Energy & Environment

New York’s Natural Gas Pipeline Ban: Unconstitutional, Bad For The Environment, Economy & Consumers

When the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia in 1787, foremost among their concerns was addressing the growing tendency among states to tax or inhibit their neighbors’ commercial trade. New York was an especially nettlesome practitioner of economic warfare on adjacent states, placing import duties on New Jersey cabbage and Connecticut firewood...

May 6, 2019

Economy

263,000 New Jobs Added in April, More Than Expected, Wages Up 3.2% From A Year Ago

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its April employment report this morning, showing continued robust growth in the job market with 263,000 jobs added in April. The official unemployment rate is now 3.6%, the lowest it has been since 1969. Notably, wages were up 3.2% from a year ago. With inflation remaining tame, real buying power...

May 3, 2019

Economy

Make America’s Economy Great Again: Q1 GDP Up 3.2%

The U.S. economy grew at a 3.2% annual rate in the first quarter, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Analysts expected a far slower growth rate of 2.3%. President Trump has consistently said that his pro-growth policies—tax cuts and regulatory reform—would shift the economy into higher growth than was experienced under his predecessor, President Obama. The economy...

April 26, 2019

Energy & Environment

Biomass Follies — Austin, Texas Is The Latest City To Find It Isn’t Easy Being Green

Last week, Steve Adler, the mayor of Austin, Texas, announced that city taxpayers would be paying $460 million for a biomass power plant they’d previously paid $128 million to help build on top of a yearly payment of $54 million for six years—that generated electricity for all of two months. The Nacogdoches Generating Facility in East Texas...

April 24, 2019

Taxes & Spending

Taxes And Psychology: Americans Got A Tax Cut, Even If They Don’t Believe It

Polls show that the majority of Americans don’t think their taxes were cut with the landmark tax cut and reform bill signed into law by President Donald Trump in December 2017. But just in time for tax day, the New York Times published a well-written and counter-intuitive analysis by two of their economics reporters, Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley....

April 15, 2019

Taxes & Spending

California Dems want tax cut on weed – but hikes on everything from guns to water

The 2018 mid-term elections delivered California Democrats a firm supermajority in both legislative houses after years of steady, incremental gains. Now, as the 2019 legislative session begins there in earnest, it’s clear that the ascendant progressives who control both chambers are intent on increasing taxes. There’s a Democratic drive to hike taxes of every imaginable type – attorneys, car...

April 11, 2019

Economy

Trump’s Economy Keeps Humming: Manufacturing Adding More Jobs Than Government, Reversing Obama Trend

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its March employment report this morning, estimating that employers added 196,000 nonfarm jobs. The official unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.8%. The federal bureau revised its January jobs estimate up by 1,000 to 312,000 jobs and revised February’s estimate upwards 13,000 to 33,000, for a total of 14,000 more nonfarm...

April 5, 2019

Taxes & Spending

What if ‘fair’ taxes don’t actually help the poor?

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy is at it again. The think tank, funded by organized labor, consistently pushes for higher, more progressive income tax rates. In a report profiled by major media, ITEP makes the case that “Fairness Matters” in who pays state and local taxes. Presumably, “fairness” is important because policymakers don’t want a tax...

April 5, 2019

Economy

President Trump Visits El Centro, California, An Area Hard-Hit By California’s Minimum Wage Law

President Donald Trump is flying to El Centro, California on Friday, April 5 and then traveling five miles south to the border town of Calexico to inspect a newly completed section of the border wall. He is also scheduled to hold a roundtable discussion with local law enforcement officials. As Pres. Trump tours California’s Imperial Valley—a...

April 4, 2019

Taxes & Spending

Since Trump’s Tax Cut, Low-Tax State Job Growth Is 77% Higher Than In High-Tax States

Since President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 into law in December 2017, private sector job growth in states with smaller state and local tax burdens has run 77% ahead of states with heavier tax loads from December 2017 to February 2019. Among its provisions, the new law limited state and...

March 27, 2019

Taxes & Spending

On Property Taxes And Local Government Spending, Texas Already Is California

The Texas Legislature is grappling with its biennial budget negotiations, with Wednesday expected to be a long night in the state’s House of Representatives. That’s where 307 spending amendments will be debated. There are three main issues at stake: overall spending, public education finance reform including teacher salaries, and property tax relief. Starting with discretionary spending,...

March 25, 2019

Local Government

Scooters Conquer Austin’s SXSW, Beating Manhattan’s Redline, More Miles Than to the Moon and Back

During the first two weeks of March in Austin, Texas, dockless scooters propelled people almost 530,000 miles, a distance greater than to the Moon and back again, according to Jason JonMichael, an official with the Austin Transportation Department in a story posted by KLBJ News Radio. JonMichael told the Urban Transportation Commission that “…we are moving...

March 19, 2019