According to California Governor (and former San Francisco Mayor) Gavin Newsom, the “vast majority” of San Francisco’s homeless people “also come in from… Texas.” To him, that’s “just an interesting fact;” to PolitiFact, it’s “Pants on Fire” inaccurate. PolitiFact goes as far as calling it “ridiculous.” The tiniest factual nugget for Newsom’s fib was contained in data...
The federal government just released its latest state-level jobs report, showing private-sector job growth remains concentrated in low-tax states. That has remained true since the 2017 tax cut limited the deductibility of state and local taxes (SALT) to $10,000 per filing household. The 27 states, led by Texas, with average SALT deductions under $10,000 saw private-sector...
Where you live has a huge effect on how much purchasing power your dollar has—and how far your paycheck truly goes. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was $4,690 in April. In Dallas, a similarly sized place would set a renter back $1,433 a month, less than one-third the cost in the City by the...
California Gov. Gavin Newsom just violated his oath of office by signing a patently unconstitutional law to score a few political points against President Donald Trump. The new law requires anyone appearing on California’s presidential primary ballot to disclose their federal income tax returns. Should a candidate refuse to release their tax returns — a wealthy candidate’s returns might run...
The issue of persistent poverty in many of America’s urban centers is once again in the news. U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson commented this week that when, as pediatric neurosurgeon, he had a young patient from East Baltimore, he faced a “horrible dilemma,” when having to discharge patients back to homes, “infested...
Low state tax rates appear to be driving faster job growth since President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 into law in December of that year. The law limited state and local tax (SALT) deductions for individual income tax filers who itemized to $10,000 per household, having the economic effect of...
Employers added 224,000 jobs in June, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than most economists expected. The nation’s unemployment rate was 3.7%, remaining at historic lows. The manufacturing sector saw 17,000 jobs added after four months of flat activity. This followed a strong run of an average of 22,000 manufacturing jobs added every...
The government-appraised value of my home was due to go up 10.7% this year, which, if the tax rates for the school district, county and other taxing public entities held steady, would mean a tax hike of hundreds of dollars. In the eight years I’ve lived in Texas since moving from California, this was the...
The modest participation of our volunteer military in the Independence Day celebration in our nation’s Capital has sparked debate. That’s both curious and troubling. This may be explained in light of a new Gallup Poll showing that Americans have the lowest pride in their nation since the question was asked in 2001, with Gallup noting, The greatest disparities in...
Citing a report from Hired, a job site, the Austin Business Journal ran an article headlined, “Study: When adjusted for cost of living, Austin tech workers make more than San Francisco peers.” The piece observed, “…for the fourth year in a row, Austin tech workers have the highest average salary when adjusted based on cost of living… (with) Austin’s tech workers…...
Since President Trump signed the big tax cut and reform act in December 2017, the pace of private-sector job creation in the nation’s 27 low-tax states has doubled that of their high-tax peers through May of 2019, according to data released today from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Manufacturing job growth is even higher with a 126% job-creation...
One of the joys of writing for the public is that, occasionally, the public contacts you. If it’s on Twitter, you learn not to take it personally—especially if the tweeter is anonymous. Same with email—sometimes the responses are supportive, sometimes they’re not. And almost always, anonymous comments tend towards the downright hateful or weird. Over...