How could Texas spend its record $32.7 billion surplus? (Texas Tribune)

How could Texas spend its record $32.7 billion surplus? – By Karen Brooks Harper, Yuriko Schumacher and Alex Ford (Texas Tribune) / Mar 13, 2023

If Texas’ budget surplus were distributed directly to Texans, it could pay for 12 years of school lunches, seven months of rent or 11,000 miles of travel. Here’s how to put the big number into perspective.

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$32.7 billion.

Thanks to taxpayers, that’s the whopping budget surplus Texas will have toward the end of 2023.

Your Texas lawmakers are required — per the state’s constitution — to pass a balanced budget. They can spend any amount of the surplus before the 2022-23 biennium ends Aug. 31, or they can add all or part of it into the 2024-25 budget. Or they can do nothing with it at all. Exactly how they decide to use this enormous windfall is now the central conversation before the Texas Legislature.

Need help wrapping your head around such a large number? Let’s break it down in simple terms.

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