Testimony on SB 12 before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs

March 14, 2019

Vance Ginn, Ph.D.

Vance Ginn, Ph.D., is an accomplished economist finding free-market solutions that let people prosper. He is founder and president of Ginn Economic Consulting where he provides high-quality research and trusted insights on how to affect change at the federal, state, and local levels. Ginn’s experience includes time in public policy, government, and academia. He is chief economist at Pelican Institute for Public Policy and a senior fellow at several think tanks, including at Americans for Tax Reform, Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), and Young Americans for Liberty.

The Teacher Retirement System (TRS) of Texas is a defined-benefit pension system that provides more than 1.5 million Texans a payout in retirement. TRS is six times larger than the next public pension plan in Texas. Texas must secure teachers’ retirement by ensuring TRS is actuarially sound, but, more importantly, by giving teachers control over their livelihood through structural reforms to TRS.

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Winners & Losers: The Fight for Western Civilization (and beating Canada)

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk 1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Next week you can join us at the Texas Public Policy Foundation for Winners and Losers LIVE. Click here for more info. See you there. Here’s who made this week’s list....

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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...

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Does history suggest that property taxes are too high in the city of Ft. Worth? 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...

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Vance Ginn, Ph.D.

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