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The Latest
Texas Earns Financial Grade of ‘C’ From Watchdog Group
According to the report, Texas did not have enough assets to cover its debts in 2023.
North East ISD Teacher Accused of Sexually Grooming Student
John Ghrist used Snapchat and a school-approved app to message a 15-year-old girl, and police fear there could be more victims.
Suspects in Jocelyn Nungaray’s Murder May Be Tied to Violent Venezuelan Gang
Search warrants revealed that both men had videos and photos with gang signs and emojis linked to the Tren de Aragua gang.
Huffines: Time for Texas to Ban Taxpayer-funded Lobbying
A new solutions paper outlines steps the legislature can take to ensure taxes do not go toward killing citizen-priority legislation.
The Archive
It’s Wait and See at the LBB – At Least Fix the Cap Before Busting It, If You Must
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...
Tax cuts ain’t spending!
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 constitution back in 1978...
Texas Has 9th Highest Property Tax Burden
Texas Taxpayer Funded Lobbying & Blogging
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...
Carole’s Campaign Cadre
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 she...
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...