Absolutely, if the parents dont care, the kids dont care. Think of the movie "Idiocracy". Thats seems to be where we are heading.
Well, yesterday was interesting. In the morning, Debra held an informal meeting in the Capital Grill cafeteria an hour before the Ways and Means committee was due to convene. She explained that the general public never attends these meetings and legislators had told her that if 15 people showed up, they would be impressed. We ended up having 50-70 people there in person. In addition, the Campaign For Liberty petition gathered just over 6,000 signatures in roughly 48 hours. I got to the Ways and Means committee room just as the meeting was convening. The room was already packed and standing room only in the back. I stood in the back near the door (couldn't get any closer in). Some of the lobbyists (suits) who came late and stood near me couldn't see into the room and were really puzzled by the crowd and asking what was going on. haha. Debra was scheduled to testify last, but ended up going first when the frist scheduled speaker was late and not available when called. She read her prepared remarks and the panel listened. They did not ask any questions. The speaker who came after Debra also spoke to the issue of major problems / abuses / inequities with the current property tax system and didn't push any specific reform but echoed a desire to eliminate them completely so that Texans can rightfully own property. The Ways and Means committee members asked her a lot of questions and she had answers. I saw a couple of candidates for various offices in attendance and spoke with them briefly in the hallway afterwards. Debra's daughter Janise explained to me that their current proposal is updated from the one that Debra campaigned on a couple of years ago. Her campaign proposal called for eliminating property taxes and achieving revenue neutrality entirely with modifications to the sales tax base and rates. Since then, they had some experts analyze the plan in more detail and realized it was problematic. They are now calling for a two tiered solution of sales tax modifications along with a "fair tax" (flat tax) for business. They claim it will be more equitable than the current system. I need to study it more to digest the ramifications.
