The Latest
Texas Prepares for Solar Eclipse
Approximately 12.8 million Texans live in the path of the eclipse.
Texas Requests Courts Reconsider Lawsuit to Stop Biden Administration From Misusing Parole
America First Legal and 20 other attorney generals joined in the motion.
State Sen. Bob Hall Emphasizes Electrical Grid Security
Sen. Hall continues to educate Texans on vulnerabilities in the state’s energy infrastructure.
Dallas Charter Review Commission Approves Allowing Non-US Citizens to Serve on City Boards
The Dallas City Council will now decide whether to place the amendment on the ballot for voters to approve or disapprove.
The Archive
National Report Finds Texas Has Some of the Nation’s Highest Property Taxes
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...
Merry Christmas: Hand over your money
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 the people...
Gov. Perry Readies a Christmas Present for College Students and an Accountability Lesson for Higher Ed
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 higher...
Helping People
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...
Where There is a Hill, Is There a Way for Taxpayers?
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...
Advocates for Big Government: Paid for by… your taxes!
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, wailing and...
Sen. Carona would rather do the wrong thing… on taxes?
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 to pay for more wasteful mass transit...
Killing the Business Tax…
 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. ...
Houston Chronicle notes TFR
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,...