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- The Texas Attorney General's office is suing Houston's home county over a guaranteed income pilot.
- The Uplift Harris pilot program provides $500 monthly for 18 months to 1,928 selected families.
- The lawsuit claims this pilot violates the Texas Constitution by giving public funds to individuals.
The Texas Attorney General's office sued Harris County, which contains Houston, over its new guaranteed income pilot that would give nearly 2,000 residents $500 a month for 18 months with no strings attached.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called Uplift Harris an "unlawful" program that "redistributes public money in a manner that violates the Texas Constitution," according to a press release. The lawsuit filing calls the pilot the "Harris Handout" and a "socialist experiment."
The state is seeking to block Harris County from giving its first payments to participants, which are slated to start in April.
"There is no such thing as free money—especially in Texas," the filing states. "The Texas Constitution expressly prohibits giving away public funds to benefit individuals—a common sense protection to prevent cronyism and ensure that public funds benefit all citizens."
The program selected 1,928 families out of 82,500 applicants for monthly payments, which begin this month. The program's $20.5 million in funding came from the American Rescue Plan Act, which provided financial support to Americans and state and local governments during the pandemic. Many other cities and states have used leftover funds from that law for basic-income pilots and programs.
In response, Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee said that the lawsuit is "nothing more than another attack" on the county government. Menefee said in a statement that the pilot is working to better people's lives by giving out direct cash assistance, which he argued governments have always done.
"When corporations are given taxpayer dollars Republican leaders in Austin call it 'economic development.' When governments use federal dollars to actually help people, Republican leaders in Austin call it socialism," Menefee said in a statement.
Participants were randomly selected via a lottery, and most applicants live in high-poverty ZIP codes with a household income below 200% of the federal poverty line.
"This is a type of support not available to this magnitude within the wider US safety net," Dustin Palmer, US country director at GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that's administering the program, previously told Business Insider. "The interest comes from people's expression of themselves imagining what they could do with this money to fit their unique needs."
Paxton's office noted that the Texas Constitution forbids counties and cities in the state from granting public money to aid individuals, arguing the pilot does not guarantee public benefit or control over what the money is spent on. The office also argued that the program's selection process is arbitrary, thus violating the Constitution's protections for equal rights.
"Taxpayer money must be spent lawfully and used to advance the public interest, not merely redistributed with no accountability or reasonable expectation of a general benefit," Paxton said in a statement.
The lawsuit comes after State Sen. Paul Bettencourt sent a letter in January asking Paxton to issue an opinion on the constitutionality of guaranteed income programs.
Other Texas cities have launched basic income pilots with promising results. The Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot has distributed $1,000 a month to 135 low-income families, who reported using their money for housing, food, and other daily costs. San Antonio's basic-income pilot gave participants $5,108 total over 25 months.
Republican lawmakers are trying to ban guaranteed income programs in states such as Arizona, Iowa, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
from All Content from Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/houston-texas-guaranteed-income-ubi-sued-ken-paxton-austin-poverty-2024-4
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