The Texas Miracle That Wasn't

Paul Krugman asked in his recent NYT OpEd,

"so where does the notion of a Texas "job growth" miracle come from?" And, he answered, "Mainly from widespread misunderstanding of the economic effects of population growth … Texas tends, in good years and bad, to have higher job growth than the rest of America. But it needs lots of new jobs just to keep up with its rising population — and as those unemployment comparisons show, recent employment growth has fallen well short of what’s needed."

Felix Salmon: How does employment in Texas compare to employment in the rest of the country.

Nick Rizzo collated the data for this chart, taking employment figures from Google’s Public Data Explorer, and filling it out with population data from the Census Bureau and — for the 2011 population of Texas — the Texas Department of State Health Services. Here’s the result:

The employment-to-population ratio in this chart is lower than the employment-to-population ratio we normally see, because it includes everyone, from infants to convicted felons.

According to the figures we have for 2011, 44.7% of the total US population has a job, compared to 43.5% of the Texas population.

Perry inherited a ratio of more than 47% in Texas from George W Bush, and has presided over a steady decline ever since — including every year of the Bush presidency bar 2005.

Krugman: A Short Course in Miracles

Jailing Undocumented Immigrants Is Big Business

HuffPo: Over the past three years, immigration politics has seen more restrictive legislation at the state level and the unprecedented enforcement of current laws by the Obama administration.

Together, the laws and the stepped up enforcement have the potential to bring tens of thousands of individuals into for-profit jails.

The Department of Homeland Security pays between $50 to $200 per day per person to local, county and state prisons to house apprehended aliens.

Thanks to a concerted lobbying push from the corrections industry, growing numbers of undocumented immigrants could end up in private detention facilities.

Over the past three years, immigration politics has seen more restrictive legislation at the state level and the unprecedented enforcement of current laws by the Obama administration.

Together, the laws and the stepped up enforcement have the potential to bring tens of thousands of individuals into for-profit jails.

"Immigrants for Sale" by the activist group Cuéntame

The recent animated video "Immigrants for Sale" by the activist group Cuéntame illustrates some facts behind the connection between the ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration and the for-profit corrections industry.

The video follows the trail of money and political power behind this piece of the national immigration debate.

A Dominionist Movement For Theocratic Government?

By Michelle Goldberg - Of the three most plausible candidates for the Republican nomination, two are deeply associated with a theocratic strain of Christian fundamentalism known as Dominionism. If you want to understand Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, understanding Dominionism isn’t optional.

Put simply, Dominionism means that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions. Originating among some of America’s most radical theocrats, it’s long had an influence on religious-right education and political organizing. But because it seems so outré, getting ordinary people to take it seriously can be difficult.

We [now] have the most theocratic Republican field [of Presidential candidates] in American history, and suddenly, the concept of Dominionism is reaching mainstream audiences. Writing about Bachmann in The New Yorker this month, Ryan Lizza spent several paragraphs explaining how the premise fit into the Minnesota congresswoman’s intellectual and theological development.

A recent Texas Observer cover story on Rick Perry by Forrest Wilder examined his relationship with the New Apostolic Reformation, a Dominionist variant of Pentecostalism that coalesced about a decade ago. In many ways, Dominionism is more a political phenomenon than a theological one. [Pastors in the movement believe themselves to be modern day prophets or apostles, directly linked to God.

Their aim, explained the article author Forrest Wilder, is "to infiltrate government, and Rick Perry might be their man."]

“What makes the New Apostolic Reformation movement so potent is its growing fascination with infiltrating politics and government,” wrote Forrest Wilder. Its members “believe Christians—certain Christians—are destined to not just take ‘dominion’ over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the ‘Seven Mountains’ of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world.”

The "New Apostles" believe they're intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they’re leading an 'army of God' to commandeer civilian government.

Rep. Schakowsky Announces Bill to Create 2.2 Million Jobs

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of President Obama’s 18-member Fiscal Commission, announced she will introduce the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act, a cost-effective plan to put over 2 million people to work for two years.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)

The time has come for Congress to focus like a laser on the most pressing crisis facing our country – the jobs crisis.

With extended unemployment benefits scheduled to expire at the end of this year, 13.9 million people remain out of work.

The average worker who is unemployed has been searching for a job for more than nine months and recent reports reveal that private sector employers largely refuse to hire those currently jobless.

An additional 8.4 million are working part time because they cannot find a full-time job. In June 2007, 63 percent of adults were employed, now the percentage is 58.2 percent. Despite reports of a Congress immobilized and unable to address the jobs crisis– Congress can and must do something today.

Gallup Poll Has Good News For Democrats, Bad News For Republicans

Following a not some good batch of polling news for congressional Republicans, a new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that Democrats have taken the lead on the first generic congressional ballot poll of the 2012 campaign season.

The poll found that Democrats now have a 51 percent to 44 percent lead over Republicans among registered voters when asked which party's candidate they would vote for if elections for Congress were being held today.

The 7-percentage-point lead on the new poll isn't as strong as the Gallup polls that led up to the major Democratic swing elections in 2006 and 2008 (Gallup says Democrats averaged 11-point and 10-point leads in polls before those elections), but it was much better than most Gallup polls leading up to the 2010 Republican victory, which showed near-ties or Republican leads among registered voters.

Tea Party Endorsements Could Do More Harm Than Good

Gallup also asked registered voters how a Tea Party endorsement would affect their likelihood of voting for a congressional candidate. The effect is nearly 2-to-1 negative, with 42% saying they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate versus 23% saying they would be more likely.

Obama’s Approval Rating Hits Record Low

President Obama’s job approval rating for the first 10 days of August was 4 percentage points lower than it was in the first week of July, significantly less of a drop than the 19-point decline in Gallup's Economic Confidence Index over the same period.

Last week’s 42% average was the lowest of his administration. In terms of the Gallup Daily tracking three-day average that Gallup routinely reports, Obama hit a new low of 40% last week, but by Tuesday of last week the three day rolling average was back up to 42 percent.

However, by Sunday August 14, Obama's three day average approval of the president's job performance had dropped to 39 percent, while 54 percent disapprove.

Both figures are the worst numbers of his presidency.

Austin Chronicle: The Perry Trap

Governor Rick Perry may be new on the national stage, but he's old news in Austin. Over the two decades of his political career, The Austin Chronicle has charted his rise to power.

The Chronicle collected their most insightful stories about Perry's political career – and it hasn't all been secession talk and laser-sighted pistols. The Chronicle's writers have examined his links to big business and big donors, his indiscriminate use of the death penalty, how he's flirted (or bedded down) with every conservative movement from the Religious Right to the Tea Party, and loads more.

Read about Gov. Perry's accomplishments in The Austin Chronicle.

Krugman: The Texas Unmiracle

By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: August 11, 2011 @ The NYTimes

If [Perry] wins the Republican nomination, his campaign will probably center on a more secular theme: the alleged economic miracle in Texas, which, it’s often asserted, sailed through the Great Recession almost unscathed thanks to conservative economic policies. And Mr. Perry will claim that he can restore prosperity to America by applying the same policies at a national level.

So what you need to know is that the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment.

It’s true that Texas entered recession a bit later than the rest of America, mainly because the state’s still energy-heavy economy was buoyed by high oil prices through the first half of 2008.

Also, Texas was spared the worst of the housing crisis, partly because it turns out to have surprisingly strict [state government] regulation of mortgage lending. (emphasis added)

Despite all that, however, from mid-2008 onward unemployment soared in Texas, just as it did almost everywhere else.

In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. That was less than unemployment in collapsed-bubble states like California and Florida, but it was slightly higher than the unemployment rate in New York, and significantly higher than the rate in Massachusetts. By the way, one in four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest proportion in the nation, thanks largely to the state’s small-government approach. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has near-universal coverage thanks to health reform very similar to the “job-killing” Affordable Care Act.

So where does the notion of a Texas miracle come from? Mainly from widespread misunderstanding of the economic effects of population growth.

Read the rest of the Krugman's OpEd @ The NYTimes

Republican's Want To Repeal Health Insurance Reforms

Updated August 15, 2011 @ 12:37am

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) thinks Texas should be able to opt out of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

In an interview with the Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano, Perry claims that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional:

The Constitution says that “the Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes… to provide for the… general Welfare of the United States.” But I noticed that when you quoted this section on page 116, you left “general welfare” out and put an ellipsis in its place. Progressives would say that “general welfare” includes things like Social Security or Medicare—that it gives the government the flexibility to tackle more than just the basic responsibilities laid out explicitly in our founding document. What does “general welfare” mean to you?

[PERRY:] I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care. What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address. Not the federal government. I stand very clear on that. From my perspective, the states could substantially better operate those programs if that’s what those states decided to do.

So in your view those things fall outside of general welfare. But what falls inside of it? What did the Founders mean by “general welfare”?

[PERRY:] I don’t know if I’m going to sit here and parse down to what the Founding Fathers thought general welfare meant.

But you just said what you thought they didn’t mean by general welfare. So isn’t it fair to ask what they did mean? It’s in the Constitution.

[Silence.]

The Constitution gives Congress the power to “to lay and collect taxes” and to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States.” No plausible interpretation of the words “general welfare” does not include programs that ensure that all Americans can live their entire lives secure in the understanding that retirement will not force them into poverty and untreated sickness.

Updated Wednesday January 19, 2011 @ 11:10pm

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 245 to 189 Wednesday to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 passed by the last Congress and signed into law by President Obama less than one year ago.

Three blue dog Democrats joined the 242 Republicans in voting to repeal health care reform -- Rep. Boren (Oklahoma), Rep. McIntyre (North Carolina) and Rep. Ross (Arkansas).

Before the final vote, Rep. Rob Andrews (D-New Jersey) proposed that the bill be amended to not go into effect until a majority of Congress gave up their taxpayer paid health insurance ($700 a month of which is paid by American taxpayers). Eight Republicans have already done this, but the other 234 Republicans have decided to keep their taxpayer paid health insurance.

Original Post Tuesday January 18, 2011 @ 9:59am

A government study released today shows that up to 50 percent of Americans under age 65 have some type of preexisting health condition. The study predicts that 30 percent of currently healthy Americans will likely develop a preexisting condition over the next eight years.

Under the Affordable Care Act of 2010 -- the president's signature health care reform legislation -- policies set to be in place by 2014, these 129 million Americans can receive health coverage despite their previous conditions; if the new law is repealed, millions could risk losing health care or being forced to pay more.

An estimated twenty-seven percent of working-age Texans, or more than 6.1 million people living in Texas, were uninsured in 2010. That's the highest rate in the nation and the second-highest number to California's 7 million people. Under Medicaid expansion provisions of the act, an estimated 2.5 million additional Texans would qualify for health insurance.

But Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has been a staunch opponent of health care reform and his administration has indicated a willingness to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. For Texas hospitals, which absorbed $4.6 billion in unpaid bills and charity care in 2010, that's a problem, Hawkins said.

cagle.com

Today, the Republican controlled U.S. House of Representatives plans to debate a bill titled, "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," to repeal the Affordable Care legislation entirely.

The AP today delivered an awkward fact-check that effectively dismantles the GOP's central argument against the the Affordable Care legislation kills jobs.

The Republican repeal bill, if passed by the Sentate and signed by Pres. Obama, would add roughly $230 billion to the deficit by 2021 and leave about 54 million non-elderly Americans uninsured by 2019, according to CBO projections.

Texas Voter Photo ID Law Doesn't Include Veterans' Photo ID

Texas Republicans have made it harder for young, homeless and traumatized veterans to vote.

MySanAntonio: The new Texas voter photo ID law does not list veterans' identification cards as one of the government issued photo IDs allowed to cast a vote in Texas.

Ann McGeehan, director of the Secretary of State's elections division, said last week at a seminar in Austin that photo ID cards issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are not acceptable forms of military ID to vote, according to a recording provided by the Texas Democratic Party.

Jordy Keith, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state, backpedaled Friday on that determination.

Veteran Suicide Rate Hits New High

After eight deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and a facing a ninth deployment back to Afghanistan, army ranger Staff Sgt. Jared Hagemann kills himself. 'No way' that God would forgive him for what he'd seen, done, he told wife.

KOMO News Seattle, WA

KOMO News:A soldier's widow says a fellow Army Rangers wouldn't do anything to help him before he took his own life - after eight deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army found Staff Sgt. Jared Hagemann's body at a training area of Joint Base Lewis McChord a few weeks ago.

A spokesman for the base tells KOMO News that the nature of the death is still undetermined. But Staff Sgt. Hagemann's widow says her husband took his own life - and it didn't need to happen. "It was just horrible. And he would just cry," says Ashley Hagemann.

More U.S. soldiers and veterans have died from suicide than from combat wounds over the past two years. The U.S. Army suffered a record 32 suicides in July, the most since it began releasing monthly figures in 2009. That number includes 22 active duty soldiers and 10 reservists. Over the first seven months of 2011, about 160 active-duty and reserve soldiers have committed suicide, which is about on par with the number of troops taking their own lives during the same months in 2009 and 2010.

Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 1,100 soldiers have taken their own lives, with the numbers escalating each year for the last six years. Last year alone, 301 soldiers committed suicide -- a new record.

An average of 18 veterans commits suicide every day and five of those are already getting treatment at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). 300,000 of the U.S. military veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to a recent study.

New statistics from the VA show that veterans make up 20 percent of the 30,000 suicides in the United States each year. In 2010, more than 134,000 people made calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Of those callers, 61 percent identified themselves as veterans.

Current TV To Become A 24-Hour Liberal News Network

Current TV president David Bohrman says Current TV owners Al Gore and Joel Hyatt wants to transform his channel into a 24-hour liberal news network.

“Al Gore and Joel Hyatt got the brilliant idea to go and try to hire Keith [Olbermann],” Bohrman told CNN’s Howard Kurtz Sunday. “They did, and discovered lightning.”

“And all of a sudden, they realized that that was going to be the destiny of what the network is,” he added. “And so they hired me to completely transform the network from a bunch of taped documentaries that have been cycling through the day, to a live news analysis, discussion television network that’s going hopefully 24 hours a day, talking about the events of the day and finding other people with something to say like Keith.”

“But with Olbermann not only as the host of Countdown, but the chief news officer of Current, is this going to be an all-liberal network?” Kurtz asked.

“I think it will provide a fair amount of time for liberal viewpoints to be made. It’s not going to be exclusively liberal viewpoints, and we’re going to try not to hide behind the word ‘progressive,’ that I think so many liberals do, and then the people on the right, the conservative world, scoff at,” Bohrman explained.

Gov. Perry's Miracle - All Hat, No Cattle?

Texas Governor Rick Perry is some sort of economic genius, according to Rick Perry, but it’s worth taking a closer examination at his record as governor.

On issues across the board, from Perry’s support for ending Social Security and Medicaid to Texas' pollution record to low tax job creation and his proposal that Texas secede from the United States, the Republican governor has amassed a record of far-right political positions.

Texas, economists note, has long been a low-tax, loose-regulation state, but it hasn’t always thrived—between 2008 and 2010, after the U.S. economy collapsed, the state’s unemployment rose faster than in high-tax Massachusetts.

The New Republic:

The Texas’s unemployment rate, remains over 8 percent, ranked twenty-fourth in the country for unemployment, slightly worse than liberal New York’s. What’s more, not all of those vaunted jobs are great jobs: Texas has the highest percentage of minimum-wage workers in the country, and its per-capita income still sits below California’s.

What is clear is that Texas’s population has been exploding, leading to disproportionate job growth. In the past decade, the state added more people than anywhere else, partly due to fast-growing Hispanic families, but due also to migration from other states. So why are people flocking to Texas?

It could be the state’s lower taxes, though that probably isn’t a big driver: As Brad DeLong of University of California, Berkeley, has noted, Texans pay, on average, 26 percent of their income in taxes, not much lower than the 28.5 percent average in California.

Krugman: The Hijacked Crisis

By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: August 11, 2011 @ The NYTimes

Has market turmoil left you feeling afraid? Well, it should. Clearly, the economic crisis that began in 2008 is by no means over.

But there’s another emotion you should feel: anger. For what we’re seeing now is what happens when influential people exploit a crisis rather than try to solve it.

For more than a year and a half — ever since President Obama chose to make deficits, not jobs, the central focus of the 2010 State of the Union address — we’ve had a public conversation that has been dominated by budget concerns, while almost ignoring unemployment. The supposedly urgent need to reduce deficits has so dominated the discourse that on Monday, in the midst of a market panic, Mr. Obama devoted most of his remarks to the deficit rather than to the clear and present danger of renewed recession.

What made this so bizarre was the fact that markets were signaling, as clearly as anyone could ask, that unemployment rather than deficits is our biggest problem. Bear in mind that deficit hawks have been warning for years that interest rates on U.S. government debt would soar any day now; the threat from the bond market was supposed to be the reason that we must slash the deficit now now now. But that threat keeps not materializing. And, this week, on the heels of a downgrade that was supposed to scare bond investors, those interest rates actually plunged to record lows.

Read the rest of the Krugman's OpEd @ The NYTimes

Consequences Of Republican Priorities

Jackie Calmes offers about the closest a newspaper reporter can come to telling the truth about the consequences of congressional Republican priorities in her NYTimes article:

The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity and anti-tax orthodoxy. Their critiques have grown sharper since, President Obama signed deficit reduction legislation, in which House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he got "98 percent" of what he wanted in the final deal to raise the debt ceiling, and after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of the United States.

But even before that, macroeconomists and private sector forecasters were warning that the direction in which the new House Republican majority had pushed the White House and Congress this year — for immediate spending cuts, no further stimulus measures and no tax increases, ever — was wrong for addressing the nation’s two main ills, a weak economy now and projections of unsustainably high federal debt in coming years.

Instead, these critics say, Washington should be focusing on stimulating the economy in the near term to induce people to spend money and create jobs, while settling on a long-term plan for spending cuts and tax increases to take effect only after the economy recovers.

But Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail refuse to back down.

Read the rest of Calmes article in the the NYTimes.

History's Lessons

Government spending accounts for about 20% of GDP in a given year, so curtailing government spending will detract from GDP growth, other things being equal. This is one reason why financial markets are nervous—much of the developed world is experiencing at best modest economic growth.

And yet, the U.S. and many European countries are launching into spending cuts and austerity programs aimed at reining in their debts. While this is desirable from the point of view of long-term economic health, austerity measures that curtail government spending will, by definition, detract from short-term GDP growth. Investors worry that this hit to growth is occurring at a time when the global economy is already weak and could tip us back into recession.

Indeed, University of California Berkeley economist Christina Romer, who was the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors and a co-author of the Obama stimulus plan, once famously listed six lessons of the Great Depression for policymakers. One of these was “Beware cutting back stimulus too soon.” It is this dictum that the markets fear the government is violating with its newfound focus on austerity measures and fiscal discipline.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, an expert on the Great Depression, once promised that the central bank would never repeat its 1937 mistake of rushing to tighten monetary policy too soon and prolonging an economic slump.

"Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again," Bernanke said back in 2002 at a conference honoring legendary economist Milton Friedman's 90th birthday.

He has been true to his word, keeping interest rates near zero since late 2008, but cuting government spending may end up having a 1937-type chilling effect on the economy, and there is little Bernanke can do to counter that.

Perry Announces Presidential Bid - Bachmann Wins Iowa Straw Poll

Introduced as the "jobs governor," Rick Perry threw his hat into the presidential ring with an economy-focused speech at the RedState convention in South Carolina.

"It is time to get America working again," he said. "That's why, with the support of my family, and an unwavering belief in the goodness of America, I declare to you today my candidacy for President of the United States."

Elsewhere, Michele Bachmann has prevailed in the Ames straw poll, an early though not necessarily determinative assessment of each campaign's organizational abilities. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul came in second place. Here's a breakdown of the results:

Rick Perry Says Social Security And Medicare Are Unconstitutional

Think Progress: Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has, to say the least, a very odd understanding of the Constitution.

He thinks Texas should be able to opt out of Social Security, and he believes that everything from federal public school programs to clean air laws are unconstitutional.

Yet in an interview with the Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano, Perry makes his most outlandish claim to date — Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional:

The Texas Franchise Tax Cost-Recovery Fee Is Not A Tax

With the exception of sole proprietorship businesses, just about all types of companies doing business in Texas must pay a franchise tax. While commonly referred to as the “margin” tax, the formal name of Texas’ business tax is still the Texas Franchise Tax—a tax that Texas has levied in some form since the 1800s. The tax is typically assessed in return for the “privilege” of doing business in a state, similar to a fee (in fact, the U.S. Bureau of the Census in its recap of state finances classifies Texas’ franchise tax as a fee). As a part of its privilege, the owners of the business receive liability protections under state law—the business is a legal entity separate and apart from them.

Throughout most of the 20th Century, the franchise tax was calculated based on each corporation’s net taxable capital—total assets less debt. With the advent of modern accounting principles, the state’s definition of “debt” came under fire in the courts resulting in huge amounts of tax refunds in the 1980s. In 1991, the tax was rewritten to apply to “earned surplus”—essentially defined as corporate profits plus compensation paid to officers and directors. The taxable capital calculation was retained, but for all intents and purposes was relegated to being an alternative minimum tax.

In 2006, lawmakers enacted a sweeping overhaul of the franchise tax as part of their plan to change the way the state funds public school districts. School maintenance and operations property taxes were reduced, while the state’s franchise tax was revamped to replace those direct school property tax revenues. The state also contributed dollars from "excess" general revenues so the overall reforms appeared to be a net property tax cut, but property taxes soon returned to their upward trend. The franchise tax reform was in fact a massive tax cut for corporations doing business in Texas.

In addition to still paying higher property taxes, in the long run, businesses also pass their franchise tax cost on to their Texas customers.

Time Warner Cable is notifying its North Texas customers in monthly statements that a state Cost-Recovery Fee is being added to their monthly billing statements:

Notice on the TWC website: "Effective Friday, August 19, 2011, Time Warner Cable will begin collecting a new fee called State Cost-Recovery Fee to recover a portion of the costs imposed by the State of Texas on the company.

The State Cost-Recovery Fee is not a tax. While TWC is not required to recover these costs by law, we are allowed to recover them as a cost of doing business.

According to a State of Texas Comptroller notice, Texas businesses may charge customers a cost-recovery" fee in order to recoup the Texas franchise tax the State of Texas collects from businesses owners. While businesses who charge customers a Cost-Recovery fee must be careful to use specific "recovery fee" wording, so as to not imply the charge is a direct state tax on consumers, they are, in effect, passing along the Texas franchise tax the state collects from them.

Texas Raids Fund For The Poor To Cut Taxes For The Rich

We have a little break from the heat in north central Texas today, but over the past two months the temperature hit triple-digits 41 times in 42 days. We will likely see some more triple-digit temperature days before this Texas summer ends.

CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports Texas has a fund to help the poor pay their electricity bills. But somewhere between the fund and the people who need it, the money hit a short circuit.

In scorching Dallas, overheated seniors sought relief at an air conditioned Catholic charities center. Mary Ann Torres was also looking for financial relief. She can't afford to power the two window air conditioners that struggle to keep her house bearable.

"I don't think we've ever had it this hot before," Torres says. On a fixed monthly income of $791 her electric bill can top $200.

Texas utility customers pay a little extra on their bills that is supposed to go into a fund to help the poor cover their own utility payments. But in a year of record heat, less than half the fund is being paid out, forcing people to do without air conditioning in triple-digit temperatures.

CBS News - August 12, 2011.

CBS reports that Texas legislators, eager to avoid a tax increase, approved setting aside the Lite-Up Texas money to balance the state's checkbook during the 2011 legislative session. This isn't the first time.

The legislature has repeatedly approved raiding the fund in order to balance its budget without raising taxes.

By 2013, there will be $900 million sitting unspent, with no plans to ever pay it out.

And not only are the poor being shortchanged, but members of the middle class who pay utility bills are being charged that extra fee which does nothing but subsidize keeping taxes low on the wealthy. It's a crisis with life and death consequences. Last month an 81-year-old man was found dead in his hot home - his air conditioner turned off. Relatives say he couldn't afford his electric bill.