A Texas Bill Would Offer Huge Tax Breaks to Straight Couples Who Have 10—10!—Kids

Living in Texas? Want to pay nothing in property taxes? If a recently proposed bill passes, you can! So long as you’re straight, married, and have not seven, not eight, not nine, but, yes, 10 kids. Double digits only, people! And no gays or heathen divorcées!

That’s right: HB No. 2889, introduced by Republican representative Bryan Slaton, would slash property taxes to nothing for opposite-sex married couples with 10 children. Straight married couples with fewer than 10 children would also receive a break on property taxes, but just not as much. Think three kids should be enough to qualify? Think again! The threshold at which a couple would save a little extra come tax time starts at four, which gives you a 40% cut. Five gets you 50%, and so on and so forth.

Wondering whether you’d qualify if you were married once, got divorced, and then remarried and had between four and 10 kids with your new spouse? You would not! Per the text of the bill, a “‘qualifying married couple’ means a man and a woman who are legally married to each other, neither of whom have ever been divorced.” As for a “qualifying child,” if biological, the child would have to be born after the couple married; if adopted, the couple would have to marry before the child was adopted.

“With this bill, Texas will start saying to couples, ‘Get married, stay married, and be fruitful and multiply,’” Slaton, who we assume thinks The Handmaid’s Tale is something to aspire to, said in a statement.

In other Texas news…

It’s apparently a punishable offense to support gay marriage and gun control legislation. Per The Hill:

The Republican Party of Texas is set to vote this weekend on whether to censure Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) over complaints that Gonzales has failed to uphold party values in Congress by voting with Democrats on issues like same-sex marriage and gun control. The expected state party vote would follow a censure resolution approved earlier this month by the Medina County Republicans in south-central Texas that accuses Gonzales of acting in ways that are antithetical to the party’s value system.

Gonzales voted last year in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which enshrined the right of same-sex and interracial couples to marry. (Last year, the Texas Republican party adopted a platform that describes homosexuality has an “abnormal lifestyle choice,” and says that LGBTQ+ people should not receive legal protections from discrimination.) In another apparent act of treason, Gonzales also voted for gun control legislation that was introduced in the wake of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which is in his district.

Meanwhile, at CPAC

The message from Republicans is that Democrats are going to go to jail for reasons they can’t disclose at this time.