This statement appeared in an e-mail sent out by Michael Quinn Sullivan: Texas House Speaker Joe Straus was quoted by the press yesterday as saying the state’s budget must be balanced without new taxes, without taping the “rainy day” fund, and only within the available revenues — that is, by limiting government. I didn’t see the quote in the press Sullivan referred to, but I did ask Straus if he said that he would not tap the Rainy Day Fund. His answer was he was referring to the LBB base bill. In other words, he does not favor enhancing the LBB’s bare-bones initial budget with money from the Rainy Day Fund at the start of the budget process. (Could the LBB members put Rainy Day Fund money in the base bill if they wanted to? That requires a vote of the Legislature.) Anyway, the point is that LBB members are going for the shock therapy of starting with the barest of bare-bones budgets.