Good morning, 

We’ve received a lot of questions from folks wondering if they are required to wear a mask when voting. The answer leads today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Thursday, October 15, 2020
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• A new study from the non-partisan Tax Foundation finds the United States ranks 21st among developed nations in tax competitiveness. This is an improvement from previous rankings, due in large part to a variety of reforms championed by the Trump Administration.
     
• However, those gains in competitiveness could be erased by a Joe Biden victory in this year’s presidential race.  
   
• “Proposals like increasing the U.S. corporate tax rate or implementing new, distortive tax policies, such as a wealth tax or corporate surtax, could reduce U.S. competitiveness at a time when businesses are already struggling and countries around the world are making their tax codes simpler and more attractive for investment.” – Tax Foundation
   
• Those proposals, of course, are front-and-center of the Biden economic plan. For example, Biden has proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 percent.
   
• Quick reminder on real-world economics: Businesses don’t pay taxes, they remit taxes. The cost of taxes are borne by business owners, shareholders, employees, and customers. Business taxes are paid in the form of lost opportunities, lower wages, reduced profits, and higher prices. Business taxes are a way to hide the full cost of government from the general public.

• The City of Austin is hoping voters will approve a monstrous tax increase on themselves. Jacob Asmussen reports the all-Democrat Austin City Council is asking voters to approve raising the tax rate, which will result in charging the average homeowner more than $300 to their annual city property tax bill.
     
• Amid an economic crisis where government officials’ recent shutdowns have forced at least 132,000 local residents out of work, Austin business owner Shannon Sedwick says the tax hike could cripple local businesses and harm families.
   
• “There’s no money … this is a bad time to be talking about adding to our property taxes.” – Shannon Sedwick

• Collin County has long been considered a Republican stronghold, but Erin Anderson reports heavily funded Democrats are looking to flip two seats there this November. (Every partisan elected office in Collin County is held by a Republican.)
   
• Republican State Reps. Matt Shaheen and Jeff Leach are once again in tight races, after just barely beating out Democrat opponents in 2018. 
   
• Shaheen is facing the same Democrat opponent, Sharon Hirsch, who he beat last time by just 391 votes out of over 68,000. Hirsch is a retired Plano ISD staff member and Democrat Party activist. She’s received $700,000 in campaign contributions this cycle—over $300,000 from the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee, Flippable Texas Victory Fund, failed senate and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s Powered By People PAC, and other Democrat groups.
   
• Leach’s Democrat opponent, Lorenzo Sanchez, is a local realtor who says he will be the first openly LGBTQ+ man in the Texas Legislature. Sanchez has received over $820,000 in campaign donations, the bulk coming from the same Democrat groups backing Hirsch.
   
• Shaheen has brought in $444,000 in donations this election cycle, according to the latest campaign finance reports analyzed by Transparency USA. Meanwhile, Leach has raised more than $1 million this election cycle, after winning his 2018 race with 51 percent, a margin of just under 1,700 votes.

• Dallas’ latest crime report revealed a shocking increase in kidnappings and drug crimes in the city compared with this time last year, as well as increases in arson, aggravated assault, and homicide. Robert Montoya has the details.
     
• Keep Dallas Safe’s Amy Gibson said her organization wants the city council “to provide a specific plan to address the violence and vandalism they have allowed to occur.”
   
• March for America is hosting a “Back the Blue rally” this Saturday morning in downtown Dallas.

• Continuing a series looking at endorsements during the 2020 general election cycle, Jacob Asmussen reports on those made by Texas’ oldest and largest pro-life organization.
   
• Texas Right to Life has been working to protect life from conception through natural death since the early 1970s. The organization’s political action committee has this year issued endorsements in races ranging from township councils to the White House.

• In Case You Missed It: In this week’s edition of the Luke Macias Show, he explains why he thinks Attorney General Ken Paxton will resist calls that he resign from office, and then explores Gov. Greg Abbott’s apparent hatred for bars. 
   
• Texas Scorecard sponsors a growing lineup of podcasts. You can find them on your favorite podcasting platforms, or by visiting our website.

SHOP TALK: Efforts are under way by leftist employees to unionize the Democrat-promoting Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Frankly, I can think of nothing better than them succeeding in unionizing the Morning Snooze and the Startlegram; it will kill those dying, leftwing propaganda machines even faster.

Meanwhile, Texas Scorecard is growing because we are relentlessly pro-citizen and unabashedly pro-liberty.

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