What Happened to Bushs 1997 Proposal?
All tax bills in Texas must originate in the Texas House of Representatives. House Speaker Pete Laney formed a special committee to review Bush’s plan. In spite of Bush’s full-court-press lobbying efforts, the committee scrapped his plan and started from scratch. Bush signed on to the House version despite it being radically different than his proposal. One particularly controversial provision in the House bill would have “guaranteed tax-exempt status” for almost 50 real estate investment trusts (REITs) which own and manage about $7 billion in Texas commercial real estate [Houston Chronicle 4/23/97]. The trusts’ total property taxes would have been cut between $10 million to $15 million. [Houston Chronicle 4/23/97]. One trust, Crescent Real Estate Equities, founded by Bush business partner Richard Rainwater, would have saved at least $2.5 million in property taxes under the bill. Bush’s blind trust owned about $105,000 in Crescent stock in 1997 [Houston Chronicle 4/22/97]. The Texas Se
