Texas Gov. Abbott on Future of Border Security, Data Centers, and Ending Foreign Infiltration
[RUSH TRANSCRIPT BELOW] In this episode, I sit down with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. He’s the longest-serving sitting governor, having spent 11 years in office, and is running for reelection this November.
Abbott has made some major policy bets in America’s second-most-populous state. Last year, he signed a large-scale $1 billion school voucher program after years of effort pushing it through the legislature. Now he wants to eliminate school district property taxes for homeowners by covering the costs with the state’s surplus.
Abbott has also made countering foreign infiltration a priority, from effectively barring individuals and companies linked to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from buying Texas land to setting up a state cyber command to guard critical infrastructure.
We discuss: How can Texas eliminate school property taxes sustainably? What are the plans for the $7.5 billion reimbursement from the Department of Homeland Security for border security costs? And why did Abbott recently put a pause on data center development in Texas?
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
Jan Jekielek:
Governor Greg Abbott, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
Governor Greg Abbott:
Great to be with you, thanks.
Mr. Jekielek:
So, you’ve been in office now for 11 years. You’re the longest-serving incumbent governor, actually, the longest-serving governor around. And I’m wondering, when you look back across this time, is there a particular day, a moment that was most memorable in your tenure that you could describe to me?
Governor Abbott:
So, there were several different days. I can remember, like it was yesterday, which it was just a year ago, when on the front lawn of the Texas Capitol, I was able to sign into law a bill that I fought for. For years, actually, governors going back to George W. Bush, to Rick Perry, and to myself early in my career, fought to provide school choice for the kids of Texas. And always it was insurmountable.
For me, I had to campaign across the entire state to get enough votes in the Texas legislature to get it across the finish line. And then, even after that, after winning those elections, I had to campaign for those votes during the session. So, this was something that was not just a one-time event or a one-year event. This is a multi-decade event.
But to finally get that across the finish line, sign it into law, surrounded by parents who were crying. Because finally they had the opportunity to choose the education pathway that’s best for their child was really kind of emotionally wrenching to know that I was able to actually deliver on something that parents desperately wanted.
Mr. Jekielek:
Let’s talk about school choice a little bit because you’ve earmarked a massive amount of funding for this purpose. How are we doing in terms of actually implementing it?
Governor Abbott:
On the funding side, it’s a billion dollars, and it’s the largest day-one school choice program ever in the United States. There were more than 200,000 students who applied for it, and 115,000 to 120,000 were able to be accepted based upon what the budget was. And what we would expect is to ensure that we’re able to expand that so that supply can meet demand. And that will just depend on the experience that parents have.
But what we’re finding is that parents are very excited about this. In every community I go to, someone comes up to me and says, thank you for getting school choice passed. Our child got in this year, and they’re so happy with it.
Mr. Jekielek:
I was looking it up, and there still seems to be like a 30 per cent non-participation rate of people that have qualified and so forth. How do you account for that, and are you trying to deal with that?
Governor Abbott:
First, with regard to anybody who may be categorized as non-participation, the others who were on the waiting list get in because of that. We’ll still have more demand than there is supply for school choice in the state of Texas. But listen, there are some people that may have signed up, wanted to get into one particular private school, and they didn’t get in, or it could be that they were going to be separated from their brother or sister.
Maybe they moved. There are all different kinds of reasons why people have signed up for it, but eventually did not enroll in it. But the moment we learned that they were not going to enroll in it, we were able to add somebody new that was so excited about getting in.
Mr. Jekielek:
You know, I watched a little bit. We’re here at a campaign event of yours at a big manufacturer. The first thing that someone asked you about, and I think the second thing as well, because I was just there for a couple of minutes at the beginning, was about this school property tax issue, which is, of course, your signature policy right now. The big question is it’s a huge amount of money that the state raises through these property taxes. And so, how is, of course, for people, they’re going to be really excited about it, but how can that be done sustainably? That’s the question that people are asking.
Governor Abbott:
Let me fully answer that. However, a slight clarification to your question. You said it’s a huge amount of money that the state raises. The state does not have a property tax. The property taxes in Texas are all at the local level. And so, there are multiple levels. At the local level, there are school districts, and there are cities, there are other local property taxing authorities.
Mr. Jekielek:
And those people presumably are looking forward to seeing that money, right?
Governor Abbott:
Right. But here’s how it works, and that is, let’s look at what we’ve done up until now, then where we’re going in the future under my plan. When I first became governor, there was a $15,000 homestead exemption so that the first $15,000 valuation of your house was not subject to the local school district property tax. Since I’ve been governor, through last year, we increased that homestead exemption from $15,000 to $140,000, and for seniors, up to $200,000. So that for seniors, the first $200,000 of their home value is not subject to a property tax.
And so, what we find is there are a lot of people already paying zero for the school district property tax bill. However, property taxes are way too high, and so my plan does four things. One is it limits all property taxing jurisdictions to the same spending limits the state of Texas has. Second, it requires a vote on every attempt to increase your property taxes and requires a two-thirds vote margin. Third, it reduces the appraisal amount increase from 10 per cent a year to no more than 3 per cent a year.
And it conducts the appraisal process not every year, but only once every five years. And then it completely eliminates using your homestead to pay for property taxes. Instead, the amount you pay for school district property taxes would be zero. The state would make up that difference. The state would be fully responsible for that reduction in the revenue that otherwise would have been going to local school districts.
So, how do we pay for that? We pay for that because our economy is growing so rapidly. Our number one source of revenue is the state sales tax. And we have a massive surplus every year that exceeds the amount it would cost to pay for that increased expense of paying for the schools.
So, we will continue to fully fund our schools without having to come up with any new source of revenue because it’s going to come from our surplus. But I know we may not always have that same level of surplus. So, we have other strategies to create a property tax reduction fund to make sure we will always be able to pay for it going forward.
Mr. Jekielek:
And it’s fascinating. I think your rainy-day fund is actually at its constitutional cap. I remember reading that, right?
Governor Abbott:
That’s one reason why we have a surplus because we have more than $25 billion in a rainy-day fund, and because it’s at a cap, that means the additional revenue that comes in is going to be going into that surplus that we’re able to spend to reduce your property taxes.
Mr. Jekielek:
I recently had Tom Homan on the show, and we were talking about how this kind of dramatic reduction in border crossings—I mean, it’s almost an understatement to say that was achieved. And so, you know, of course, a significant part of that was achieved in Texas. You have your own state-level operation, which, of course, coordinates very closely. I guess the question is, is there any plan to roll back the state commitment now that so much has been achieved, or is this an integral part, or how does that work?
Governor Abbott:
First of all, we’re dealing with a night and day difference in what’s going on at the border. Texas bore the brunt of Joe Biden’s open border policies. We were having thousands, maybe as much as 5,000 or 10,000 people crossing the border a day in small little communities like Eagle Pass and Del Rio. And places like that. It was offensive to every law that exists, what Joe Biden was doing.
And that’s exactly why Texas did what we did. We’re the only state to ever build our own border wall, the only state to deploy up to 10,000 of our National Guard to go down there and build razor wire border barriers. I signed a law that now makes it a state crime for somebody to cross our border. Bordering illegally authorizes every law enforcement officer in the state of Texas to arrest anybody who crosses the border illegally and to return them back across the border. So Texas has done our share.
We, however, also are a beneficiary of what the Trump administration has achieved in reducing illegal immigration. That said, you make the important point: what happens going forward? We know that the current administration is not always going to be in office. We know that we have to be capable of dealing with whoever is in office.
And so, what that means is that Texas will continue to invest in border security. This is a permanent situation we have to deal with. As long as the cartels exist, we’re going to have cross-border issues. As long as people are trying to get here from countries across the world, unless the federal immigration laws are fully enforced, Texas is going to have challenges.
We have addressed this. So we will continue to have, whether it be National Guard or Texas Department of Public Safety officers on the border and securing our border. And all of that is aided now because Texas did receive $7.5 billion from the federal government as payment for Texas stepping up and doing our part to secure the border under the Biden administration.
Mr. Jekielek:
How should the legislature appropriate this or deal with it?
Governor Abbott:
We did receive $7.5 billion, and that was from the Department of Homeland Security. There’s another $3 billion that’s been appropriated by Congress that went to DOJ, [U.S. Dept. of Justice]. We will be applying for that money also. If we get the same percentage that we got from Homeland Security, we’ll get a total of about $10 billion. And part of that money must be allocated to ensure that Texas continues to secure the border. But another part of it, I believe, should go to our property tax reduction fund so that all Texans get to benefit from the reimbursement we got from the federal government.
Mr. Jekielek:
You mentioned that cartels are still active. What are the best tools to deal with them now that you’re finding, I guess, across state and federal lines?
Governor Abbott:
It depends on when, where, and how the cartels are engaging in activity. There was, I think, a kinetic fight between the cartels and the federal government just a few weeks ago. The cartels are getting a little bit more aggressive because they’re trying to get individuals across the border, and also they have their own infighting that leads to all kinds of problems along the border. And so, what it requires on our part is just eternal vigilance. Sometimes we do it at the border crossings, but most of the border crossings themselves—we have about 25 of them in the state of Texas—those are patrolled and monitored by the federal government.
We, as a state, have to deal with the very vast spaces between those ports of entry, and so we have to secure that through personnel, through fencing, through walls, and through other strategies. We use things like drones and other surveillance technology to give us an indication where, when, and how we need to address whatever problem that may exist.
Mr. Jekielek:
So, I want to give a little credit where credit is due here. So, you know, when you came into office, there was very little activity, even awareness, of how much Chinese Communist Party [CCP] encroachment there had been in Texas or, frankly, across the country. And so, you know, you’ve kind of shifted this regime dramatically, I would say, I mean, probably one of the most comprehensive, I’ll just mention land ownership, critical infrastructure contracts, state government contracting and investment, technology and government devices, higher education partnerships, transnational repression, which is important to us, and K-12 curriculum across the board.
Let me start with the transnational repression aspect, right? So, the CCP’s Operation Fox Hunt was an especially good example. So, we were founded by Chinese Americans, and the Chinese Communist Party has not liked our reporting on China and other things. So, we’ve experienced this ourselves. So, let’s start with that question. What progress do you feel this Texas Department of Public Safety has made on challenging this stuff?
Governor Abbott:
Yes, really pretty good progress. We’ve seen issues in places like Houston and Dallas and some other places that we’ve been able to go in there and disrupt it and make good progress. As you know, there are kind of two categories, some of which are more obvious than others, some of which are more secretive than others. But we have some pretty good intelligence at the Texas Department of Public Safety, and they are able to jump in and disrupt all kinds of things like this.
Mr. Jekielek:
Some of the earliest laws had to do with encountering infrastructure vulnerabilities. Actually, now that I think about it, right around that time when this law was being passed about the airstrip, the use, buying of land, and building of an airstrip and so forth. Kyle Bass actually introduced me to that back in the day. And I checked, and you were just passing the law that would prevent that sort of land ownership that encroaches on U.S. military bases and so forth. So, how about this infrastructure vulnerability task force? How does that work?
Governor Abbott:
There are multiple tiers to this. Part of it focuses on the critical infrastructure itself. Think of our power grid, think of our water grid, think of things like that that are infrastructure that is critical to us. And so we’re constantly working to physically safeguard them. But also, I saw it was actually my idea that I got passed and signed into law, where we created the Texas Cyber Command. Their task is to be constantly vigilant for all these. And listen, before I signed it into law, there were some hacks that got into some water systems in small communities.
Muleshoe, Texas, is an example of one of them, where the water system got hacked into by Russia. And so, whether it be China, Russia, Iran, or others, they’re trying to hack into all of our systems every single day. We wanted to bring in the best. And so, what we brought in was the former head of cybersecurity for the United States, who is now the head of cybersecurity at Texas Cyber Command for the state of Texas. When he came to Texas from the U.S., he said, you just got a promotion. And we’re proud to have him here. He’s Admiral T.J. White, doing a fabulous job. But that’s one side of it.
The other side, however, is what we’re doing to ensure that Chinese and other foreign adversaries are not even capable of setting up operations near our infrastructure. So I signed this law, SB 17 [Senate Bill 17], that bans foreign adversaries, including China, Russia, and Iran, from buying our land in the state of Texas. It’s just common sense if we’re going to be able to safeguard our state.
One amazing thing about this is in the campaign for my reelection as governor right now, my opponent voted against that law. She seems to be in favor of allowing China to buy our land in the state of Texas. That’s unacceptable. It’s just one of the many reasons why I’ll be victorious in this election because we as a state have to be constantly vigilant against these attempts to come in and buy our land by our foreign adversaries.
Mr. Jekielek:
So, and there are these holdings that are actually held by some of our adversaries, China mainly, but also some of the others that are in the bill. Are you prioritizing any particular adversary, or how’s that working?
Governor Abbott:
For one, we do prioritize those three. Add North Korea in, but we get a lot of hacks from North Korea.
Mr. Jekielek:
By those three, you mean China, Russia, North Korea?
Governor Abbott:
And Iran. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. But in addition, SB 17 also gave the government the authority to designate certain terrorist-based organizations. And I use that to designate both the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] as foreign terrorist organizations, limiting their ability to operate in the state of Texas because we need to recognize that’s a real danger.
Mr. Jekielek:
The Texas economy has grown pretty substantially during your tenure. What do you think will drive the growth over the next five years or so?
Governor Abbott:
As long as I’m governor, there’s going to be massive economic opportunity in this state because Texas is now the magnet for innovation. What builds the future is innovation, and think of space, for example. Large space-based companies are either headquartered or have massive operations in the state of Texas. The future of space and think of all the different technologies that go along with it, and the companies that supply all the large space organizations. And Texas is competing to have a space command headquarters here in the state of Texas. So there’s a bright future in that regard.
But think of what’s going on in finance, for example. And you’re seeing finance company after finance company either completely move to Texas or set up a regional headquarters in Texas. Texas now has our own Texas Stock Exchange, and because of that, it threatened both the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ [National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations]. And they set up regional headquarters in Dallas also, and they’re doing trading in Dallas. So the future of finance is not going to be in New York anymore. It’s going to be in Texas, with the main locus being in Dallas.
Mr. Jekielek:
And one of the areas of substantial growth, actually, has been these data centers. And I know that you’ve recently decided to kind of put a hold on that around some, I guess, environmental assessments and things like that. Just explain to me how you view data center growth.
Governor Abbott:
Data center growth in Texas was on an unsustainable pathway. And so I put a halt on data centers that were not in compliance with Texas law. Texas law requires two things. One is for every data center that either was operational or wanted to operate, they must disclose to the Public Utilities Commission how much power they were using and how much power they would need in the future. And separate from that, they were all required to disclose to the Texas Water Development Board how much water they were using and how much they would be using.
For each of those categories, less than 20 per cent of the participants actually complied with what the law required. And so there’s a pause on it until we get all the information. And then, awaiting that information, we’re going to have to calibrate how much power demand they’re going to be taking. Here’s the bottom line. Going forward, these data centers must provide their own power as opposed to taking it off the power grid. They must do so in a way that lowers the cost of electricity.
Second, with new technology invented right here in Texas, they will be able to have water that will cool their data center without taking an ounce of water from any of our communities. And so I expect both technology for water and for electricity to exist in Texas so that neither our water supply nor our power supply will be drained. And then the last thing is they don’t need to be building data centers. In our neighborhoods or in our rural settings, people are trying to escape things like data centers. So they have to be good neighbors, good partners, helping, not harming our residents in Texas.
Mr. Jekielek:
So, very briefly, I’m just reminded that there’s been this sort of—I guess not exactly a boom yet—but a lot of people thinking about SMRs, [small modular reactors], and so forth. What is your attitude towards those as a solution for this?
Governor Abbott:
I created a new nuclear program in the state of Texas this last session. A key focal point was on SMRs, where the state set aside money to invest in SMRs. And so we’re aggressively attracting it to the state of Texas.
Mr. Jekielek:
And ultimately, you know, I remember a few years back now, I did an episode looking at it because the Texas power grid did fail at one point. And it’s, you know, a lot—I didn’t even know that Texas had its own entire grid prior to this happening. And I understand that there are still vulnerabilities. So, of course, there are the foreign adversary vulnerabilities, but then there’s just so much industry happening here that the drain is too much, type of vulnerabilities. Where do you feel you’re at here right now?
Governor Abbott:
Let me clarify because what we’ve done with the power grid since Winter Storm Uri is nothing short of miraculous. We have doubled the amount of power that we have on our grid since then. Texas has more power on our grid, twice as much power than the second most powerful state in the country, and we’re adding more power than any other state.
So, our power grid is more robust than any state, as well as more resilient and reliable than it’s ever been. So, we feel good about it. We just wanted to make sure the power being sought by the data centers was not going to compromise that, and that’s one reason why I put a halt on those data centers.
Mr. Jekielek:
Let’s talk a little bit about the election because, after all, we are in one right now. So, your challenger is relatively new to the scene and so forth, but the polls are showing kind of a tight race. How do you respond to that?
Governor Abbott:
First, I’ll tell you, she may be new to the scene. She’s not new to office. She’s been in office as a state legislator for 10 years. But here’s what’s interesting, and that is, so she’s been in office for 10 years and hasn’t talked in her entire campaign about anything that she accomplished in office because she’s accomplished exactly nothing. So she has nothing to go to voters and say, I did this or I did that, because she wasted 10 years of her tenure accomplishing absolutely nothing.
But what we have found is that when people learn about the votes that she cast, they’re running from her as fast as they can to make sure that they support my campaign. What they see in her is someone who voted 40 times for higher property taxes. They see in her someone who actually voted in favor of a state income tax. She said a state income tax is the third leg of the taxing stool that’s needed to fund the state of Texas, which is insanity. No one in Texas wants that.
She also is very dangerous for our energy industry. She voted for Green New Deal policy proposals that would decimate our energy sector. She would lead hundreds of thousands of oil and gas workers to the unemployment line and would decimate our state budget. But look at where she stands on crime and public safety. She voted against a law that I proposed that would deny bail to illegal immigrants who murder a Texan. So she’s prioritizing illegal immigrants over the lives of our fellow Texans. How much more un-Texan can you be than that?
But maybe worst of all is what she has supported with regard to our children. She supports children actually having sexual transition while they’re children. She supports public education helping children transition behind their parents’ backs, as well as prosecuting parents who refuse to misgender their children. It’s just crazy. And so when they learn how crazy my opponent is, it just increases my polling position dramatically.
Mr. Jekielek:
How do you explain that the polling says it’s a tight race then? So, what would you say to someone wondering about this?
Governor Abbott:
One thing Americans have kind of become accustomed to for at least a decade, if not longer than that, is you can’t put a whole lot of credibility in what you see in polls.
Mr. Jekielek:
Okay. Thank you for taking the time. I know you have a very robust schedule and a lot of stops, so I appreciate you taking this time. Is there something else you would like Americans to know as we finish up?
Governor Abbott:
Americans needed to know one thing, and that’s what we were talking about, about the election. Listen, as goes Texas, so goes America. In Texas, we have to get this election right because if we get it wrong, if the leftist with a socialist agenda wins Texas, America may be lost. So the time is urgent for all Texans and really all Americans to understand what’s at stake in Texas and get behind my campaign as quickly as possible.
Mr. Jekielek:
Well, Governor Greg Abbott, it’s such a pleasure to have had you on.
Governor Abbott:
Thank you very much.
This interview was partially edited for clarity and brevity.
