State
Parents Say Texas Needs an Inspector General for Public Education, Now
Texas Education 911 says one more victim and one more day is not acceptable. “Protecting children is a mandate.”
Greg Abbott Endorses Donald Trump for President
The endorsement comes over a year since Trump announced his plans to seek a second term.
Texas House Votes to Kill School Choice Proposal
Republicans and Democrats voted to remove the school choice proposal from a massive education spending bill.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Announces More House Endorsements
Paxton said it’s time for “spring cleaning in Austin.”
State Archive
Lawmaker Math
You might recall a few weeks ago I noted that the Legislature's new $3 billion-over-10-year cancer fund was probably not going to accomplish much more than spend a lot of your money. Not my opinion, but that of scientists actually in the field. "(T)he question is how...
School Tax Scam
Here's a nice little scam floating around school districts: claiming credit for cutting taxes when they haven’t. You’ll remember that the Legislature bought down school “maintenance & operations” property taxes to $1, using proceeds from their new business tax....
Bad Tax Ideas Never Go Away
Fighting tax-and-spendoholics is like playing Wack-A-Mole at the arcade. You knock them down, only to find they pop right back up. The lesson? We have to move faster and hit harder. Last legislative session, taxpayers were successful in stopping tax-and-spendoholics...
Road Taxes Should Fund Roads? What A Crazy Idea…
State Sen. John Carona says in today’s Dallas Morning News that Texas must “stop the diversion of gas tax funds for other uses.†That’s welcome news. While the state’s constitution currently requires transportation funds to be used for transportation...
Privatization Serves Taxpayers Even When Contractors Fail
Advocates of big government rarely let facts get in the way of their pursuit of growing budgets. Such is the case with Waco Tribune-Herald editor John Young, whose weekly column is very often devoted to the worship of government (of the activist variety) and the...
Property Tax Relief… For Government Employees
The headline in today's Houston Chronicle says it all: City union asks for property tax relief. My heart leapt for joy: Bureaucrats are now joining the call for tax relief! But then I read the article... They don't want property tax relief for all taxpayers,...
Ineffective Treatment?
The Houston Chronicle reported over the weekend that medical professionals are skeptical that the legislature's new $3 billion "cancer fund" will accomplish much more than spend $3 billion of the taxpayers' money. But, don't worry, it was created with the best of...
Deadweight, and Dead Weight
An elected official (a Republican, no less) told me yesterday he doesn't mind paying taxes because it is "the price of freedom." His doe-eyed statement was wrong on a great many levels, practical and philosophical. First and foremost, freedom's price has been paid --...
Tainted Performance Measures at the Department of Agriculture
Today, the State Auditor released a report certifying that the Department of Agriculture met only 60 percent (3 of 5 with one of the three certified with qualification) of its performance measures. That's the same Department of Agriculture that, as noted in this post...