Greetings, and welcome back to ZacCast, your official podcast for local government nerdery. I'm Chad, that is Pat. It's September 4th. We are back on track with our bi-weekly schedules. Uh, so let me just kick it off to you, Patrick. How's it going?

It's good, man. It's good. The fall weather's kicking my tail a little bit, but yeah, we're, uh, we're good. It's been a, a couple of weeks at my house, but yeah-

Yeah

... back at it, man.

Patrick sounds a bit, uh, under the weather. It's just allergies.

Yeah, we think it's just allergies. That's what we say these days.

Pandemic's over, so now we can go out- outdoors when we're sick again.

Yes. We just ignore, we just ignore those notices, and we go outside.

All right-

So-

... Pat, so, uh, we're talking about, um, appraisal districts today. We're talking a little bit about sales tax. You wanna just dive right in, or do you have any sort of, uh, throat-clearing banter to interject here at the beginning?

I, I, I don't, I don't have anything crazy. I, uh, really wanna jump... I, I feel like I've been on the phone a lot with some Tarrant County cities, so let's jump into the Tarrant Appraisal District information.

Okay.

I think this is the... You're gonna get us started there.

I'll get us started here. So this is a, uh, this is an ongoing saga, some drama with the Tarrant Appraisal District. So if you'll recall, I think a few months ago we talked about how, um, the appraisal district boards now have elected members, right?

Mm-hmm.

We talked about maybe what some of the implications of this might be. Well, we're finding that out in Tarrant County, which is that they have a brand-new scheme for how residential property should be appraised. Uh, that is, specifically, every other year, and at no more than 5% growth. So-

By the way, there, there's a statutory scheme that is, you know, written in the statute on how you appraise things, but they have their own scheme.

Yes, they have decided that they don't give a crap what the state statute says-

Mm-hmm

... their job is. They're gonna do whatever they wanna do.

Yes.

There's also a lot of drama about how some of the, uh, some of their meetings might have had interference by the county judge. We'll kind of leave that for now.

Yeah.

Um, but basically, uh, you know, the appraisal district's job, their role in the whole property tax system, is to appraise properties at their market value. The comptroller goes in and checks this every year, every other year, to make sure that you're not too far off from your market value. Um, and TAD is just saying, "Yeah, that's okay. What our main concern, as the appraisal district, is that people aren't paying too much in taxes, so we're gonna solve this problem by ignoring our mandate and, uh, taking it head-on."

In, in a political structure that is- it's, like, half elected now, right, under this new-

Yeah, three of them are elected, and the rest are appointed.

Yeah, three of them are elected, and then I think there's four appointed board members, if I remember correctly. So they've been able to sway the, the chair, I believe, over to their side, to the elected side. Now, these individuals were elected, you know, under this new, uh, statute, and this new statute was written by a guy who was in real estate in Tarrant County. He helped push it through, and he's actually been s- kind of screaming bloody murder that they've gone way too far. Right? So it's very interesting that you had this guy, who rightfully so, talked about the problems in appraisals, the problems in appraisal methods. He actually agrees with a lot of what we talk about, which is that there's a problem with residential appraisals versus commercial and industrial appraisals. Um, and so he wanted to kind of go in and, and give some ability for taxpayers to have a feel, a touch and feel, at the appraisal district, and there was, like, this compromise bill that they put together. Um, and, and, and I think it was all good and fine until it wasn't good and fine, right? And-

Yeah, we disagree on that part, but go ahead.

Yeah. Well, I mean, um, I think there's a breakdown of the understanding of general governmental knowledge. Um, you know, when my wife hears this, she's gonna tell me that I shouldn't be so mean towards e- educators on this, but I just don't think we educate our kids in civics lessons, and we are paying for that right now. Uh, and you and I both know deeper-

You know what I've wanted to do-

What's that?

... in retirement, is I've always wanted to go back and teach high school government.

I'm not sure that you would last in that job longer than, like, three weeks. Um-

Well, I may not, you know, in 20 years when I get to that point, but I just, I feel like it's... it would be fun-

Yeah

... to, like, go back to the basics. I actually have, like, uh, at one point, I had started to write up a whole curriculum knowing that this was, like, 35 years away into the future, but-

But, you know, look, most of our listeners are government folks, so they're gonna understand this. I, I, I do feel like we need to break down process a little bit, right, to- for folks who may not be in government. Appraisal districts are set up in a state to appraise properties. Cities, counties, school districts are set up to do their individual functions and set their tax rates based on the appraisal data that they get.

Right.

Right? The appraisal district has zero impact on tax rates. Although, we now have told people, at least in Tarrant County, that they can elect these people to an appraisal board, and they will get their taxes lowered. They don't actually have that ability to do that, and so they've now put into place a couple of things that are very interesting, the biggest of which is probably the 5% appraisal cap on residential properties, and I wanna, I wanna quote, "not homesteaded residential properties," where you already have this 10% cap that's in place, but on all residential properties. So investor-owned properties, uh, individually-owned properties, properties that are under a trust. Uh, you know, which there's a lot of people that are individual owners that own their property in a trust just from a, a legal standpoint to protect their properties. But this is a very, um, this is a very interesting take that they're going down. You wanna talk a little bit about how this is a failure of governant- governance, and so I wanna kind of start there, and then I wanna talk about the implications to the local taxing jurisdictions. So let's start with your part first.

Okay, so for me-... the, the biggest red flag about this, even though, like you said, there's lots of actual implications to the jurisdictions downstream, the biggest problem that this highlights is just the fundamental- the way in which so many of our institutions are just not functioning properly. Like, you can go up to Congress and look at how poorly it functions, because Congress doesn't really even legislate anymore. Most of the rules that get passed are at- done at the executive level, right? And we actually just had a Supreme Court decision in, uh, overturning Chevron, which basically said, "No, actually, Congress does need to legislate," right? Like, all of these rules can't be made administratively. We have to have some element of Congress doing its job. Um, this is a, a very similar phenomenon, where you have a mandate as an appraisal district. Your job is to appraise properties. That's it. You're not supposed to be concerned with what happens next. This- it's a very technical role. You have a certified appraiser who's doing this work. The board is there to make sure that they're doing their job properly, not to dictate the terms on which or under which they appraise properties. Because they are basically not allowing the chief appraiser to do the job that they're paid to do, and when we decide that we're going to step outside of our roles, we cause all kinds of problems. It's just a, it's just a breakdown at one level to the next, to the next, to the next, in how all of this stuff works. And so to, to me, it's just highlighting how our institutions are failing, um, across the board.

Well, and I'm oversimplifying this a little bit, but I'm saying this out loud. A lot of the breakdown in the appraisal districts is the appraisal methods. People feel like the taxes on residential are going up, even though the legislature has put in place all of these different types of revenue caps and so forth and so on, and done all these things. They're like, "Well, w- why are my taxes still going up six, seven percent a year when the city's only collecting three and a half percent more?" And the reason is, is because we've already allowed special interest and folks to get involved in the appraisals so that the game is rigged before it ever gets to the city, right? This is just another add-on to rigging that game or trying to fix or manipulate, um, a process to basically handle a specific constituency, and I just... I mean, I look at this and I go, "Why does this surprise anybody?" You know, it's just-

Everything that we've done over the last 10 years at least, has just been to solve, quote, unquote, "that one problem"-

Yes

... which is that residential taxes are going up.

Correct, and-

And again, that's going to happen when properties are appreciating in value. That's how-

Y-

... the property tax works.

A- and I think that's exacerbated, though, by the fact that commercial property values are not rising near as quickly-

Yes

... because of the difference appra- the difference in appraisal methods, and also-

Right

... the legis- the, and also the, the court cases and other things that are used in commercial appraisals that are not m- able to be used in residential appraisals.

Right, so what we've had is a series of band-aids that have made the-

Correct

... system more complex-

Correct

... and less, uh, transparent, more opaque. It's harder to understand, and then the only solution that, I guess, people think that they have is to just continue manipulating it even further, right? Step outside their role, and, and just try to find some other way. "Well, like, we've done all these things, and my taxes keep going up, so let's try this extra band-aid on top of it now."

Mm.

And so now you have, like, literally, like, a six-inch stack of old band-aids trying to solve, like, fix a, a wound, uh, a political wound, right?

Correct.

Like, it's, it's just politics because this is literally how property tax works. If your value goes up and your tax rate stays the same, you're gonna pay more in taxes. Now, the, the big problem with property tax is that it exists independent of your ability to pay the tax, right? If you don't have an income, maybe you're retired and you own your home outright, you're on a fixed income now. Value goes up 10%, maybe you don't have the ability to pay for it. Like, I totally get that, but that's how the system works, right? So we have mecha- mechanisms to address that specific scenario with freezes and, um, uh, all those kinds of things that we add for-

Mm

... for seniors. But at, at some point, we have to just sit back and say, like, "This whole system is not working, and we need to find a much more robust way to handle the actual problems and not the symptoms," right?

I think it's much more like-

The symptom is that the residential taxes are going up.

Mm-hmm.

We're not addressing the reason for that at a fundamental level.

I think it's... Oh, I get it, and I think it's much more likely that the legislature will continue to California my taxes, right? They'll continue to overcomplicate the system to fix symptoms rather than the actual disease, right? We, we have cancer, and we're taking ibuprofen.

Right.

That's really what we are-

For the pain

... and we- a- and for the pain, and we need a year of chemotherapy. Like, we need to break down the entire body, chemo it, hit it with radiation, and then bring it back, um, because the whole system itself is broke. And I, and, and to talk about that, like, we just talk... And, and we've done some data analysis on this, and maybe at some point we're gonna write, like, a white paper on this. I don't know.

Yeah. We have a, we have Mr. Gavin doing quite a bit of research right now.

We have Gavin doing a bunch of research, and one of the things that came out of some of Gavin's research, uh, which was really interesting, we... To be fair, like, I hope Gavin knows we read this stuff, and I'm about to talk about it. Um, but, but he posted some really interesting tidbits in his research, specifically when it came to, um, fighting appraisals.... and who is more likely to fight and win appraisals verse, uh, not fight and win appraisals? And it's, it's very clear that commercial taxpayers are more likely to win appraisals, right? And commercial taxpayers-

Appeals, you mean.

Appeals, sorry, yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, and protest. They're significantly more likely, and in a residential area, folks who own properties, I think it was, like, in the top 10% of value, were also significantly more likely to appeal, protest, and win appraisals as well. And so we have a system that is really lopsided, uh, and, and valued... And, and look, I'm as conservative as they come, folks, but the reality of it is, is that we're trying to fix a problem for the other 90% of residential households that are out there, and it's a problem that's not gonna be fixed within the existing confines of the appraisal system. I don't care who you change as your, your board, um, it's not gonna get fixed. And let's, let's talk about, let's talk about the impact. So when you have- when you try to take a medication and the medication has side effects, let's talk about the side effects of this TAD side, right? So what's it gonna mean for local governments? I just had this conversation yesterday with a city in Tarrant County, and they were asking me this question, uh, specifically, and my response to them was, "Look, from a city perspective, you're gonna be able to get three and a half percent of your revenue every year under this law, and so whatever the appraisal district does, it's- you're gonna get your revenue." It's gonna have a shifting in how your tax rate works. Like, we're gonna see a lot more up and down. It's gonna look like a heartbeat meter, you know, on the-

On your tax rate.

On your tax rate.

Yeah, if, if your residential properties are frozen for, for a given year-

Yeah, 'cause it's every other year appraisals-

Yes

... so they're moving to every other year appraisals, plus they're putting a 5% cap on appraisal increases every other year.

Right.

So we're gonna have this huge cap loss number in North Texas that's going to keep appraisals.

Oh, yeah, that's gonna be outrageous.

Yeah.

So-

So they're really not getting an every other year benefit. Let's, let's also talk about that, 'cause we're in Parker-

Right

... I'm in Parker County. We've always done every year, every other year appraisals-

And interesting, we-

And I've always had cap loss, always.

Yeah, well, you have cap loss in some cases because it was growing by more than 10% anyway.

Correct.

But the thing about Parker County that I looked at just from a spot check, is there are some areas where you can clearly see the every other year, and then some areas where you just don't.

You don't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's not because of property turnover or anything. It's just like, they're just getting appraised every year. Like, just a mass appraisal will increase your value by seven or eight or whatever percent.

Yeah.

And then s- other places are, like, hard and fast fixed for, for two years, and then you'll see-

Yeah

... incremental growth.

So from-

But what, what that does for your no new revenue rate-

Mm-hmm

... is it means that on the frozen year, you might have, uh, the ability to increase your tax rate to get to that three and a half percent, instead of always compressing it, right?

Yep.

And then the next year, when you have the 5%, 'cause you're gonna have 5% growth on every residential property over a two-year period.

Right.

Unless we have some devastating 2008-type bubble burst, you're gonna have that 5% growth every year in those existing properties.

Which the devastating 2008 property burst happened two times since 1950, right? So, like, it's-

It's happened a few times, but, uh, maybe not that devastating, but yeah.

What happened in the '80s in specific mar- uh, markets, like the savings and loan crisis, right?

Right.

And it, and it happened then, but other than that, it's really not ever occurred since the '50s.

Right.

So, but look, I'm just gonna be blatantly honest with everybody on ZacCast here. This is a huge boon for Team Zach. Like, this is getting so complicated that we have hired extremely high-level staff members who do nothing but walk cities through tax rating sets, like, setting process, right? And, and we're making a significant sum of money as consultants going through this process. But I'm also sitting here going, "We shouldn't be making money on this." This should not be... The system should not be so overly complicated and so overly intertwined that you have to have a multitude of consultants. How can you call yourself a conservative when you make it so complicated and so difficult that government has to get bigger to solve the problem? That's the question. And, and, and you're right, the only way they're gonna fix that is, is through, you know, a true breakdown and fix to the system, right? They just have to go through and do it. They're just... I just don't think they're gonna do that anytime soon, and-

I don't think anyone understands it well enough.

Well, I mean, I, I... Look, I mean, I've had conversations with, with staff members of state senators who tell me, "Well, just call Bettencourt's staff." Like, legitimately, they rely on him so much that-

Here's the thing

... every tax question goes over to Bettencourt. What happens when that guy croaks?

We can fix the problem.

Like, who all of a sudden will be- Yeah, maybe we fix it. Well, to be fair to him, right, I do need to say this, he has specifically and, and directly said that caps on appraisals are a terrible idea, right? And he's talked about why. But I... So I wanna say that.

Mm-hmm.

At the same time, he's done a lot of other things that are goofy as hell. But, so we talked about in cities, tax rate's looking like a heartbeat, right? Up and down, up and down. We're gonna see that-

If you, if a city has the ability or the fortitude to actually raise their rate to the no new revenue rate-

Correct

... as opposed to keeping it flat, right, then if you, if you stuck to the no new revenue rate, then you would see the up and down, up and down-

Right

... every other, every other year.

Correct. And, and I, I think f- from my, from my take on this, this, this would also be something that we probably should put in Gavin's vote as well. Um, I'd be curious to see how many kitties are, uh... how many kitties? How many cities are adopting the no new revenue rate verse some rate between no new revenue and the three and a half, right? Or how many cities are adopting the minimum rate?

The minimum, yeah.

Yeah. Um, I would just guess, and this is a total guess, I would think that most cities are not adopting no new revenue, because the three and a half percent-

Mm

... cap is so dangerous-... that you have to go get some of that revenue to be able to handle cost increases.

Yeah, unless you're super high growth.

Yes, but even if you're super high growth, it's just a Ponzi scheme at some point.

Mm-hmm.

Like, you're still, you're still gonna have to make sure that the number is there, right? Um, so I, I think that's gonna be kind of an interesting look at, at, you know, where cities are going there.

Yeah.

So there's-

Imagine, imagine being super high growth for, like, the next 10 years, compressing that rate down because you can, and then, then what?

Then-

You start trying to rebuild roads.

Yeah, then the rate round stops, right?

And your marriage is not so well, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, then, then your married round stops, and, you know, you get in a situation where it's like, man, um, this is-

Now what?

... Yeah, now what? What do I do? Where do I go? That type of stuff. So all that being said-

Talk about school districts, right? 'Cause there's-

School districts are the-

This is the big implication of this.

Yeah, school districts are a huge impli- implication. So if the appraisal district does not get within a certain market value, as determined by the comptroller's every other year review of their appraisal methods, the penalty under state statute for that is the removal of state funding, per pupil funding, from individual school districts. So this has been an issue in Parker County. This is one of the hard things about an every other year appraisal process. But take that, and confidentially, I've had some conversations with people in the appraisal business to ask, like, "What impact is this gonna have?" It's gonna be very significant.

Well, the-

So if I'm Fort Worth ISD, if I'm Burlington ISD-

Superintendents of those school districts have written open letters-

Oh, there's gonna be lawsuits

... to the appraisal district.

Yeah, I mean, look, there's gonna be law- have they filed a lawsuit yet? Somebody's gonna be filing a lawsuit against the TAD.

Yeah, the, uh... So according to the Star-Telegram, they're estimating about $85 million in lost per pupil revenue across the county.

Which, where does that, where does that $85 million go, right? So I, I wanna talk about that. Tarrant County, I'm speaking directly to you, if you're a taxpayer there, you're- that $85 million is not savings to you as a taxpayer. The state is still taking their money and taking it other places in the state.

Yeah, 'cause your taxes aren't gonna go down.

Your tax Correct. So because you're not following the statutory guideline, school districts are gonna be penalized. So we've elected three people to the TAD board. They're flipping idiots, let me just put it that way, right? They're controlled and puppets directly of a county judge at this point. Um, and that's proven. Like, there are text messages between these board members and a county judge that the Star-Telegram wrote about, it's, it's out there in the public, where he gives them, legitimately gives them the items-

Verbatim

... for their agenda-

Yeah

... verbatim, that they adopt. And I'm sorry, that, one, it's most likely against the law. Not an attorney here, but I'm pretty confident when I worked in cities as, like, a, a, that chi- that politically elected officials of a city that the appraisal district works for cannot have undue influence on the appraisal district. I'm, I'm pretty confident they taught us that at some point.

That's, that's kind of why they are separate entities.

It- because there used to be... Because when they weren't separate entities, right, there, there was a reason why appraisal districts were built and, and put in place the way they were, because there used to be a system that was fraught with fraud, right? And so now we have this system that's put in place, and we're basically just trying to take it more to where it was when we fixed it originally. And I can't remember what year it was, but it was, like, the '70 or the '80s.

Mm-hmm. It was the '70s. I think '73.

Yeah, '73. So we, we switched the system from where it is, this centralized appraisal, so that we could get away from multiple different appraisals of different areas and, and just the fraud that was, that was occurring. 'Cause if you were a very political, well-to-do, had influence, you could make sure that your property back in the '70s was appraised at a, at a lower rate than everybody else's property, right? Which, by the way-

You can still do that

... still happens today. Go check out-

'Cause you're probably, if you're that person, you're probably on the, uh, the appraisal review board.

Yes, correct. And Chad and I, we're, we're not gonna c- we're not gonna call that individual out directly, uh, on this podcast, but we saw this firsthand in Parker County, where there was an extremely individual, pr- i, i- influential individual who was on the ARB, whose property, adjacent to a like property, was significantly underappraised to the like property. Same use, right?

It's the same-

Same exact use

... 'cause he abstained from the vote on that particular property.

He did. So all that being said, school districts are gonna get hit, and there's gonna be lawsuits that fly. And what are we doing? I mean, really, what, what, what are we doing at this point? And, and I am- I've always been critical of the guy on Facebook in the city management, uh, realm, who basically just goes out and-

The guy

... calls people out.

Yeah.

Man, I'm almost getting there. It's getting bad. Like, I'm gonna start calling out state legislators by name. Like, I'm, I'm going to. I'm just... I'm gonna start doing it, and some of them are friends. Some of them are really nice people, but we're making some asinine decisions. I mean, just terrible decisions. Taking away... I'm gonna say this out loud, 'cause I had this direct conversation with a legislator, taking away the abilities for cities to regulate rate making and have a, a point in the process of rate making of electric utilities, has had dire consequences for CenterPoint Energy in the Houston market, in the Harris County Houston market. Just read those articles out of the Houston Chronicle. Go look at it, go read it. When you removed cities from that process, CenterPoint went and leased for $800 million a year, they went and leased generators. And they convinced the legislature that they needed to go and do that. Well, why would they wanna go lease these generators and just set them on the sideline?... because CenterPoint is a publicly traded company that makes money on every dollar of expense. So the more expenses they have, the more profit and overhead received they get. So the more they can push up the cost and expenses, the more that they can return to the stockpa- stockholders, right? That's the way that their business operations work. There's always been this process called the Coalition of Cities that's out there. Uh, Lloyd Goslink is the, uh, attorney of record, I think, for that coalition, or has been historically. I don't know if they still are, but they always have been. They do a really good job. And cities pay in, like, pennies. I think in Hudson Oaks, we paid in, like, $1,000 a year to this, and every time Oncor would come through with a rate case, Coalition of Cities would go and fight Oncor, you know, line by line, Excel sheet by Excel sheet, for that. They removed a lot of the authority of that to occur, right? And this is what happened. CenterPoint Energy. Just read the article, look at it. This is what happens when industry walks in the door and explains to a legislator that what they're doing is better and smarter than what the people who were hired by the taxpayers to look after them to do. That's just the, the reality of the situation. That's what's going on in appraisal districts right now. In appraisal districts, trust me, at the end of the day, the people who have the most money, right, and the industry insiders, and the folks who do this for a living, and hey, I'm raising my hand, we're, we're some of them, right? They're gonna benefit the most. We are gonna benefit it, Zach, the most, because we're gonna have to hand hold all these communities that we work with through this process, and that's gonna mean money for our pockets. And, and sadly, it's, like, the worst kind of money. I don't know. Maybe we'll set up a new scholarship-

It's like, yeah

... for an MBA program somewhere.

Feels like blood money sometimes.

It does feel like blood money, and it's totally unnecessary. So-

So I, I'm still on the bandwagon, I think, of f- addressing, I'm not gonna say fixing, because I don't think it's a fixable problem, I think it's something that you can improve, but addressing the, the symptoms by breaking out the no new revenue rate by property class, and having separate no new revenue rates and, and therefore, eventually separate tax rates-

Right

... for each property class, um, based on the mechanism of appraisal, right? Like, how am I appraising this property? If it's different than that property, then they should have- they should be in a different tier.

So to better explain that, revenue from the specific class, so let's say in the revenue cap of 3.5%, revenue from the specific class-

Yeah

... should only go by-

Just break it down super easy and say residential versus commercial, right?

Okay.

It's like, or you can... But you can obviously get more granular, depending on the, the mechanism of appraisal, and, like, the reasoning behind why a property appreciates differently than a different property.

Yep.

But just for the sake of making it super easy, residential and commercial.

Yes.

Just break those two things apart. Residential is growing at 10%, and commercial is growing at 2%. When those are lumped together, the residential piece is getting a bigger burden of that 3.5% no new revenue.

Correct.

Like, if you just take those two examples on their own, the commercial property is actually gonna be paying less in tax in year two-

Yes

... because that 3.5% cap is lower than what they're appreciating at, okay? So break those two things out, have different rates for them. Your 3.5% ... Your, your residential properties are going to pay 3.5% more, and your commercial properties are gonna pay 3.5% more, because those rates are gonna be different.

Yes.

Right? Then you won't have this imbalance between homeowners and residential property owners experiencing rapid appreciation, but not getting the benefit of the no new revenue-

And if-

... like commercial properties do.

And if you, if you do adopt the 3.5% rate, right, right below the voter-approved rate, if you do adopt that, it doesn't mean that every residential household in your city is g- not gonna pay more than 3.5%. You may have some-

Right

... that are at 2%.

This is a very-

Or 4

... very basic example.

Correct. It does mean, though, you're not gonna have these huge swings where you have folks that are paying six, seven, 8% more in taxes on a residential point, and then you have a commercial property that's paying two, three, 4% less in taxes. So I wanna take the first part of what you just said and encourage our listeners to challenge your state legislator with that.

Well, just do it, do the math on your own city, right?

Correct.

Pick a-

Yeah

... a market basket of properties, and look at the valuation growth between different classes of property, and see what the actual tax bill is based on your no new revenue adoption.

Do you know what I'm about to say?

I never know what you're about to say. It's always-

You should go a- you should go ahead and build that tool in the Zach.

Now, that tool would need to be built for the people.

I, I get it. I get it, and we... In, in, in any county where we have data, maybe we could build that tool for the people and build, like, a front-end facing site, but it would be... It'd be interesting just to build that script, to take those state use codes, try to simplify it as much as we possibly can so that it can be digested, right? And I know that's hard, 'cause you have to... This is like the conversation we had the other day. I was gonna do a presentation for a city council, and we kinda went and picked some commercial properties and picked some residential properties, and I was like, "Man, we gotta be really careful not to, like, nitpick," right?

Yeah, cherry-pick.

Cherry-pick what we wanna look at. Nitpick was the wrong word. Thanks for, uh, knowing and understanding my languages there, Chad. Uh, we had this joke at my house-

My love language with you, Patrick, is, uh, correcting your grammar.

Correcting my grammar. We have this joke in my house, because my youngest communicates like I do, and my eldest communicates like my wife. And, and when my youngest says something like we don't understand, we just ask Mason, "What is he trying to tell us?" And he kind of inter- you're my interpreter. Um-... but basically try to limit that down to where we could show communities the, the burden shift of the value. And we wouldn't be able to do tax rate, that'd be a little more complicated, but we could show the burden shift. Just like a quick tool would be really cool, but you know me, always coming up with ideas that you have to go work on.

I'm used to it by now.

So, I know, I know. So, but yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, look, clearly there are issues, but yes, go, go look at this from your own town's perspective, your own city's perspective. Go pull up some big boxes, that's the easiest place to look. Go, go find your H-E-B stores, go find your Krogers, your, you know, your Lowe's, your Home Depots, your Walmarts.

Your Lowe's and your Walmarts.

Yes, your Lowe's and Walmarts are probably the worst offenders, 'cause they, they probably use the legal means more than anybody. Um, go look at them. Go look at your Chick-fil-A's, now represented by the, the, the, the big company that fights many of these things. Um, go look at that, and then look at your residential appraisals, and see the difference in the burden shift, and then go have a conversation with your legislator. And I want, I want you to point... to, to look at one thing when you have that conversation. Look at the whites in the eyes and the glass over when they totally don't understand what you're saying, and then realize that the people making decisions for us in Austin have no idea what the hell they're doing when it comes to taxes. Just my two cents. And because all those MPAs that used to work in the Comptroller's office, and all the interstate agencies, and the LBB, and everything else that, that they used to be in, have all left and gone to bigger-paying jobs in local communities, there's not really a lot of people in the state that know that. I mean, we, we can call- I mean, in, in the Comptroller's office today, I mean, what? We could pick up the phone and maybe call, like, five people that actually would understand this issue. I mean, I, I'm not trying to call them out directly, I'm just saying it's, it's a very complicated issue. So call your legislator, have that conversation, and then, you know, sit down, meet, discuss it, and tell them, "Hey, if you're trying to fix this for residents, let's actually fix it. Let's not Band-Aid a problem that makes it a bigger problem." And that's, that's what Tarrant County has done, right? By putting this in place, they're making it a bigger problem and penalizing school districts. It's goofy.

Yeah. So that's kind of like my hot take on addressing it at the legal level. But there's another thing that cities can do to help balance out the mechanics of it and, or the algebra, as you would say.

Mm-hmm.

And that is, build enough homes so that your residential properties are not appreciating by 10 and 12% every year. Make sure that you have the supply and the different types of housing, where you're not experiencing such rapid growth, and you're not going to have to continue to compress your tax rate. Like, I don't think that it's a really good thing that for the last 10 years, residential properties across the state have been growing at five, six, seven, eight, even more percent every single year. My house is worth... is, is valued at three times what I paid for it 15 years ago, which is insane.

You got a great deal on your house, though, to be honest.

I did get a great deal. We bought at the very low end of the market.

Yes.

Like, I admit that. But even if I had bought it, you know, four or five years later, it would still be double.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Agreed.

And like, to me, that, that is a problem that cities can address by-

Parti- partially. I, I mean, I, I do challenge you on that a little bit.

Well, I didn't say that they could solve it, I said they can address it.

Yeah, they can address it.

Right?

I, I, I agree. I... I, I'll use Parker County as an example, 'cause it's where I live, and, and Parker County is, I mean, really, honestly, it's one of the most deregulated development markets out there, right? Like, any, any Joe can go buy 100 acres and develop a neighborhood, and it's not gonna cost you a fortune, and it's pretty easy to do. I think there are lots of complications around the financing market there-

For sure

... that cause, that cause a lot of friction. Um, and so I, I agree with you. In hotter markets, I mean, I say that Parker County is, like, the sixth fastest growing county in the nation, right? But we don't really have a job-

No one says that.

Yeah.

Where, where are we getting these numbers?

I think it's, like, USA Today or something like that.

Everybody says that.

Everybody says it, right? But, but in, like, really, really hot, like, North Dallas markets, where things are, you know, somewhat more restrictive, um, you know, maybe, you know, the city could have a little bit more of an influence to uptick the number of homes that are built. Um, but yeah, I, I, I do agree with you that-

Well, I think it's not just necessarily building a bunch more homes in and of itself. That's a very Moneyball approach. I think it's also different typologies, different density levels, like, allowing just different things to be built. If you're just gonna build, like, 1,000 single-family homes, like, that may help keep appreciation from growing a lot, but it may not help your overall finances in 20 years.

Right. But I think even if you had a state statute that basically specified exactly, uh, like, a pre-approved path for a construction of multifamily, right? Or a pre-approved path for a construction of brownstone condo, I still think the financing market would slow you down.

The problem with the financing market is that it really, really is biased towards big things and standardized things.

Yes. Yeah, it's very- it is, it is extremely biased towards larger developments. Like, if you try to develop less than 20 acres, good luck. It's gonna be very, very difficult to do that, and it's also very biased by, um, the debt backup. There's probably a better term for that, right? But-

Your debt stack

... it's very biased. The debt stack is, it, you know, is, is very... So you have an initial investment, then you have a bank that gets in, then you have, like, almost like a reinsurance bank that gets in, and you have all of these different stacks that are there, and a lot of times there's government behind some of that too, right? There's, like, HUD financing-... uh, or something there that, that would, would generate, you know, some type of security that's there, and, like, the development's not gonna get off the ground without security. And so there's, there's, like, governmental red tape inserted into the development process as well, that makes it more complicated, uh, on the financing structure-

Yeah

-and the debt stack, so.

And then there's building codes as well, which makes building-

Yeah, but I mean, my point-

-smaller things harder.

Correct. But my, my point being, like, from a state standpoint, if the state came in and dictated, like, if they built the IRC, such and such, such and such, like, you cannot prevent the construction of this. And, like, they could start construction... As long as they're meeting those codes, they could start construction, like, on the fly, right? Which-

Walk in, get your building permit, start digging dirt the next day.

Well, basically just, like, start construction, and, like, you know, you have to pull your permit at first inspection, right? 'Cause I, I do think eventually there's a, uh, there's a need and a process to automate-

Mm

... permitting, permit reviews. I think there's gonna be some AI that gets, gets done in that side of the business, right? So, um, you know, I think there's gonna be some automation of codes and reviews, and I think we're eventually gonna get to a process to where you submit plans online, and maybe an- a human eye doesn't even look at it at some point, right? Uh, you know, talk a little Jetsons there for a minute, but I think we're gonna get there. Um, and so even if you standardized it across the board, I still think the financing stack holds you up.

Yeah, it does.

So, but, um... All right, let's move on. I wanna talk- We went on for a long time on the TAD issue, so we- why don't we-

Jump to sales tax?

Yeah, let's just jump to sales tax.

Okay. Our last episode, if you recall-

So tell us, tell us the update

... Our last episode entitled, "What's the Deal with the Economy?" Which, by the way, I, I, I was a little bit disappointed, or I'd say disheartened, that, uh, I didn't get any feedback on that title from anyone.

Mm-hmm.

Because for the longest time, we have been naming our episodes in a very Seinfeld-ian way, like the whatever, the whatever.

Mm-hmm.

Like, all of the Seinfeld episodes except for, I think, two.

Also, Big Bang Theory did that, too.

Well, yeah, but Seinfeld came first.

Uh, agreed.

So-

So-

And it, it's not like, um... I, I was never gonna use the Friends approach, which is, like, the one about something.

Yes.

The one where Joey does something stupid, you know, like-

Uh, yeah

... that, that kind of thing. Um, but then to name the last episode, "What's the Deal with the Economy?" I thought that was, like, a really perfect Seinfeld tie-in, but no one- either no one caught it, or no one cared to say anything about it. So, uh, on that episode, we talked about what's the deal with the economy, where do we get- where we stand. Um, we were fresh off of a, uh, a pretty steep market drop, which then rebounded and is now on its way down again.

Yeah, yesterday was a-

Um-

... was another very steep-

Yeah

... market drop.

We get, uh, we get jobs numbers on Friday-

Yeah

... I believe, so-

Those, those will be poor. Get ready

... Hold on to your butts, as, uh-

Yeah

... Samuel L. Jackson would say, in Jurassic Park.

Mm-hmm.

But anyway, yesterday, the comptroller releases their statewide s- uh, data on sales tax. So in a, in a couple of days, we'll get some more information about the local allocations. Um, but for the month of August, which, for the state's, uh, collections, is for July sales-

Right

... So these will be allocated to us, uh, here in September. Um, f- what was it? .4% growth.

Mm-hmm.

Um, they, uh... The comptroller mentioned, "For the first time since the pandemic, restaurant receipts were down. Sectors relying on business spending were mixed. Gains in construction and wholesale, declines in mining and manufacturing." Um, it says, "Consumers continued to boost receipts for services, but retail, uh, grew barely 1%," right? Which is, all of these numbers are below inflation-

Yep

... which, by the way, may be-

Is a lot

... ticking up again. So...

We'll see.

We're facing a, a possible rate cut here this month. Uh, and yet inflation might be creeping back up, unemployment might be creeping back up. So, -

You remember when you made fun-

Just to laugh at me?

You remember when-

I did, I did make fun of you with your stagflation comment.

And it's coming, buddy.

Yeah, it come back.

Here it comes.

So, so fight me.

Here we go. Jimmy Carter administration, here we come.

Oh, okay, so I don't know, man. It's just, it's just-

Well, first off-

More of the same, but-

Let's, let's address... Yeah, I mean, it's more of the same, but let's, let's address the comptroller's comment about food. Uh, yes, when you roll it all the way up to the top-level food industry, we haven't seen-

It's possible-

It's poss-

... that we haven't seen declines at this, like, at the state level? We don't have data for the entire state.

Correct, yeah. Uh-

Most of it, but not the entire state.

We won't, we won't... Yeah, true, most. But we will tell you, in the 50% of the data that we have, or whatever that number, crazy number-

Yeah

... high number is, that-

The only reason the city-

... that's not the case. Food's been down.

The only reason the city would be seeing growth in restaurants is with new restaurants.

That's correct. Food has been down everywhere. I don't care who you talk to. I sat and talked to a Darden GM yesterday, who told me that their sales are way down company-wide. Uh, it's... Look, at the end of the day, 'cause I am that guy when I go to a restaurant, I lo- first off, when I go to a restaurant without the kids, and it's just, like, Jennifer and I, we sit at the bar, and the reason I sit at the bar is 'cause normally I can talk to a manager. And when a manager comes by, I always ask these business questions, because, you know, the Zach in me doesn't go away. I'm just- I'm thinking through all these things. Especially when I'm at a chain, I wanna know, 'cause they know how they perform against every other store in the region, and they know what the regional performance is, and so I'm gonna dig into those questions and be like, "Oh, so what's the regional performance, man? Like, is it good? Is it bad? Blah, blah, blah." I can tell you, both in that Darden world, and then also in the Tilman Fertitta world of Landry's Inc., which is, like, Saltgrass Landry's, so forth and so on, everybody's down. E- everybody in that market's down right now. So-

Is there... I'm gonna throw out an option here for-

Yep

... uh, building something. I would love to have a little thing on your, like, like, a little thing on your phone, where you can just jot down notes from these conversations.

... and share with people?

So that I don't have to wait until the podcast to hear about them, right? Like-

Yeah.

We could keep track of those individual conversations. It's funny, though, 'cause, like, if, if you're talking to the people working there about their actual business performance, we are not the same, because the only time that I ever do that is if I have a question about are they handling sales tax properly?

So I, I, I think we've talked about this before, like maybe in a really early podcast, but one, one of the things that Jennifer- when Jennifer and I got married, we were high school sweethearts, right? So we dated all the way through high school, and all the way through college, and then we got married. And so we're like-

How was that wedding?

Uh, that wedding was a lot of fun. I'm sorry you weren't invited.

And I was in your wedding, thank you.

Uh, we didn't know each other very well back then. We were in one class at that point. We weren't even carpooling together yet, were we?

I don't think so.

Okay. So all that being said, we made this one promise to each other that when we had kids, we would always go out on a date every week, and we, we do. I mean, every week, we go out on a date. Uh, and so yeah, I make her sit at the bar at a lot of restaurants so that I can talk to folks or have conversations with managers.

Go on a date to ignore your wife.

Yeah, so... Sorry, babe. Um, not like she listens to my podcast anyways, uh, so-

I know, mine doesn't

... I think my kids listen more than she does, yeah. But anyways, all that being said-

Uh, uh, my, my wife has opposing clients that listen more than she does.

It's just-

By the way, this is like three years ago, so if you're still listening, shout out to you.

Yeah, I'm just gonna say, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't give out a ton of information on, on Chad's wife, but if you're an opposing client, uh, good luck! I'm just gonna tell you that right now. You probably should have hired her-

Yeah, you should have

... and not the person you hired. So, um, anywho, all that being said, I think, man, we're, we're just, we're, we're going down this road where the comptroller is still trying to sugarcoat a bad economy, and they really should start looking at, um, you know, the, the biennial estimates and adjusting down. That's, that's where it's at. And we're in a really rough spot because they didn't fund school districts fully because of the voucher argument, and then they're gonna come back in the legislative session and maybe still not be able to fund school districts at the level, and they're gonna have a bunch of pissed-off parents that are seeing the impacts of that now that their kids are in school for the, you know, the last couple of months. It's just gonna be a very interesting political world, uh, that they're not expecting to see. Um, and I'm not sure the comptroller's office is doing a good job of sugarcoating it. So it's... You know, it is what it is. The numbers are down, guys. The food numbers are down. We talked about it last ni- uh, last month. You know, we fully expect in a recessionary economy, whenever we decide that we are actually in some type of recession, which is going to come at some point, that fast food will tick back up. I, I think, to me, that will be, like, the point at which you truly understand we're in a recession. So when sit-down restaurants really drop a lot and fast food ticks up, I think that's when you're gonna see it. And you see it at all these restaurants. I mean, Texas Roadhouse has sent me no less than five emails in the last two weeks talking about their early dine.

Yeah, I'm getting emails from restaurants I haven't been to in years.

Correct, because their numbers are down, right? They need people in the chairs. You know, look, I mean, it just, it just kind of is what it is. Um, you know, we stopped going to Uncle Julio's because I got tired of spending $140 on Uncle Julio's, because I don't know if you've noticed yet or not across the state of Texas, folks, but they've started, like, significantly portion-controlling everything that comes out, right? And I'm, like, not even a fat kid anymore. I've lost all my fatness, but still, like, I'm not gonna pay $140 for a family of four when I order fajitas for two, and you bring me out fajitas for one. Like, it's just it is what it is.

Those cheese enchiladas are so good, though.

Oh, dude, they're so good, but-

When they, when they come out of the... Like, when you eat at the restaurant-

Yeah

... and they come out of the oven right on the plate, that cheese is so g- oh, it's so good.

But then, like, Chipotle corporate, I think we may have talked about this at one point, but Chipotle corporate came out and was like: "Yeah, we're not portion controlling," 'cause there was this big TikTok trend over about people going into Chipotle and seeing that. And, you know, once again, talking to the GM of my Chipotle store, they 100% were rating them on food costs-

When you order on DoorDash or whatever, you're gonna get it smaller-

You're getting-

... 'cause you're not there to see it until you get home.

No, if you order in the drive-thru, right?

Oh, really?

Like... Yeah, if you don't walk in the store, you're gonna get a smaller portion because that's how, the management side, that's how they're getting rated at their local store. So, uh, you know, look, that's where we are. They're trying to not raise prices, right? They're still trying to make their, um, their folks money at the end of the day, and that's where you go. And I'm scared, you know, now that Starbucks has hired the Chipotle CEO, who's going to fly five times a week on his private jet between California and Seattle, um, I'm scared that they're gonna do the same thing to my Starbucks. But, I mean, they've already done it. Like, my iced tea at Starbucks is, like, $4.25 for a Trenta black iced tea-

Yep

... that I get now- I, I'm now buying iced tea in the morning with my own Yeti, this is how cheap I've gotten, for 87 cents. And, and I am a little Buffett-like, like, I eat the same thing every morning.

Where, where are you buying iced tea for 87 cents?

Oh, at, uh, at the, the Pepe's, uh, Fast Stop-

Oh, okay

... in, uh, in, in Willow Park there. Yeah, so every... After I drop off Mason, they have a great taco stand in there called Pepe's.

Oh, yeah.

It's really, really good, so...

Yeah.

Yeah.

You gotta go to, like, McDonald's or Sonic when they're having their-

$1 happy hour

... happy hour, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I would agree with that. Uh, and I do love- I actually love a Sonic iced tea. It's pretty good. The best iced tea in fast food, though, is, do you know? Do you know? Chick-fil-A.

Uh, Bill Miller's.

Chick-fil-A has the... Yeah, I know. Ooh, really?

I just remember, I, well, I used to love their sweet tea-

Okay, well, I'm not a sweet tea-

... back when I was young and didn't care about calories. Empty calories.

I'm not a sweet tea guy. I'm not a sweet tea guy.

I'm not anymore.

Yeah, so anywho, if you take your own cup into your gas stations and you're trying to save a little money, a lot of them have a refill charge that's significantly less. So I can buy the 44-ounce iced tea-... for $3, I think, or I can pay 87 cents and get it in my own Yeti container. So that's what I do now. Call me cheap, but that's how I roll.

Not cheap, frugal.

Frugal. But I think that's where the economy is right now. And let's face it, thanks, Texas cities, we're not struggling. In fact, we're... What did you say last night? "I'm gonna put a moratorium on new clients"?

Oh, you mean we are not-

That's what you said.

Yes, I said a moratorium on new clients for-

So Chad sends out, by the way-

just a couple of weeks.

Yeah, Chad, Chad sends out, by the way, on the entire base camp for everybody to see that he's gonna put a moratorium on new clients, 'cause he's got too much going on- ... uh, and on onboarding, and-

I feel like Taylor Swift. I've got a lot going on at the moment.

My response, by the way, was, "Don't listen to Chad. He's drunk. Keep selling."

Which, by the way, I was not.

I know.

I literally-

It was like 9:15

... just got home from carpooling to soccer.

9:15, yeah.

Like, that would've been a bad time to have imbibed.

Yeah. Have you, have you stopped drinking whiskeys yet, or are you still drinking whiskeys?

Um-

I can't do whiskey anymore.

I... Occasionally.

Okay.

Um, if I have a drink in the evening, uh, and it's not, like, one of those 2.6 carb, super low-calorie light beers, or, like, sometimes even just, like, a non-alcoholic-

Yeah

... um, IPA or something, then I will have a gimlet-

Okay

... which is, uh, some club soda, a little, little bit of gin, and some, some lime or lemon.

Okay, so my, my-

Nice and refreshing

... drink of choice-

I can't drink that in the winter, though. It's more of, like, a summer, spring/summer drink.

It's, like, a lighter drink, right?

It's... Yeah, it's a little bit more-

Yeah

... refreshing.

Okay. My, my go-to drink right now is that, uh... And I think I told you about this, that Modelo or which is, like, the really-

The Oro, yeah.

Yeah, the Oro. It's, like, the really light beer. Uh, it's, it's probably the most flavorful low-cal beer I've ever had. It's pretty good. Uh, and Modelo, once again, knocks it out of the park, and, you know, it's, like, the fastest-growing beer brand out there, I think. Um, pretty good job there. And then, uh, man, a, a, a vodka martini, but not like a vodka martini that's mixed with anything crazy. Like, just vodka and, and, and a little bit of, like, cold-shaken olive juice in there. I don't, I don't need the-

Do you do dusty or dirty?

What is dusty?

It's, it's, like, in between.

Not like a dirty.

It's like a, like a super olive oily-

Yeah

... or olivey.

I like it... Yeah, I like it like a dirty, and I love a blue cheese olive. Like, you, you, you're talking about something after my heart is blue cheese olives. Like, that's been a game changer for me. I say all this from the standpoint of, like, I will have one of these a month, right? Um, and so, you know, in my new fitness routine, if I drink any alcohol at all, it takes, like, half a beer, and I'm like... You know, I feel like- ... it's the first time I've ever had alcohol in my life. It's a very weird feeling. Um, so yeah, so when you see me at TML, and I'm dancing on the street in Houston, uh, doing a triple sow cow off of a curb, I've had one drink, probably. So...

It's, it's always funny to me how, how much of a lightweight you are.

For as heavy as I used to be?

Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm gonna... I would be interested to see me at TML a little lighter. See how that goes. But, uh, that's how we're gonna end it. So we're gonna see you guys, uh, at TML. I think we may have one more episode before we get there, right? Uh, I'd have to look. Maybe two. Uh, but yeah, if you're, um, gonna be at TML, come hang out with us. Uh, I think we're gonna have something a little special up our sleeve there. I know we're gonna have a new T-shirt.

If I can design it.

Yeah. So if you're coming-

I have a lot going on at the moment.

This is what we do.

No new clients. I've got to design a T-shirt.

That's true. He, we're- we're on a moratorium so that Chad can design and order T-shirts right now. Uh, so two plugs I wanna put in: One, uh, if you wanna work for Team Zach, we are looking for a programmer of some kind. A full-stack programmer would be awesome, but we're looking for somebody who wants to be a government nerd, who wants to program and have some fun, and you would directly get to work with Chad.

Yes.

Yes. Um, and the other thing is-

A dream come true

... you would never have to leave your home, except for the once-a-year trip that we go on for a team retreat, uh, and then, like, an occasional conference, which is good, too. Uh, and then the other thing I wanna say is we're gonna be at TML. We're gonna have some new T-shirts there. So if you'll stop by the booth, and you listen to this, ask for a T-shirt, we'd love to give it to you. So-

And we're gonna be at Cal Cities in- the following week.

We are gonna be at Cal Cities, so if we have any, you know, secret-

Making a return trip

... California folks, yeah, we're coming to Cal Cities. Um, and we'll be there.

This year it's in Long Beach. Last year it's in... I guess they alternate between Long Beach and Sacramento.

Correct.

So-

And then the week after that, I'm gonna be on the road to Colorado. Uh, I'm gonna be at the Alliance for Innovation, uh, City Management retreat with all the city managers in Colorado, uh, which is gonna be really cool. Um, I'm real excited about that. It's kind of a closed-door, you know, mind-meld meeting. It's gonna be a lot of fun, and so I'm looking forward to that. So it's gonna be... Yeah, it's gonna be a good time coming around the corner. Got anything else for me?

I'm gonna save anything else that I have for the next podcast, because I have learned my lesson over the last 10 years, and I'm not gonna jinx anything.

That's good. Don't talk about how good Texas looks right now until after you play Michigan. Let's get through Michigan, and then-

I'm not gonna jinx anything

... you can talk about it. Yeah. Uh, my quarterback play at A&M was not great. Our defense looked pretty good. If you leave them on the field as long as you do, things are gonna happen, but, uh-

I think that your quarterback got more yardage on his projectile vomiting than he did on actually passing the football.

He did. Apparently, he was sick. That's not an excuse for me. I'm, I'm not excited, um, but apparently, he was sick. Um, and so yeah-

I think he was sick of the play calling.

Nah, I thought the play calling-

His offense is no better than Jimbo's.

I'm gonna be honest. I'm gonna be honest, I thought the play calling was not terrible. Um, I think we have some major issues at wide receiver.

The thing about, the thing about Collin Klein... Like, I, I don't know, how much Kansas State football did you actually watch when he was there?

Well, I mean, you said that you hated it, like, which makes me think it's gonna be awesome. Didn't they beat you a few times? Like, a few, four or five times?

... they have a, I mean, historically, they've beat you more than y'all have beat them.

No.

Sadly, I think-

Dude, the facial expression that you just gave-

... we may be the only team in the- that's left in the Big 12 that has a winning record on us.

Good job, Michael. Good job, Michael.

Um, you know, you know who I'm worried about is Vandy.

Dude, Vandy looked really good. Yeah, I'd be worried about them, too.

Yeah. I think we, I think we play them on the road towards the end of the season.

Interesting. Okay.

This could be one of those trap games. I think it's, like, might be right before we play y'all, so-

A trap game?

Y'all, y'all are the trap game before the SEC championship.

Y'all play Arkansas, right?

We do. We play Arkansas.

Yeah, you'll lose Ar-

They're in our pod.

You'll lose Arkansas.

You... Arkansas, Oklahoma.

Okay. Yeah, you... I, I- in my opinion, you'll beat Oklahoma. Um, I'm not sure about Moss.

I don't want to talk about any of it.

Okay, but you're gonna lose to Arkansas.

I'm gonna wait. Ideally, I'm gonna wait until the season's over to say anything.

You know what irritates me the most about this last weekend? Is that Doug was right about all of his calls.

Eh, Nebraska looked good.

Eh...

I mean, they were playing UTEP, but-

They were playing UTEP, but, you know, I didn't think they'd cover the spread against UTEP, but they did.

How about Iowa? I think they scored more points this week than they scored all of last season.

Yeah.

I know they had more r- uh, receiver touchdowns.

Uh, it would be nice if we had the receiving corps at A&M right now.

It would-

I'm, I'm, I'm really... I'm honestly gonna show you, I'm really-

You're dreaming of Iowa's receiving corps right now?

I, I'm really worried about our receiving corps, and I'm really, really, really worried about Wags. I, I think, I think we've got some... And, and the reason I'm worried about the quarterback, I'm just gonna put this point blank, he had protection in the pocket, and he just... His footwork, his movement, everything in the pocket told me he was scared to death in that pocket. He was facing the best defensive line in the country, and that's what he faced. And, and the- and to be fair, some of the best secondary guy- I mean, you know, they have the number one corner in the country.

But doesn't he face a good D line in practice?

Every- he faces, like, the number, you know, top five D line, too. I mean, so yeah. I mean, I get it, but he just looked uncomfortable in the pocket, and they gave him a pocket. Like, that total combined, the offensive line at A&M had played six games total combined, right? And they came out and did a great job. I mean, I r- I really honestly thought the offensive line did a great job. I just felt like the quarterback play and the receiver corps play was bad. I thought Moss was good from a running back standpoint. We do have some injuries in the running back corps, but I just... I mean, I think we can fill those gaps, and we found no separation. Like, when you look at the wide angle lens-

All 22?

... of our offense, we just couldn't get separation. Um, and when you're A&M, with the talent pool in the state of Texas that you have, there are plenty of three and four-star wide receivers out there that can get separation, and we don't even have those guys, right? It's, it's a concern. It, it's a concern, and, and it may just be, look, it's Elko's first year. I will say this: I like Mike Elko. I'm not looking to fire him like you guys would Sark after your first loss, but the reality-

Sark went five and seven his first year.

Yeah, but they were talking about firing him. Do, do we need to go back to those podcasts where we talked about that?

Uh, you're telling me that there's not a single Aggie on TexAgs who says his... who has said that Elko should be fired?

There's not a single Aggie on TexAgs.

I, I'm gonna go sign up for our-

And if they are, if they are, they should be removed from TexAgs after one game. Come on.

That is true.

You know.

Good old Lucci runs a tight ship. There can be no criticism of the program.

None whatsoever, yeah. We're diehard fans, you know, so-

Some might even say cult-like.

Eh, maybe. I would probably agree with some, but we welcome you all.

Well, if you need a receiver who can get separation, my oldest will be college age in about nine years.

Those seven-on-seven videos were pretty good.

Oh, if you saw that-

He was running very Chris Sprouts.

Although he can't go to A&M.

Why?

If he goes on a scholarship, I'm not paying for it. I- my kids know, they c- they can go anywhere they want-

Okay

... but I'm not paying for them to go to OU or A&M.

All right, so we're gonna make this deal. If your kids go to A&M, I guess I'll pay.

I, I will make-

And if my kids go to Texas, you're paying. There you go.

That seems like a pretty, a pretty safe bet-

That my kids aren't going to Texas?

... that your kids are never going to Texas.

I just... For, for folks that are listening to this, my kids like on a, on a call in the truck, right?

If they're in the background, they will start yelling about how Texas sucks or Saw him off or-

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, they are, they are cult-like children, children of the corn of College Station, so...

That's right.

Uh-

When we, uh, we drive by someone who has an OU, like, sticker on their car, my oldest will start yelling, "OU sucks," so-

OU sucks!

It's just part of the rivalry.

Uh-huh, yeah. So, uh, the fair is when this year? When is the fair game?

It's always, like, the second week of October.

Are you going? Are you going this year?

Um, uh, I'm pretty sure it's the week that we get back from TML.

Okay.

And it al- often comes on, like, my anniversary weekend, and so I'm gonna be gone on my anniversary and then gone the next week. So I'm probably not gonna go to the OU game, because I'll need to do something special.

Yeah.

It's the 15th-

Okay

... anniversary, so.

Yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

It's not a round number, but it's a semi-round number.

Yeah. I hope you buy something nice, like a handbag or diamonds.

I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do.

Yeah, good luck with that. So anyways, all right, let's wrap it up. It was good.

All right.

It was fun.

See you next time.

See you next.

It's a pretty good wrap-up.

That was good. I liked it.