Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines the word ‘rapacious’ to mean: excessively grasping or covetous; ravenous. There may be no better word to describe the spenders on the Austin city council. On Tuesday, all but one councilmember (Mackenzie Kelly) voted to approve a massive $5.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2024, which is being billed as “the largest...
Texas cities are in an abusive relationship with the English language. As city officials draft their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, you might think these public-facing documents are being filled with data points and explanations. But increasingly, they’re being filled with something else: woke-speak, the dialect of the progressive intelligentsia. Without fail, these municipal...
Tarrant County residents could soon be the envy of taxpayers across the state. Last week, the county commissioners’ court gave its initial approval to the FY 2024 budget, and there was much to applaud. Here’s more from Tarrant County Tim O’Hare: For those unfamiliar with the no-new-revenue (NNR) tax rate, it is “the tax rate...
A major fiscal crisis looms over the Bayou City. In just a few short years, experts expect that the city of Houston will have to wrestle with a “structural budget deficit of up to $300 million.” To close a budget hole of that size, officials will likely have to use some combination of tax hikes,...
U.S Congressman Greg Casar recently went on a food and “thirst strike” for eight hours, for which he was mocked relentlessly online. As many people rightly pointed out, most people go without food and water for this long every 24 hours; it’s called sleeping. Nevertheless, Casar fasted to make a point—that House Bill 2127, a...
In Austin, one team remains undefeated. Not the Longhorns—rather, city officials’ propensity to spend Other People’s Money as though it were a professional sport. And while it might make progressives on City Council temporarily feel good, their excesses come with a big price tag. In fact, the average Austin homeowner paid $9,219 in property taxes...
The city of Lubbock recently signaled that it may soon raise taxes, despite mounting economic and inflationary pressures on the family budget. On Tuesday, KCBD reported that: “The city is considering a property tax rate increase of nearly one-and-a-half cents…That means residents would [sic] bay an additional $110 in property taxes next year.” A tax...
La Joya ISD Superintendent Gisela Saenz resigned her position in the spring, after she supported a plan that would close two elementary schools and lay off 120 employees—this after LJISD used more than $20 million in public funds to buy an entire water park, including tube slides and a lazy river. The troubled school district—which...
“We knew it was coming,” Francisco Nuñez says. Housing is in such high demand in Austin right now that Nunez wonders if he can afford to stay in the city. In 2020, Austin gained an average of 180 new residents a day, causing a shortage of homes and driving up home prices dramatically. This demand,...
In Texas politics, lies travel like one-day express mail from Austin to the rest of the state, while truth often lumbers behind on the back of a slow horse. You’ve probably read the news about the horrors House Bill 2127 soon could inflict upon the Lone Star State: “water breaks banned,” “hairstyle discrimination,” which have...
It’s that time again when city officials all across the Lone Star State begin to consider where to set next year’s tax rate (the fiscal year for most political subdivisions begins Oct. 1 of every calendar year). The tax rate adoption process is one area in which city officials have tremendous discretion—which means that if...
“It belongs in a museum” could easily be used to describe progressives’ application of fiscal responsibility to big city budgeting. Of course, they all claim to believe in it. Even President Joe Biden said, “The (budget’s) first value is fiscal responsibility.” In practice, however, fiscal responsibility is the Bud Light of city government budgets: seemingly...