going to be more Republican, more representative of the values and votes in our state,
00:08:30.080but also capable of stretching that if we do have states like California or Illinois, whatever the case may be, if they go full scale and really rig the system the way that Gavin Newsom is talking about doing, if those rules apply, then Texas can gain more ground than California can.
00:08:48.700You said that Beto should be arrested over his fundraising for Democrats on the run. What law did he break?
00:08:56.100So, first, let me tell you what he said, and I'll tell you what law that he broke.
00:09:01.300And I am quoting to you what I saw and actually posted on my X account of what Beto said in writing, at least it was in quotations.
00:09:12.540And that is, he suggested that if these Texas Democrats were to skip the vote, not vote, break quorum, meaning not uphold their responsibility to, say,
00:09:25.760in the legislative session, then he would give all of the House members who evaded Austin money to support them.
00:09:37.100So this is what you call a quid pro quo, if that's exactly what happened.
00:09:42.840So, Glenn, that would be bribery if that's what took place.
00:09:46.700And that is a second-degree felony in the state of Texas.
00:09:50.420And I pointed it out in part for him, but really aiming the target at the Texas House members because it exposes these Texas Democrat House members who ran away to charges of bribery.
00:10:04.000But also, that charge of bribery would be grounds for them to actually have forfeited their Texas House seat that would vacate it and allow us to fill it.
00:10:13.360There were reports that Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett could lose her seat because of the new map.
00:10:19.980It would boot her out of her own current district.
00:12:11.860Let me, you know, pare down exactly the property tax by telling you this.
00:12:16.800And that is to ensure other taxes would never be imposed in the state of Texas, we made unconstitutional the income tax, the death tax, the capital gains tax, and the transactions tax.
00:12:31.100And there's another one I'm forgetting right now.
00:12:33.060Bottom line is we made unconstitutional all these other taxes.
00:12:36.780Now what we're trying to do is to trim down the property tax.
00:12:40.500Let me tell you what the challenge is.
00:12:42.060And the challenge is the state of Texas does not impose a property tax itself.
00:12:48.860And so when we strive as a state to pare down what local governments tax, we have only several options.
00:12:55.940And that is to increase the homestead exemption or to buy down that property tax rate.
00:13:01.400You know, one thing I know you heard me talk about before, and that is to eliminate the largest part of the property tax is the school property tax.
00:13:10.240And one of my goals was to eliminate the school property tax, which would go a long way to eliminating the property tax.
00:13:18.560That said, let me tell you where we are, where we're going.
00:13:21.420So where we are after we finish the regular session through the combination of the increase in homestead exemption as well as buying down or reducing those school property tax rates, at least at the senior level.
00:13:34.220If you're a senior, the average senior, through the combination of all this, will pay zero dollars, none, for their school property tax.
00:13:46.920Others will still have to pay a level of school property tax.
00:13:52.400That said, Glenn, there's a couple of more things we need to do.
00:13:56.840And we're going to get some of this done in this special session.
00:14:00.800It looks like it'll be the second special session.
00:14:02.940But one is to make further cuts in the property taxes.
00:14:09.600But secondly, we've got to understand this.
00:14:11.020Mayor, I told you to begin with it, it's the local governments that impose the property tax.
00:14:15.180So what I want to see done is I want to put the same restrictions on local government that exists on state government, and that is spending limits.
00:14:29.160And we've got to tie the hands of these local governments from increasing your property taxes, even having a chance to increase it.
00:14:37.240And so the state has four constitutional spending limits.
00:14:41.900Local governments have zero spending limits.
00:14:45.680They must, at a minimum, be constrained to spending no more than population growth plus inflation.
00:14:50.740If they do that, you will see a dramatic reduction at your local level.
00:14:56.260And one thing I know that you face with, and others do, you open up your property tax bill, and it's like not one or two items, not like the school district and one other item.
00:15:05.740It seems like there's 14 different items on there.
00:15:14.240Well, I have to tell you, while we're here on school, Stu and I were just talking, first day of school, at least for his kids here in Texas.
00:15:20.720And the changes that are coming in the schools, can you just list some of these?
00:15:24.420No cell phones in any school in Texas now, beginning this year.