Governor Abbott Delivers 2025 State Of The State Address
**Governor Abbott often deviates from prepared remarks**
Good evening to members of the Texas Senate and House, Speaker Burrows, state officials, members of the judiciary, First Lady Cecilia Abbott, and to my fellow Texans.
We love our state. It means something to be a Texan. No state offers the opportunity that Texas provides. Businesses like Arnold Oil Company have seized that opportunity. Tonight, I’m at their headquarters in Austin. It’s an 85-year-old family business. They supply auto products, lubricants, power equipment, and much more. Jim Arnold says they supply anyone with a wrench in their hand.
The Texas economy is thriving because of Arnold Oil and thousands of businesses like it.
Texas is the most powerful economy in America. Ranked as the best state for doing business for 20 years, Texas is No. 1 for the most new jobs, No. 1 for economic development, and No. 1 as the best state to start a new business.
Texas is the blueprint for America’s future. We rank No. 1 for technology and innovation and No. 1 for semiconductors that power the things you use every day. We created a Space Commission to boost space exploration in Texas, from NASA, to SpaceX, to Blue Origin, and beyond. And we added new business courts that swiftly deal with complex business litigation. Business is booming so much that we now have our own stock exchange, the Texas Stock Exchange. It will make Texas the financial capital of America.
Clearly, God has blessed Texas, and the state of our state has never been better.
But we know that more must be done to ensure that prosperity reaches every Texas family and every Texas business. That’s why I created the Small Business Freedom Council to require all state agencies to slash rules, fees, and regulations. It’s why we will keep state spending below constitutional limits and why we must cut your taxes.
We know that many Texans face an affordability crisis. Last session, we slashed your property taxes. But for many Texans, those cuts were wiped out by local taxing authorities that hiked your property taxes even more. That must end this session.
I want at least $10 billion in new property tax relief. But that will only work if local authorities cannot use loopholes to jack up your property taxes like Haris County did. They increased property taxes more than 10% last year.
Loopholes that increase your property taxes must be banned. No taxing entity should be able to raise your property taxes without a two-thirds approval by voters.
No approval, no new taxes.
I am making property tax relief an emergency item that must be passed.
We must also make housing more affordable. To do that, we need to make it easier to build, slash regulations, and speed up permitting. And to make your current home more affordable, we should offer a one-year tax exemption on home improvements, like heating and air conditioning.
Helping families also means improving healthcare for Texans. That includes expanding access and funding for mental healthcare, especially in rural Texas. It means helping our seniors and Texans with disabilities by providing pay increases for their caregivers. And it means increasing maternal care in every corner of the state.
Another issue that effects every family and every business is water. Some of our water supplies are drying up. Many communities have leaking and broken water lines. Agriculture producers in the Rio Grande Valley and West Texas do not have enough water to grow their crops.
Last session, we invested $1 billion in water projects and infrastructure. This session, we will Texas-size that investment.
Working with Senator Perry and Representative Cody Harris, we will put Texas on a path to have plenty of water for the next 50 years. We will make the largest investment in water in the history of Texas. We will tap into new water supplies and repair pipes to save billions of gallons of water each year.
This generational investment in water is so important, I am declaring it an emergency item.
Our rapidly growing state also needs an increasing supply of electric power.
We now provide more power than ever before. In the last four years, we increased power by 35%. As a result, Texas ranks No. 1 for electric power generation, with more than California and New York combined. And we’re not done yet.
Last session, I signed a law to add 10,000 megawatts of power to the grid. That’s enough to power more than two million homes.
We must add more power this session to better fortify our grid. It’s also time for Texas to lead a nuclear power renaissance in the United States.
Texas is No. 1 in so many ways, like jobs, Tier One research universities, cattle and cotton, oil and gas, and we’re home to the largest medical center in the world. The list goes on. It is now time that we set our sights on another No. 1. Texas should be No. 1 in educating our children.
There are three pillars to reach that goal. All of which must be achieved.
The first pillar is empowered parents.
Parents are a child’s first teacher. Schools must work for parents, not the other way around. Schools must respond to parents’ concerns, and parents should be empowered to choose the school that’s best for their child.
The second pillar is exemplary teachers.
We must fund and train the best teachers. That starts with giving our teachers a pay raise this session. To increase teachers’ average salary to an all-time high, I am declaring teacher pay an emergency item.
Additionally, we must reward the best teachers by putting them on a path to earn a six-figure salary. More than 25,000 teachers are already on that path. We must expand that merit program to every school district.
And to keep great teachers, we must restore discipline in our schools. It is commonsense to give teachers the authority to remove disruptive students from their classrooms.
Very simply, our schools must be safe. Safe for students, teachers, staff, and parents. We should invest $500 million more to better secure our schools.
The third pillar is exceptional academics.
Public education funding is at an all-time. Funding per student is at an all-time high. But improving education requires more than just spending money. It requires high-level instruction and better curriculum.
Schools must focus on the fundamentals – reading, writing, math, science, and of course, our country’s founding documents. We want to ensure every child is prepared for college or a good-paying career.
However, schools must not push woke agendas on our kids. Schools are for education, not indoctrination.
We must ban DEI in grades K-12.
No boys in girls’ sports. The State of Texas recognizes only two genders – male and female. Any educator who tells students that boys can be girls should be fired on the spot.
Vital to education is expanding career training. Many of the most in-demand jobs are careers like welders, plumbers, and electricians.
To prepare students for these careers, high schools must provide more career training programs so students can go from graduation directly into a good-paying job.
Raya Rabold, who is here tonight, is a great example of this. She took welding at Jarrell High School. After more training at Texas State Technical College, her welding work was featured in the “Yellowstone” TV show. She’s now working to become a welding inspector that earns as much as $85,000 a year. And she’s only 18 years old.
Careers like this are part of the better job and bigger paycheck opportunities that we provide in Texas. That’s why I am making life-changing career training an emergency item.
I will work with Senator Schwertner and Representatives Keith Bell and Gary Gates on this much-needed legislation.
Raya chose the path that was best for her. We want every student at every level to have that same opportunity. That’s why we must pass school choice this session.
Government-mandated schools cannot meet the unique needs of every student. But Texas can provide families with choices to meet those needs. The majority of Texans support school choice. More than 30 states already have a form of school choice. We will continue to fully fund public schools and raise teacher pay, while also giving parents the choice they deserve.
The fact is, Education Savings Accounts have already succeeded in Texas. In 2020, I created a pilot program for special education students. In 2021, a bipartisan supermajority of the Legislature expanded that program. It provides $1,500 grants for tutors and other support services that help students thrive.
One success of that program is with us tonight. Jeremiah Kimmel is a student with Autism from Bell County. That program helped Jeremiah improve at school and in his daily life. His grandmother said it’s huge that she could have a say in the education that was right for Jeremiah.
Like Raya and Jeremiah, every child deserves the education that’s best for them. It’s time to expand that same opportunity to every Texas family.
Thanks to Senator Creighton and Representative Buckley for their leadership.
Tonight, I am declaring school choice an emergency item that must be passed.
For Texans who want to go to college, we must ensure that it’s more affordable and more accessible.
Our public universities must also be more accountable. College professors have increasingly pushed woke agendas. They have too much influence over who is hired to educate our kids. We need legislation that prohibits professors from having any say over employment decisions.
We must also expand the ban on DEI in our public universities. We must purge it from every corner of our schools and return the focus to merit. I have ordered all state agencies to eliminate DEI. Now, we need a law that bans DEI from any entity that receives taxpayer dollars.
No one can benefit from a better education or a booming economy if they are not safe.
To make our communities safer, we must eliminate parole for criminals convicted of child trafficking. We must deny bail to criminals charged with capital murder and other heinous violent crimes. Illegal immigrants who are arrested should be considered a flight risk, denied bail, and turned over to ICE.
Activist judges have too much discretion to let repeat offenders out on bail, only to see them harm more Texans.
Many innocent Texans, including Harris County Deputy Constable Omar Ursin, have been murdered by criminals let out on bail from a prior murder charge. Deputy Ursin’s widow, Whitney, is with us tonight. All of Texas grieves with you.
Lawmakers must choose – support the safety of the citizens they represent, or the criminals who kill them.
Thanks to Senator Huffman and Representative Spiller, this legislation will save lives. That is why I am making bail reform an emergency item.
Another safety issue that must be addressed is squatters. Private property rights are a cornerstone of our values and legal system. It is against the law to live or stay on somebody’s property without their permission. We need stronger laws to immediately remove and prosecute squatters.
Another essential part of public safety is fighting fires. This session, we must ensure that our firefighters have the tools they need, like air-tanker planes and more funding for local firefighters across our state.
Joining us tonight are Texas firefighters who battled the Panhandle blazes – the largest fire in Texas history. We also have Texas firefighters who fought the catastrophic California fires. We thank them for their service and their bravery.
As the world becomes more complicated and dangerous, we must protect our state from hackers and hostile foreign actors. Just in the last two weeks, we have seen one of our cities, a hospital, and a major business all hit by serious cyberattacks.
That’s why I am announcing an emergency item to create the Texas Cyber Command. We will partner with the University of Texas at San Antonio on this effort.
San Antonio is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of cybersecurity experts. We must harness those assets to protect against threats from China, Iran, Russia, and other foreign enemies. They could cripple our power, water, and communications with cyberattacks. We must use cutting-edge capabilities to secure our state.
I thank Senator Parker and Representative Capriglione for their leadership on this issue.
We also must protect Texas from infiltration by foreign adversaries. That includes prohibiting non-citizens from serving in state and local government and prohibiting hostile foreign nations and their agents from buying Texas land.
We must safeguard our elections so that only United States citizens are able to register and cast a vote in Texas. I support Senator Hughes’ election integrity bill to restore power to the Attorney General to prosecute election violations.
Safer communities require secure borders. I launched Operation Lone Star with the Legislature to combat President Biden’s open border policies.
Together, we built a border wall, installed buoys in the Rio Grande, and deployed the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety on the ground, in the water, and in the air. These brave soldiers and troopers have built border barriers, arrested and jailed illegal crossers, and seized enough fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States, Canada, and Mexico combined.
We are joined tonight by members of our Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety who served on the border. We thank them for their service.
Also, I declared an invasion at the border. I designated the Mexican drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations. And I took the border to Biden by busing more than 100,000 migrants to sanctuary cities like Washington, D.C., and New York City.
None of these tactics would have been possible without funding from the Legislature.
Our efforts have reduced illegal crossings into Texas by more than 85%. In fact, Operation Lone Star has been so successful the Trump Administration is using it as a model to secure the border.
Today, we have a President who will partner with Texas to deny illegal entry. To support that mission, I have ordered Texas state agencies to assist the Trump Administration with arresting, jailing, and deporting illegal immigrants.
We must also require cities and counties across the state to fully cooperate with these efforts.
One of the most dangerous threats is the violent Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua. They take over empty apartments and hotels. They traffic women, children, and drugs.
I declared them a foreign terrorist organization. I directed the Department of Public Safety to dispatch strike teams to root out and destroy Tren de Aragua in Texas.
Their violence has taken the lives of innocent Texans, like 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray. She was brutally raped and murdered by two illegal immigrants with ties to Tren de Aragua. Her mother, Alexis, is with us tonight. Cecilia and I are so sorry for your loss.
Justice for Jocelyn demands action. I demand legislation imposing the death penalty on anyone convicted of murdering a child like Jocelyn.
Ultimately, our task this session is to be guardians of freedom.
Freedom will persist for as long as we protect it. Freedom stokes self-determination to achieve things once thought impossible. Freedom is the power that turns ashes at the Alamo into victory at San Jacinto. Freedom is the force that propelled Texas to global economic dominance. Freedom is the spirit behind family businesses like Arnold Oil that endure for generations. Freedom is the inspiration that drives students like Raya and Jeremiah to choose the path that’s best for them.
More than anything, it is freedom that will make Texas stronger, safer, and more prosperous than ever in the history of our great state.
May God bless you all, and may God forever bless the great state of Texas.