Texas Is Asking Voters to Protect the Rich and Punish the Poor. Will They Do It?
Why legislate the messy way when you can just etch your politics into the bedrock of the state forever? This is why Texans love a good constitutional amendment, and on Nov. 4, we get to vote on 17 of them.
Buckle up, it’ll be a veritable buffet of tax breaks and tough-on-crime chest thumping.
Let’s start with the shiny tax cuts. Do you own stocks? A family trust? Maybe a spare ranch house in Aspen? Congratulations: Proposition 2 (capital gains ban) and Proposition 8 (inheritance tax ban) are here to make sure Texas never, ever taxes that wealth (because we wouldn’t want child healthcare or public schools ever getting their grubby mitts on it).
Yes, even though the state doesn’t tax it now, lawmakers want to double-pinky-swear that they’ll never try it in the future.
Jon Taylor, chair of the political science department at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told The Barbed Wire that Prop 2 is “a reward to wealthy GOP donors,” and Prop 8 is “another gift to GOP donors and the wealthy by banning the possibility of a wealth tax.” In other words, solutions in search of a problem — unless your “problem” is that Texas might someday consider taxing your third vacation home.
The message is clear: Die rich, stay rich, and pass it all down untaxed. It’s trickle-down economics, except the only thing that trickles is champagne at the family estate after the will is read.
https://thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/07/texas-nov-election/