The city of Austin spends profusely. Its property tax is growing wildly. It’s drowning in debt. And to make matters worse, the future doesn’t look so bright for those footing the bill. Earlier this month, the city introduced its proposed budget for the upcoming 2025-26 fiscal year, which totals a massive $6.3 billion or $6,294...
The city of Austin wants to raise your taxes. Again. And in a big way. On Tuesday, city councilmembers explored several tax increase proposals, most of which would require voter-approval in November. The options ranged from raising taxes only up to the 3.5% trigger, which would add $154.83 to the average homeowner’s tax bill, to...
Ideally, an inverse relationship exists between property tax rates and property values. As one goes up, the other should come down, lest the product of those two variables—i.e., one’s tax bill—shoot up as a result. Of course, Texas’ local governments aren’t well-known for lowering rates when values rise, or vice versa. Case-in-point: the city of...
On Thursday, the FOX television affiliate in El Paso, KFOX14, published an article related to local property taxes that is raising eyebrows for promoting 2 very misleading arguments. Let’s briefly review each one and see if we can spot the fallacy. The first troubled argument can be found in the opening paragraph, which advances the...
The ink on the Texas Legislature’s $10 billion tax cut is not even dry and yet, local governments are already scheming to steal your tax cut. It is happening now, and it is happening fast. For example, a recent article from Community Impact highlighted the adoption of Austin ISD’s 2025-2026 budget and included a link...
On Wednesday, Governor Greg Abbott announced that the First Called Special Session of the 89th Texas Legislature, which is set to begin on July 21, 2025, would focus on one-and-a-half dozen agenda items Among those 18 items, one in particular is especially noteworthy from a policy perspective—banning taxpayer-funded lobbying. The charge itself calls for: BAN...
Most people understand that you shouldn’t spend more than you make. But many independent school districts (ISDs) don’t seem to have gotten the message. Over the last few weeks, numerous ISDs have been observed adopting deficit budgets. For those not well-versed, deficit budgeting “occurs when government expenses exceed revenue.” As you might imagine, there are...
When a citizen goes beyond the call of duty, he’s a hero. When a government goes beyond the call of duty, it’s overreach—and, unfortunately, some municipalities, like the city of College Station, seem to have made a bad habit of it. As was revealed in a Senate Committee meeting earlier this year, College Station city...
An influential Texas Senator took to X recently to ask the following question: “How much money is dedicated in the [2026-27] State of Texas Budget for Property Tax Relief, really?” The answer: appropriators set aside more than $10 billion this session for property tax relief purposes, which is one of the largest reductions in recent...
Tax cuts are coming for Texas homeowners and businesses. On Thursday, the 89th Texas Legislature put the final touches on its roughly $10 billion tax relief package, sending the last remaining elements to the governor for approval. Assuming a favorable reception, the Legislature’s completed package will include 4 separate pieces of legislation and 3 related...
Earlier this year, it was revealed that local governments spent as much as $98.6 million in 2023 to hire contract lobbyists whose only job was to advocate for higher taxes, more spending, and bigger government. That level of expenditure is up from $75 million in 2021 and $41 million in 2017. Of course, that nearly...
During the May 2025 election cycle, Texas voters were asked to decide on 313 separate propositions seeking $41.3 billion in new principal debt. These 300+ proposals were put forward by many different cities, counties, school districts, and special districts, each for a particular purpose and cost. Among the score of bonds proposed are those pitched...