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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed another lawsuit against the Biden Administration this time over a provision in the American Rescue Plan Act.

The act is mainly meant to assist citizens who are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The problem? According to Attorney General Ken Paxton, the American Rescue Plan Act's tax mandate demands that Texas does not use funds to directly or indirectly offset tax revenue reduction caused by changes in tax policy.

The statement from Attorney General Ken Paxton's office can be read below:

"This is yet another attempt by the federal government to unlawfully exert control over how sovereign states operate. While hiding behind a deceptively friendly name, the Act effectively removes Texas’s ability to lower taxes while granting Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen power to take back federal aid funds if they disagree with state tax policies. For Texas, which successfully operates on a low-tax model and continually finds ways to reduce tax burdens on citizens, the Tax Mandate is particularly intrusive,” said Attorney General Paxton. “By design, Congress lacks the power to assert control over states and cannot coerce a state into adopting a policy. The Tax Mandate, which does precisely that, blatantly violates the Constitution and cannot stand.”

 

The threat created by the Tax Mandate not only prohibits Texas from eliminating taxes, reducing tax rates, or increasing tax credits, it also prohibits the adoption of enforcement policies regarding taxes that would lead to reduced revenues. For example, if Texas decided not to enforce a given unemployment or payroll tax against a struggling small business or to reduce property taxes in a district, the state would be stripped of funding meant to assist those recovering from the pandemic.

This is just the latest lawsuit from AG Paxton against the Biden Administration. Previously, the attorney general sued the current president's administration over "failing to take custody of criminal aliens," for COVID-19 rules at the Texas-Mexico border, and Biden's cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline.

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