[Excerpt]

With little more than five weeks left in the legislative session, the House is contemplating passing something worse — House Bill 5, a less transparent and potentially far more costly tax incentive program than Chapter 313, which forfeited tens of billions of dollars in school property taxes in order to lure new businesses to local school districts....

But with no corporate income tax, lax environmental regulation, and a large workforce, Texas can compete for jobs without allowing wealthy companies to get more school property tax breaks. When Texas allows corporations to bypass traditional tax obligations, it forces regular taxpayers — that's the rest of us — to pay more for schools, roads, health care and other vital services. And when tax incentives are structured like HB 5, without adequate mechanisms for community input and accountability to ensure that corporate promises are kept, state lawmakers should vote against them.

Editorial: House Bills Rewards Companies at Expense of Our Schools, Austin American Statesman [pdf]