2014 Veritas Issue 1

Assessing Tax Trends in the City of Austin

Does history suggest that property taxes are too high in the city of Austin? And, if so, have local decision-makers actively helped or hurt the situation?   To help answer these questions, let’s review the city’s 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) and gather four types of data—i.e., tax levies, local population, total tax rates, and taxable values—over a 10-year time horizon. Using these audited estimates, we can gauge the growth of government (i.e., tax levy trends), assess its reasonability...

Veritas August 2018

This issue of Veritas, the quarterly publication of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, features the Foundation's efforts to inform the public of the human cost of subsidizing wind energy, abolishing the "Robin Hood" school property tax, combating our growing civic illiteracy, and our part in the ACA lawsuit.

Texas Prosperity Promise will help avoid mistakes caused by bigger government

Here’s an interesting fact about the Doobie Brothers. When the band first formed in 1970, “the Doobie Brothers” was never supposed to be the permanent name – just something to go by until they thought of something better. But nothing better came along, so their name was made permanent with their 1971 self-titled album. They...