Stupidity Got Us Into this Mess: Memorial Evening Meeting Still On: Prep for Bastrop Hearing on SpaceX Subsidies
- LIV Team
- May 24
- 2 min read
For you young'uns who may not know who Will Rogers was, you need to. His quips come in handy to know that we haven't all of a sudden gotten stupid. Human beings, rich or poor, have never been even close to perfect.
That is true of the Bastrop County Commissioners Court, an all-Republican Court. They appear not to have noticed Texas GOP Platform 78, as they plan to subsidize Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), controlled by the richest man on planet Earth. Local Republican activist, Carol Spencer, has attempted to remind us in her blog post, Enterprise Zone Tax Breaks? No!:
"No Corporate Welfare: We encourage government to divest its ownership of all businesses that should be run in the private sector. We oppose all bailouts of and subsidies to domestic and foreign government entities, states, and for all businesses, public and private. We agree with the Texas Constitution’s requirement for fair and uniform taxation and oppose special treatment or tax breaks for favored industries or companies. We call for repeal or sunset of existing subsidy or special-interest tax exemptions, including the Special Events Trust Fund program, the Texas Enterprise Fund, Moving Image Industry Incentive Program, and lab-grown meat incentives, and now request repeal of Chapter 403.601 of the Texas Tax Code. […] (Plank 78, 2024 Texas GOP Platform, * [LIV note: The highly controversial Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) is not part of the Texas “Enterprise Zone Program” that is the subject of Tuesday’s hearing --- TEF is a slush fund run by the Governor to make cash grants to companies threatening to leave the state. Elon Musk has played that game before, so we would not be surprised if he tries to double-dip again.]
LIV will provide citizen comments to the SpaceX Subsidies proposed by the Bastrop Commissioners Court this coming Tuesday, May 26. The meeting starts at 9 am, with the hearing at 9:30 am.
We will meet on Monday @8 pm on Zoom to prepare citizen comments for the hearing. RSVP here to join us. See the items we've parked there for you to review before the meeting. We also hope the Texas Democratic Party improves their anti-corporate welfare plank at their convention this year.
Stupidity got us into this mess, but brains and especially heart might get us out.
