Texas Democratic Party: Moving Texas Forward

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White won’t rule out using a tax increase to fix the looming state deficit, and Gov. Rick Perry’s team can hardly contain its glee.

Perry’s campaign staff and his vast web of former staffers and advisers love to work themselves into a lather whenever an opponent gives them an opening for criticism. They hit the phones, call their favorite reporters and ask some variation of, “Can you believe he (or, in the primary, she) would say that? At a time like this?”

So it was Tuesday, when White said at a breakfast hosted by the Texas Tribune what he’s said previously: He won’t rule out raising taxes as a solution to a budget shortfall expected to be at least $11 billion next year. Of course, he’s not saying he wants to raise taxes, either.

White told the American-Statesman editorial board before the March primary that he didn’t know whether the shortfall could be closed without higher taxes.

“First of all, I’m not going to pretend that I’m dictator,” he said then. “I’m going to be governor, and if we don’t have a bipartisan group in the Legislature working with me who knows that I come to the table without strings attached, it’s going to be a lot harder for us to get the solution to these problems.”

For more go to the Statesman article.