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French Fashion Show Tops Spring Branch ISD’s Wasteful Spending

Conservatives in Texas often talk about how wasteful our government school system can be, yet we rarely find a gem as perfectly flawed as two stories that appeared recently in the Houston Chronicle. On May 1, the Chronicle breathlessly reported “Spring Branch ISD...

News You Can Use

Readers of the Houston Chronicle's website now have a nifty tool: browse the pay of nearly every public employee in Houston and Harris County. Topping the payroll at $442,556 is HISD superintendent Abelardo Saavedra. Coming in a distant second is the "Chancellor...

Tax Sweat

One way to avoid listening to taxpayers is to simply keep them out of earshot. Take, for example, Collin County in north Texas. County commissioners there are going to take up discussion next week on a proposal to build a county-employees-only physical fitness...

Government Math

You gotta hand it to the bean-counters in Sugar Land, outside Houston -- they sure know how to sell an idea. They're trying to convince residents(presumably with success) that spending $18 million to get $13 million, over 25 years, is a good use of the taxpayers;...

Jindal For… Anything

So I usually don't think much about Louisiana. I sometimes forget it's even there, kind of like Utah or Nevada or Rhode Island. But Gov. Bobby Jindal is making conservatives take note. I've met him a time or two, and been as impressed as everyone else who meets him....

Taxed Into Awareness

My friend Cheryl Johnson serves as tax assessor/collector for Galveston County, a position she has used to champion the rights of taxpayers. She recently penned an op-ed that proposes changing the current appraisal-driven property tax system to one where your...

Lubbock Revisiting New $6.7 Million Visitor Center Boondoggle

We blogged this plan a few weeks ago, but thankfully it is now being reconsidered. Instead of spending $6.7 million to build a new visitors center that is to include a walk of fame and theater, the Lubbock City Council is now considering moving an existing building to...

A Streetcar Named Waste

Now this is a heck of a deal, Fort Worth city officials are considering the creation of a modern "streetcar" system. According to Texas Government Insider, the plan could cost between $16 million and $40 million... per mile! The city spent $1 million taxpayer dollars...

Pay More Taxes

So the Fort Worth Star Telegram doesn’t mind the new business tax; big surprise, they also like big government. In an editorial on Thursday, the Star Telegram opined that “it’s impossible to know what the tax’s real impact will be” because state bean counters won’t...