by Mlevin | Jan. 3, 2007 | State
The Legislative Budget Board meeting scheduled for Thursday, January 4 has been postponed to Thursday, January 11, apparently to give legislative leaders more time to chat with members about the setting of the spending limitation pursuant to the Constitution. TFR...
by Admin | Jan. 3, 2007 | State
State Senator Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) got it right in today’s Dallas Morning News when he said, “I don’t think the spending cap was designed to prevent tax cuts.” What spending cap? The so-loose-as-to-be-non-existent cap added to the state...
by Admin | Dec. 27, 2006 | State
by Mlevin | Dec. 27, 2006 | Local
The Galveston Daily News reported this month that the board of the Galveston Independent School District voted to pay the Austin consulting firm Moak, Casey & Associates up to $15,000 to lobby the Texas Education Agency (TEA) on their behalf. The specific...
by Admin | Dec. 27, 2006 | State
The Beaumont Enterprise is reporting that outgoing-Comptroller Carole Keeten-Strayhorn has in her waning days in office hired on campaign staff and added employees. Cost to taxpayers? $40,000, for two months of work. For work that apparently wasn’t needed while...
by Mlevin | Dec. 25, 2006 | State
The Tax Foundation has released a new report with some bad news for Texas taxpayers that many probably already knew all too well. The report, which focuses on property taxes across the nation, found that Texas has the ninth highest property taxes of the 50 states as...
by Admin | Dec. 22, 2006 | State
Economist Stuart Greenfield opined in the subscription-based Quorum Report this week that while Texans are incredibly more generous individuals than others in the country (that part is right), our public policies keep the “state” from being as generous as...
by Mlevin | Dec. 21, 2006 | State
How do Texas college students know their tuition money and the share of taxes their parents paid that go towards higher education are actually used for expenditures that enhance the education they receive? Unfortunately, they don’t because the state’s...
by Admin | Dec. 15, 2006 | State
Does big government help people? The assumption made all too often is that the bigger the government, the more expansive the program, the more helpful it is. Indeed, we see that in the metrics used to justify continuing big government programs: how much money we...
by Mlevin | Dec. 13, 2006 | State
The Texas House Local Government Ways and Means Committee chaired by State Rep. Fred Hill (R-Richardson) has released its interim report. News coverage of the report has centered on its opposition to appraisal caps, which was hardly surprising since Chairman Hill...
by Admin | Dec. 12, 2006 | State
Roddy Stinson, a columnist at the San Antonio Express-News, has hit the nail on the head with a piece in today’s paper. He correctly describes the response of local governments to the idea of slowing down the amount of money they can grab as “Weeping,...
by Admin | Dec. 12, 2006 | Local
State Senator John Carona (R-Dallas) is quoted by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as saying that he’d rather “something wrong than do nothing.” The sad thing is that in this case, the “wrong thing” he’d rather do is raise local taxes...
by Admin | Dec. 11, 2006 | State
 When Texas lawmakers instituted the “gross margins†business tax, it is a safe bet they didn’t expect trail-lawyer-extraordinaire Mark Lanier to sue them over it. But that’s exactly what he’s planning on doing, according to today’s Houston Chronicle. ...
by Empowertexans | Dec. 8, 2006 | Local
The Houston Chronicle's Janet Elliott noted in her blog this week the creation of TFR.December 05, 2006Too much of a good thingReturning the state budget surplus to taxpayers will be job one for a newly formed advocacy group. Texans for Fiscal Responsibility,...
by Empowertexans | Dec. 7, 2006 | State
by Mlevin | Dec. 6, 2006 | Local
As we reported earlier on this blog, we have urged the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) to adopt growth in gross state product instead of total personal incomes as the index for measuring growth in the state's economy for purposes of calculating the constitutional...
by Empowertexans | Dec. 6, 2006 | Local
DallasBlog.com contributor (and editor of the Lone Star Report) Will Lutz noted the formation of TFR in a posting this morning. You can read his post here. TEXANS FOR FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY FORMED Michael Quinn Sullivan, formerly vice president of the Texas Public...
by Empowertexans | Dec. 6, 2006 | Local
On the "Postcards from the Lege" section of the Statesman's website, reporter Mike Ward noted the formation of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. Check out his actual posting here. Fiscal policy watchdog formsBy Mike Ward | Tuesday, December 5, 2006,...
by Empowertexans | Dec. 6, 2006 | Local
New organization offers vision, leadership on tax relief, spending reformsAdvocacy efforts focused on promoting sound fiscal policy among lawmakers, taxpayersAUSTIN, Texas – Unveiled in Austin today is a new organization, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, developed...
by Mlevin | Dec. 4, 2006 | State
Today, the Texas State Auditor released a detailed report on the number of full-time equivalent employees in state government. The central conclusion of the report is that, while state agencies have reduced their number of FTE's by 8.4 percent since 1997, higher...
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