We apologize that due to technical difficulties we were unable to broadcast live this afternoon’s DRC Legislative Speaker Series event, featuring Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar, in conversation with The Dallas Morning News Political Writer Gromer Jeffers. The virtual platform we use experienced an outage just as our event was about to start. However, we recorded the complete interview and hope you will take the time to view the conversation below.

Thank you to our Presenting Sponsor, Toyota Motor North America, and Platinum Sponsor, Ryan.

Among the highlights from the conversation:

• • • Comptroller Hegar discussed the April and May tax receipts from key areas, such as motor fuel sales tax, hotel occupancy tax, and general sales tax and why these new numbers are delaying the state’s budget revision to now be released on Monday, July 20.
    • The Comptroller explained his reasoning for imposing immediate cuts across state agencies, rather than wait and take deeper cuts down the road.
    • The Comptroller is looking at hotel occupancy, airline travel, and various additional non-traditional data points that the state typically has not followed closely to get the best economic picture of the state of Texas.
    • State leaders are concerned that since the recovery will be long term, several types of jobs that were lost may not return. However, he believes since Texas was in a strong place financially before the pandemic, it will recover faster than most of the country.