Robert Pratt has been significantly involved in Texas politics for 40 years and since 2006 has hosted the original daily radio talk show focused solely on Texas news and politics, “Pratt on Texas.” As a consultant he assisted in starting a successful charter school in Lubbock in 1999 and in its early years managed its Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) work. Robert has built several businesses in Texas beginning with a computer maintenance and support firm in 1984 and has served as a Republican County chairman among many other roles. You can hear Robert on Texas online, over the air, or by podcast—visit www.PrattonTexas.com.
Calling business welfare, or crony capitalism, an economic development tool does not change what is happening in such transactions, nor does it make it better policy. In the 87th Session of the Texas Legislature, in 2021, a wonderful thing happened: Chapter 313 of the Texas Tax Code was allowed to expire without lawmakers renewing it....
It’s like those congregants who wrongly confuse a building as being the Church. Confusing buildings, organizations, and traditions with being the essence of public education gets it wrong. In reality, public education is simply a public political commitment to provide schooling to all children without regard to each family’s ability to pay, and funding such...