Texas spent more than $11 billion doing the federal government’s job on the border during the Biden years. This week Washington announced it would reimburse about $7.5 billion of it, plus a chance to apply for a little more from a separate fund. Daniel Miller put the odds of a full reimbursement at about zero. Texas taxpayers eat the difference, and Texas remains one federal election away from the same open border. He paired it with a Congressional Budget Office report that dropped right before airtime: federal debt held by the public goes from 101 percent of GDP this year to 175 percent in 2056 under current law, and to 222 percent if interest rates run one point above CBO’s projections.
Most of the mail was about the September 30 Texas House hearing on the Speaker’s interim charge to examine admitting three or more New Mexico counties. Miller called it a Hail Mary. Counties are administrative subdivisions of a state, not sovereign entities, so New Mexico would have to sell or cede the land, and Santa Fe will not give up counties that sit on so much of its oil and gas revenue. Unlike the Greater Idaho effort in Oregon, no county has even voted on it. The upside for Texas would be economic only. The real opening is the argument itself: if legislators say those New Mexicans deserve a say in their government, they cannot keep denying Texans a vote on the Texas Independence Referendum Act. Miller will not be at the hearing because of a travel conflict, but TNM is submitting its white paper, and he urged everyone to file electronic testimony, which stays open until the committee gavels out.
He also answered a frustrated 78-year-old supporter who asked why more people are not on board. The support is already there. Take even a hostile poll at 35 percent and a third of the roughly one hundred people you know agree with you. Finding them and connecting them is where organizing starts. He closed on the midterms, where data centers, water and school vouchers are cutting across party lines, and on why TNM keeps independence the main thing: the Scottish National Party turned its 2014 referendum into a vote on its own manifesto and broke its own coalition.
Questions answered in this episode
- If foreign hackers can shut down or poison a water supply with a click, what protects Texas?
- Are you going to the September 30 hearing in Austin?
- With gas prices this high, is the trip to Austin needed, or is online testimony enough?
- Texas pays more than it gets back and eats the border bill, so why are more people not for independence?
- Which candidates on the November ballot support Texas, so I can vote for them?
- Have you ever been punched in the face?
- How does it look for the New Mexico counties joining Texas, and what would the upside be?
- What about the West Virginia precedent for taking counties from another state?
- What happens if Democrats win in Texas, and what happens to the border wall?
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