A state senator continues to assault assured primary revenue plans after a Houston-area program introduced it will ship $500 a month to a few of the area’s poorest residents.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican from Houston, despatched a letter to the state’s legal professional basic in January asking him to declare the Harris County revenue plan unconstitutional.
Bettencourt’s request got here on the identical day that this system — referred to as Uplift Harris — began taking purposes. The Uplift Harris program plans to supply eligible households in Harris County, which incorporates Houston, $500 a month for as much as 18 months.
County officers used greater than $20 million of federal COVID-19 aid from the American Rescue Plan to fund the mission.
The program acquired greater than 76,000 candidates, in line with The Houston Chronicle. As purposes for this system closed on Friday, Bettencourt appeared on Fox News to additional voice his unhappiness with this system.
“We just can’t hand out money like popcorn on street corners to people that walk by,” Bettencourt informed Fox.
Bettencourt argued in his letter that Uplift Harris violates the Texas Constitution’s “gift prohibition” clause that claims the state legislature can’t authorize any “county, city, town, or other political subdivision of the state” to grant public cash to any particular person.
Bettencourt informed the outlet that evaluating Austin’s assured revenue program, which gave $1,000 a month to low-income households, is like evaluating “apples to oranges” as a result of Harris County is enacting its program on the county stage fairly than town stage.
“The point I’m making about counties involved with universal basic income is that it hasn’t happened before,” Bettencourt informed Fox. “We don’t have anyone else in the state besides Harris doing that. And counties are different than home-rule cities. The state gives [counties] the authority as an extension of the state to do certain tasks.”
Christian Menefree, an legal professional for Harris County, responded to Bettencourt’s claims in a short to the state legal professional basic on Friday, arguing that this system doesn’t violate the reward clause, in line with Houston Public Media.