Texas Political Culture

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Texas, the second largest state, and one of the seven states that do have an income tax; it says much about the political culture, ideologies and public opinion that characterized Texas. There are three different types of political culture: moralistic, individualistic and traditionalistic. The first one, moralistic, is characterized by encouraging governmnet involvement in economic and social issues. Government is seen as a public service to improve the living conditions of those who are governed (). The individualistic culture relies mainly in the marketplace. In other words, the government is limited in order to keep the marketplace functioning. This political culture views government as an ‘enemy’ that needs to limit its involvement in public …show more content…

Individualistic in that government is supposed to maintain a stable society but at the same time intervene as little as possible, and has a faith in idividual initiave. For example, Texas has a favorable support for private business and has limited government with restricted powers. On the other hand, the traditionalistic aspect of the state politics are exemplified by the long history of one-party dominance in state politics, the low level of voter turnout, and social and economic conservatism (Explaining, web). The conservative ideology (right-wing) according to Dr. Kim, is opposing government regulation of economiclife and supporting government regulation of personal life. In other words, a individual is considered a conservative when believes in personal responsibility, free markets. They believe the government should give the people a certain amount/the necessary of freedom in order to persue their own goals and interests. On the other hand, the liberal political ideology (left-wing) is known as an ideolgy that 100% supports government regulations on its citizens’ economic life. But, opposes completely on government regulation of personal life. Liberals, see as an necessity for governent to solve problems, and believe the role of government must be …show more content…

In other words, Texas does not levy and individual income tax, instead the revenue is largely generated through property and sales taxes. Property taxes like your house, a place you own, or where your business is at, those are in some way ‘local taxes’ since the state is the one who is in charge of them. There are two type of taxes, progressive and regressive; the progressive taxes take a larger porcentage of income from taxpayers as their income rises (What is, web). Regressive taxes is the exact opposite, the tax is not based on ability to pay. Texas has one of the most regressive tax systems in the US, the reason? Because of their state taxes, where everyone pays the same tax rate regardless of their income. Inside Texas, however, the state’s tax system is not universally beloved. Although few are calling for Texas to impose its own income tax, the way the state employs property, sales and business taxes to finance services, particularly education, draws criticism and debate across the political spectrum (Batheja, web). Also, some critics say shifting away from income taxes and toward sale taxes puts a greater burden on poor people, who at the end would pay a higher percentage of their income to taxes that wealthy ones do(Dealer, web). In other words, the lower class is always the more affected by this type of taxes (regressive), because the way taxes

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