The Texas Senate just cut property taxes by $4.8 billion, a cut similar to a proposal by Gov. Rick Perry and to legislation already passed in the House. According to the Houston Chronicle,

All three proposals are designed to cut public school property tax rates by raising business and consumer taxes. The burden of paying consumer taxes falls most heavily on the poor and middle class.

The Chronicle notes that "the Senate's proposed sales tax increase remained lower than either the House or Perry proposals"-in other words, the Senate is cutting money going to schools without making up for it, but (for now at least) they're not sticking consumers with as much of the bill. Anyway, the big news here is the property tax CUT that both houses and the governor agree on, along with the fact that the burden will consequently fall on the lower and middle classes to make up for the shortfall in school funding.

But because the final Senate bill cut property taxes by $2 billion less than the original bill did, this is the headline:

TEXAS SENATE SCALES BACK PROPERTY TAX RELIEF

The Senators, so cruelly withholding much-needed "relief," appear rather villainous -- when in reality they're cutting taxes by the same amount as the House and governor want to. In fact, they're arguably doing a better job of "relieving" taxpayers, as they aren't raising sales taxes by as much.