Holy shit. Texas republicans introduced a bill to give huge tax cuts to *straight* couples having...

[demmiblue]

Holy shit. Texas republicans introduced a bill to give huge tax cuts to *straight* couples having children—with up to 100% cut in property taxes for TEN kids.

The bill’s author said “Get married, stay married, and be fruitful and multiply.”

This is handmaid’s tale shit.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[louis-t]

1. The cuckoos are running the cult.

These people are nuts. Can you imagine if they win the Senate and install a MAGA in the WH?

[forgotmylogin]

21. Who knew Mike Judge's absurd comedy Idiocracy was actually prophecy?

In 2005, U.S. Army librarian Joe Bauers is selected for a government hibernation experiment as the "most average individual" in the entire military. Lacking a suitable female candidate, the military hires sex worker Rita by paying off her pimp Upgrayedd. When the officer in charge is arrested for running his own prostitution ring under Upgrayedd's tutelage, the experiment is forgotten about. Over the next several hundred years, societal expectations and technological advances lead the most intelligent humans to go childless, while the least intelligent reproduce indiscriminately and create increasingly dumber generations.

[Lovie777]

2. And pure white couples get double..................

just saying.

[Celerity]

15. & the bill stipulates that remarried couples do not qualify, so when hubby beats wifey like a drum

she may be loathe to leave him (and he may well threaten her life if she talks about leaving him) and divorce, due to the potential huge new tax load that will be incurred.

@AZinCLE
Replying to
@SawyerHackett

Not just straight couples. Anyone who remarries is excluded too.

[keithbvadu2]

18. 1+

[musette_sf]

26. So, "covenant marriage"

is the only kind that applies. Yep, straight up Handmaid’s Tale. Offred and Luke’s marriage was nullified because he was divorced; she was sent to rape enslavement, and their child was seized.

[Shermann]

37. It's hard to imagine excluding a remarried person from a benefit for married persons in the US nt

[Initech]

3. Honestly what's the difference between the Fox MAGAs and the Taliban?

[Hekate]

5. Not a lot at this point

[Freethinker65]

4. Run away from TX while you still can.

And I wouldn't worry about the State funding of schools. TX will offer incentives for homeschooling, because women will be expected to be staying at home in various states of pregnancy with plenty of time to groom their boys and girls to learn/procreate for TX!

And stay married in that abusive relationship because you will lose that property tax credit!

[Me.]

6. Boy, They Really Are Scared To Tears About The Next Census

[Kaleva]

7. How much support does this bill have? Is there any chance it will pass?

[maxsolomon]

8. This flood of backlash/regressive legislation is coming from somewhere.

ALEC?

There's simply too much in too many states that's too similar. It smells like RW Think Tank cut and paste.

[mopinko]

17. 👆this.

a handful of oligarchs, w shared wet dreams.

[calimary]

38. Seems to be multiplying like a runaway disease.

[Buckeyeblue]

9. I'd rather pay property tax than have 10 kids

[Kaleva]

12. My property tax is $1600 a year

Much cheaper then one single kid

[napi21]

14. No kidding! Can you even imagin the cost on 10 kids? Decades ago some people had a lot of

kids because they had farms & they would have the kids work the farm so no need to hire outside farm laborers. Guess what? No more family owned farms so no need for all those kids.

[ITAL]

19. There are still a few

My wife's family (not her folks, but one of her Uncles) in PA still is in the farming business. Owns a farm of a few hundred acres.


Not many anymore though, that's for sure.

[yellowdogintexas]

42. Where I grew up (Kentucky) there are still plenty of family farms.

The widows and other folks who can't work their own land will subcontract to one of the other farmers in the area. My brother in law works two tracts of land which belong to little old ladies

Most of the farming families will buy up land to keep it out of corporate farming. They want someone they have known forever to work their land,

Sometimes a factory or home builder will buy land but the locals try to keep it local .

[Kaleva]

46. A majority of the corporate farms are family owned

But there are far fewer farms today then pre-WWII and there's far more automation today

[yellowdogintexas]

56. the automation helps the family farmers keep going

with fewer workers. My Nephew runs their farm now, and they employ 3 to 5 legal workers from Mexico. That farm can't even begin to compare with true corporate agriculture - it's just not that big.

Also, if you look into the family corporate farms you will find they have formed a corporation for tax and other legal reasons. To me, it's not corporate unless it is owned by a Big Ag company. My brother in law has an LLC, but that farm is in no way comparable to Big Ag. All the local farms that have been in the same families for generations are in some sort of small corporation. They are small businesses, just like law firms, medical/dental offices, restaurants or any other family or sole proprietor business.

[Kaleva]

57. Most of the large corporate farms in WI are family owned

An example is Rosedale Dairy which is owned by members of three generations of one family. Rosedale is the largest dairy farm in WI.


"The dairy, located near Rosendale in western Fond du Lac County, will now be able to grow their current herd of 700 cows up to their goal of 4,000 cows. In a year, the owners plan to expand to 8,000 cows which will make the dairy the largest in Wisconsin."

https://www.farmprogress.com/weeds/rosendale-dairy-receives-ok-to-expand


The largest potato farm in the country is a family owned operation



"Ron Offutt is one of North Dakota’s and the nation’s premiere agribusiness leaders and philanthropists. As the nation’s largest producer of potatoes and as owner of the largest network of John Deere construction and agricultural equipment dealerships in the U.S., Ron has brought jobs, revenue and opportunities to North Dakota, especially within the state’s agriculture industry."

https://www.governor.nd.gov/theodore-roosevelt-rough-rider-award/ronald-d-offutt#:~:text=Ron%20is%20the%20founder%20and,processing%20and%20retail%20equipment%20industries.

Super sized family farms run small family farms out of business.

[yellowdogintexas]

59. we have Braums Dairy Store here in North TX and OK also a family enterprise

They have 292 small restaurants all over the area which serve the usual burgers, chicken sandwiches, shakes, breakfast food etc. And Hand Dipped Ice Cream. Each store also has a small grocery which is where you buy their excellent milk and milk products. They stock some salads, fresh fruit, coffee, some frozen foods/tons of different ice creams and fresh meat products for when you need to grab something fast to take home and cook. Their prices are of course marked up a bit, but the food is always fresh and service is quick.

Yes they are corporate but not like huge agribusiness. Having their own distribution chain direct to consumer is nice too, and they provide employment with good benefits.

Honestly if I were an owner of farmland, I would not be able to keep up with running it. If Braums approached me, I'd sell because I feel their steward ship is good and I'd have a great nest egg.

[Kaleva]

61. Small farms can survive or even flourish if they find a niche

Like growing produce for a farmers market. Another example is raising hens that lay green or blue eggs.

[yellowdogintexas]

62. yes indeed. The farms in my old area of Kentucky do have a niche:

One of the major crops in SW Kentucky is Dark Fired Tobacco. It is only grown in SW Kentucky and a little bit of Tennessee and is a major component in pipe tobacco and old fashioned chewing tobacco. AFter it is cut it is cured for about a month in a dark barn using aromatic sawdust. (cherry, apple, pear, pecan and walnut with a little brown sugar thrown in)

So that is the niche for Western Kentucky. This crop is so labor intensive that Big Ag wants no part of it. The crops are not large but just about every farm has at least one plot of it. It's hard to get good workers so many of the farmers import legal farmworkers from Mexico. Other than tobacco, wheat, corn, soybeans, beef and pork are the main products.

The other niche there: Mennonites. They have a large community and have been buying up small acreages since the middle 50s. In addition to regular field crops, they have a sawmill/lumber yard, a dairy, a fabulous little bakery (you can buy the cheese from the dairy there), a cabinet and furniture builder (the place to go for Adirondack yard furniture), a tackle shop and probably a few dressmakers. THey may have chicken, beef and pork production but I haven't been around there for years so don't know. These are horse and buggy travelers but they run the most badass farm equipment I have ever seen. (they do a LOT of contracted farming as well as their own)

The Mennonites are a large family run operation but not what I would call corporate.

[Duppers]

31. +100

[keep_left]

10. Typical religious fundamentalist crap. It's pretty much a generic thing at this point.

For the Protestants, it's called Quiverfull. For the Catholics, it's one of several forms of radtrad-ism (e.g. SSPX). They're all basically the same when it comes to natalism and gender roles.

[demmiblue]

11. Rolling Stone: Texas GOP Bill Gives Tax Cuts to Heterosexual Parents

A new proposal would give massive breaks to large families, but only if the parents are straight property owners who’ve never been divorced.

A newly introduced Texas House bill proposes property tax cuts for couples who get married, stay married, and have lots of children. There’s a catch though. In order to qualify for the tax benefit, couples need to be heterosexual, never divorced, and their children born or adopted after their date of marriage. LGBTQ couples, single parents, divorced parents, and blended families will not qualify for full benefits.

H.B. 2889 would provide qualifying couples with a 40 percent property tax reduction if they have four children, with the tax break increasing for every additional child. Couples with 10 or more children would pay no property tax at all. Just getting started? A couple that meets the requirements laid out by the bill gets a 10% reduction even before they have children.

“Supporting Texas means supporting Texas families,” said Rep. Bryan Slaton, who introduced the bill. “Texas will start saying to couples, ‘Get married, stay married, and be fruitful and multiply.”

But the bill won’t be supporting all Texas families and children, just the ones deemed morally acceptable by the state’s Republican party.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/texas-republicans-tax-cuts-straight-couples-many-children-1234689876/

[yellowdogintexas]

43. this will end up at SCOTUS nt

[Igel]

13. Even worse, "neither of whom have ever been divorced."

The text is at https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB2889/id/2718374 .

I was taught that it's best to read a primary source first, work to understand it on its own terms, and *then* compare notes with the secondary sources--otherwise you're told what you're going to read and how you're to understand it. (The exception being a historical novel or historical document, then you want to read secondary sources that aren't derivative but in parallel--basically, understand the context. Critical thinking can be a pain in the brain. One of the best books I've read was on medieval Europe for literature folk--common culture, guilds, economics, politics, wars, daily life, physical culture, intellectual currents, etc., etc. After that was a book on stuff everybody knew--the 8 or 10 ways to make a ladder, for example, the various ways to tan leather, or how a house in a cold climate versus a warm climate with single fireplace should be built. Oh--it was what everybody would know in the 1730s North America. The ingenuity was amazing. Have a scan of it somewhere, should re-read it.)

[Mad_Machine76]

16. Shades of Orban's Hungary

[NowISeetheLight]

20. Ban divorce

After LGBT rights and contraception I can see the Christian Taliban going after divorce next. If they don’t maybe a left wing push for it citing the sanctity of marriage and promise to God ‘forever and ever”? Give them what they want.

[keep_left]

29. They already have a version of that one in certain states.

I believe Louisiana (and other states as well) have some total nonsense called "covenant marriage".

[NowISeetheLight]

48. Wow

I'd never heard of this so I looked it up.

https://ldh.la.gov/page/695

So the couple is basically "locked in forever" with only a couple ways out. Well in the name of GOD maybe all marriages should be required to be covenant in these RED states? I mean they swear before God "forever til death due us part". If marriage is ordained by God and is such a sacred religious event they shouldn't be able to change their mind.

[keep_left]

51. Yes, that's my understanding. Not a lot of ways out of it. All I can say is...

...be careful what you wish for, chuds!

[Karadeniz]

22. Doesn't pass an equality test to me....

[MontanaMama]

24. I believe that is the point.n/t

[Timeflyer]

23. Do the parents lose the tax break when the kids enter foster care?

[TeamProg]

25. Sounds like Big Gub'mnt to me.. nt

[Traildogbob]

27. Who the hell

Can afford health insurance for 10 kids? Pretty sure no one can afford college for 10 kids. So let’s multiply stupid to vote repugs. And all those white kids will not do labor, so where will unemployment come from. I guess they are thinking ahead to replace the migrants working in slaughter houses for 50 cent an hour. Maybe we can pack the military with a draft.

[LiberalArkie]

40. I think they would all be on medicaid

[Ilsa]

41. My experience: Employer group plans don't usually charge premiums

per child, just deductibles per child.

But yeah, kids are expensive, even if they aren't "keeping up with the Joneses."

[NowISeetheLight]

49. Free College

I'm sure free college for the heterosexual Caucasian children of heterosexual never divorced couples is next on the agenda.

[LoisB]

28. I am thoroughly convinced there is a MAGAt Committee of Stupid Legislative Shit

somewhere. What in the actual fu*k is wrong with these people?

[Ms. Toad]

30. The proposed legislation isn't limited to straight couples,

unless you omitted relevant portions of the proposal.

The proposal applies to a "married couple," (not husband and wife) with children who are either born or adopted after the date of the marriage.

[chowder66]

32. Post 15 highlighted the text on Qualifying couples

[Ms. Toad]

34. Interesting.

Pretty sure the discrimination against same gender couples would be stricken based on Obergefell. The prohibition on divorce, though, might pass constitutional muster.

[NowISeetheLight]

50. SCOTUS

I think this is an expectation that SCOTUS will overturn Obergefell at some point. Just like Iowa pushing thru a gay marriage ban right now.

[Ms. Toad]

52. It is certainly a fear -

I'm not at the level of expectation yet.

(And legislation/ballot initiatives are still inherently mor)e political than judicial decisions.

[3catwoman3]

33. They have something like thus in Russia.

It's called the "Mother Heroine" award. Started with Stalin. Revived by Putin.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/18/europe/putin-mother-heroine-award-decree-intl/index.html

[Evolve Dammit]

35. Un-fucking-believable. And it will pass in TX, as sure as gas passes through an asshole. Hmm.

Sounds like a good comparison..

[Duppers]

36. As if the planet it doesn't have too many people already.

Is the Earth really overpopulated?

Yes, for two main reasons. First, people are rapidly displacing wildlife species across the globe, initiating a mass extinction event.

Second, we are degrading ecosystems that provide essential, irreplaceable environmental services that future generations will need to live decent lives.

Both these trends are driven, in large part, by immense and unprecedented numbers of human beings. Because there are too many of us to share the Earth fairly with other species and with future human generations, Earth is overpopulated.

https://overpopulation-project.com/motivation-and-project-objectives/

[area51]

58. +1 n/t

[LiberalArkie]

39. At least it would help social security and medicare when all the kids go to work.

[Rebl2]

44. Yea

Pretty sure nobody wants ten kids these days.

[NickB79]

45. Hell, they can't even keep the heat on for the kids they already have in Texas

How many more do they want to freeze to death?

[dickthegrouch]

47. Don't they hate unfunded mandates?

I therefore propose an amendment:
The associated shortfall in school and other normally taxpayer funded social welfare is to be funded exclusively by the proponents of the legislation.

[Mr.Bill]

53. Cutting taxes for people who are doing things that demand more schools and other infrastructure?

That's some sound Texas fiscal policy, right there, I tell ya.

[Jack the Greater]

54. Sounds like a bill written by someone with something to sell or rent

Real estate agents and landlords

[The Bopper]

55. Looks like

A whole lot of welfaring in Texas’ future. Their minimum wage is $7.25 and we can imagine and someone will have to raise the kids. A couple of years down the road the “outrage “ will again be the game plan to keep welfare recipients from voting.

[budkin]

60. Another draconian bill that will EASILY pass and be signed into law

Fuck this shithole state.