Looks like Richard Raymond had the right idea on "fees" (taxes)

Raymond: A tax by any other name is still a tax

From Texas Watchdog.org

Pardon the distraction, what with all of the newspaper headlines of state budget oxes being gouged, slashed and otherwise gored in everyone's backyard other than mine, but Rep. Richard Peña Raymond was prescient.

Back in December, Raymond, D-Laredo, said he was going to ask the Legislature to call for an amendment to the state Constitution requiring that any form of revenue generation for the state be called a tax. A month later the green eyeshade crowd at the state Legislative Budget Board produced a preliminary budget that calls for $13.7 billion in cuts in all sorts of programs for the coming two years but also an increase of $131 million in fees, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Let's not kid ourselves. If the panic peddlers are correct and there is a $27 billion budget shortfall, these fee increases represent less than .5 percent of that. But as Raymond said, just because you call something a fee or a surcharge doesn't mean it isn't wrung out of the wallets of taxpayers.

And Raymond couldn't be more right just now with the inevitable backlash building in anticipation of the voting of a new conservative Republican super-majority in the Texas House that has made government spending its bright and shining issue. Raising anything (insert preferred euphemism here) right now might not be good for business.