Issues

Texas needs a new revenue stream to reduce property tax, fund education, health (& mental health) care, and public safety. A growing number of states are bringing in revenue by legalizing cannabis for adult recreational use. The industry is mature enough to have established best practices, which should be incorporated.

Conservative estimates indicate $1 billion in new state revenue would be realized from legalization. The key is stipulating what % of that money funds public education, etc. in the enabling legislation.

Decriminalization saves the state $300 million in criminal justice costs and saves local property taxes. Licensing fees from the different areas of the cannabis industry is sufficient to fund enforcement. Distributing licenses for the new businesses should formally consider which communities have been most harmed by the decades-long marijuana incarceration protocol and the resulting impact of felony marijuana convictions on housing, jobs and families.

Reliable broadband expands economic, health and educational opportunities for rural communities.

The Comptroller’s office houses the Broadband Development Office, which awards grants and low-interest loans. Glenn Hegar has said that if you need (internet) access, you'll take a gravel road. I disagree. I've tried to go fast on a gravel road. We need high speed internet access.

Work with local governments and cooperatives to provide broadband through the government or coop keep broadband costs low and provide a revenue stream to the local entity.

This may need a legislative change, since the Republican-lead legislature forbade local governments to provide internet after a northern Texas city did so successfully.

For over a decade, the public has been told that "Texas cannot afford" to expand Medicaid to ~2 million adult Texans. The fact of the matter is that Texas is spending MORE to offer less.

Right now, the only adults Texas covers under Medicaid are pregnant people, disabled people (who sometimes have to wait 20 years for approval) and very low-income elderly people. With no preventive care, indigent people have no preventive care. When they end up in the emergency room, that care is paid from our local property taxes.

Additionally, the state is currently spending $100 million dollars more in state tax dollars to deny coverage than we would to expand Medicaid for comprehensive mental and physical health care for ~2 million adult Texans.

Expanding Medicaid will have a tremendous effect on our economy.

Advocate to expand health care to the ~2 million Texans who qualify under federal rules for Medicaid. This would also add half a million jobs and bring in an estimated $45 billion to our state economy.

Like most Texans, I don't want the government in my personal business. I do not want the government in my doctor's office and I sure as heck do not want the government in my bedroom.

We have world-class medical facilities and medical professional here in Texas. Government has no business inserting itself between doctor and patient.

All Texans deserve respect, privacy and body autonomy without government trying to tell us what we can and cannot do with ourselves.

The Comptroller oversees the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO), which oversees renewable energy and alternative fuels. Texas leads the world in oil and gas and leads the country in wind energy. Let’s expand the market and lead the world in energy innovation. This means new good jobs with good benefits.

Innovate! One idea is to work with local governments to implement bi-directional electric vehicles to meet fleet needs – and feed energy to the government’s building, to the supporting utility, to the grid. We have two-times the amount of renewable storage just in Nisson Leaf passenger vehicles – and more bi-directional vehicles are coming onto the market. Save utility costs, fuel costs while growing renewable storage.

Work with stakeholders to standardize fast electric vehicle chargers across all brands and work with TxDOT to space along Texas highways.

Doing nothing about methane emissions is costing us billions of dollars with each climate caused disaster. Texas is a super-emitter of methane, one of the leading causes of our changing climate.

Methane is fuel. Fuel is money. Capture methane on state-owned land to increase profits and increase severance taxes while curbing the root cause of climate change and climate caused disasters.

Water is Texas' greatest economic asset. The Rio Grande ran dry this year for the first time on record. Crops failed and herds sold at a loss because water was so scarce.

Water is precious, yet our state officials allow an unregulated 700 gallons/minute of radioactive (with the properties of nuclear waste) brine to poison the surface water and ground water in West Texas FOR 20 YEARS. This unchecked 700 gal/min is still flowing. This is "Lake Boehmer."

Plug the orphaned toxic water wells that started out as oil wells that the Railroad Commission refuses to touch -- then pursue operators to recover costs.