I think giving it back to rebuild certain dams should be a low priority, only helps a few. Now property tax relief for all home owners would be nice. Teacher bonus would be nice. Give the taxes back to the people that put in to it. Even if this means crediting corporations, which would be a large portion of that money.

or build a border wall.

The surplus will end up where it always does, in the pockets of crooked politicians. Just my opinion.

There should never have been that much surplus...very bad budgeting somewhere !!
I'll bet that money was earmarked for something,...bad management ! Someone needs to be fired.

It's not the state that is driving it, it's the sketchy [censored] school districts.

School districts are so wasteful and corrupt.

property owner are footing the big part of this surplus along with everytime a boat or car gets sold its taxed again once the govt gets the money its hard to get it back. school taxes should be paid by the folks that have kids in them .

they actually just failed to pass a bill in the past few weeks that would increase teacher pay.

if they pay teachers more that is less dollars to grift

Wished that was true I have no kids
Why should I have to pay for someone else crumb snatchers

Easy to have a surplus in an election year. Just push needed projects down the road.

The problem is schools aren’t public schools they are government schools. Teachers are essentially government employees. Government has never been know for efficiency and effectiveness. Bureaucracy, corruption, pandering and waste would be their Hallmarks.

Also increasingly over the years parents have turned the blame on the teachers. Their inability to raise children who respect the schools and teachers has degraded the in class environment. That resulted in good teachers getting enough and leaving teaching.

People who have the financial ability put their children in private schools where they can select the schools and the parents are schools clients who can cut off funding any time they want by removing their children. Only a small percentage of the US is able to afford private school.

Parents are captive customers to public schools. Lots of public schools and their staff work hard against a stacked deck. With out them it would be much worse. When parents decide where to live a primary concern in the school districts. The better the school district the higher the property values.

Maybe the state can buy back all the toll roads that foreign entities own and pay off the ones the government owns and get rid of all the tolls on roads that our taxes have already paid to build anyways.

So by you rational if they taxed us to the point nobody could buy anything, which would certainly cure inflation, that would be OK? Now I'm going to hole jump your spot. Lol

Totally clueless

The surplus came from crude oil producer taxes. The price of oil has been really good since the green Dems took over and Texas has been producing the heck out of it. 6% of each barrel sold goes to the state. Just like the lottery that tax was supposed to support schools. Just like the lottery it all goes into the general fund instead.

This increases the likelihood you’ll need assistance in your old age, hopefully you don’t want others to pay for that.