Texas lawmakers don't like to spend taxpayer money, but they have no problem asking voters to do it for them.
A constitutional amendment is making its way through the Legislature this week that will ask voters to divert money from the state's rainy day fund for transportation. If approved, the measure will join another amendment on the ballot in November to take money from the fund for water projects.
The Republican-controlled Legislature has chosen to let voters decide whether to spend billions of dollars because they are stuck between their pledge not to raise taxes and their duty to build infrastructure for the booming Texas economy. Lawmaker's solution is to ask voters to approve shuffling around existing revenue.
That gives Texans an enormously important decisions to make.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.