I like Sen. Ted Cruz's new campaign slogan, "Tough as Texas." It makes me want to buy a truck. But it could be a little more on the money. How's this: "Ted Cruz: Tough on Texas Taxpayers"?

Catchy, right? It reveals the thing that Ted Cruz won't tell you as he goes around the state re-branding himself as just one of us, another good ol' boy. Cruz just helped cost you, the Texas taxpayer, at least $26 billion. He is so tough, such a believer in the Bassboat Navy and the Redneck Country Club, that he has no problem giving tens of billions of your dollars to Washington for the next 10 years.

Now, if you haven't spit out your Bud Light yet, listen to how he did it. He was one of just three senators to urge the Trump administration to include on the decennial census, for the first time since 1950, a question asking people if they are citizens. Before your eyes roll over in the back of your head anticipating talk about congressional seats, focus on the money.

Because it's yours. And you, my fellow Texan, have just been had. You see, you are a net contributor to the federal government. For every dollar Texans send to Washington, we get 57 cents back in services, according to a breakdown by The Dallas Morning News' Arnessa Garrett. New Mexicans are basically binging off the government, getting $7 for each dollar they send, but Texans still get a pretty healthy return on investment.

All told, Texas taxpayers will send Washington $151 billion this year. And over the next 12 months, we'll get more than half back. The single biggest chunk of that depends on the census, and it funds our state government. About 30 percent of that goes to Medicaid. Well, that's poor people, you might say. Yes. But it's also older people whose incomes are reduced and fixed, although it really ends up in the pockets of insurers, doctors, hospitals and nursing homes.

Money also goes into highway construction to benefit traffic-snarled suburbanites. It goes into school districts, benefiting your kids; and unemployment insurance, benefiting you if you lose your job. Medicare Part B is for everybody over 65, and census-calculated money even goes into loans for small businesses in San Antonio, and relief from hurricanes in Houston and droughts in the Panhandle. The 14 largest federal programs driven by the census account for $43 billion annually in Texas, according to Andrew Reamer of George Washington University. Every Texan counted is basically worth $1,578.

OK, so what if noncitizens are intimidated from participating in the census? Shouldn't we know how many citizens we have versus noncitizens? We already do — from an entirely different census product, the American Community Survey. That's how we know Texas has 5 million immigrants out of nearly 27 million people, and how we know we have about 1.6 million undocumented immigrants.

So what if those 1.6 million don't answer the census? Texas doesn't get back $300 million for each percentage point the census is off — each year. That's approximately $2.6 billion each year for 10 years that Texans are donating to Washington.

Maybe you don't care about Medicaid, but your elderly mother in Denton might, and the hospital will charge you more every time it gets stiffed by a patient who can't pay.

Maybe you don't care about school lunches. But you probably want your kid to learn to read.

Maybe you're obsessed with commute times from Plano. Or you want to start a business. Sorry, you just handed the $26 billion that could help you over to Washington for the next 10 years, no strings attached.

So, it's great that Cruz has finally come out as just another ropers-wearing, bass-fishing, down-home, beer-guzzling hoss. I always secretly feared that at the end of a long, hard day he curled up in a silk robe, propped his slippers up on a Louis XIV settee, cranked Debussy up to 11 and sipped a perfectly chilled Chardonnay, pinky up. I'm still not convinced he knows a Winchester from a Winnebago, but his rebranding is a huge relief given that in six years in the Senate he's accomplished ... well, nothing.

But when you pay your taxes in 2020 and start kissing $26 billion goodbye, you can thank Ted for accomplishing that. Or when Grandma's nursing home bill comes due. Or when Junior can't read. Or when you're stuck in traffic. Or when the state raises your taxes.

Ted Cruz: Tough on Texas taxpayers. Yeah, that has a ring to it.

Richard Parker is a writer in Austin and the author of "Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America." He is a frequent contributor to The Dallas Morning News. Twitter: @richardparkertx