At least in baseball, you’re out after the third strike. Baseball is merciful. The Texas Legislature, not so much. At least the fourth legislative session—the third special—gives lawmakers a chance to appropriate money sent to the state by Congress through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021. The Legislature has kept spending...
Economic freedom hit a record high in 2019—but then came 2020. That’s when government shutdowns limited economic freedom, with devasting impacts to people’s lives and livelihoods. According to the 2021 Economic Freedom of the World Report, which measures economic freedom according to a number of economic variables, the global average for economic freedom hit a...
Texas owes $7 billion to the U.S. Treasury’s Unemployment Trust Fund. Lawmakers here in Texas can pay off that balance entirely, without any interest charges, and without using any state funds. The only catch is that the Texas Legislature and governor would need to do so by Sept. 6, so that’s unlikely—but they can keep...
If you’re poor and reside where there’s little economic freedom, then you have fewer opportunities to improve your livelihood compared with those living in more economically free places. The freedom to have the flexibility to control your future and leave a legacy to future generations with little influence by government supports human flourishing. This too-often...
By administrative fiat, federal bureaucrats in the Biden administration at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently expanded food stamp handouts by almost 30%. Yes, you read that correctly, your taxes are going to go up to pay for expenditures your elected members didn’t vote on. And the expansion of these handouts from the Supplemental...
As if the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill in Congress could not be worse, a closer look shows that among other bad ideas there is $125 million allocated to fund the creation of pilot programs to evaluate a federal vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax. The idea behind the VMT tax is to tax drivers for every...
The national debt is rapidly nearing $29 trillion, which is 25% more than our entire economy, and is orders of magnitude higher if you consider unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. This threatens life as we know it and must be addressed now. Since the start of 2020, the debt has increased by $5.2...
Let’s call it the Salton Principle: Renaming a product may make marketing easier, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the product. Who would buy a Salton Grill? We didn’t—and neither did you. But when it was rebranded as the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine, the little countertop grill showed up in homes (and dorm...
Republicans in Washington may not have much credibility in criticizing the profligacy of congressional Democrats and the Biden administration, given how much the federal debt increased when the GOP was in power. Yet, in a moment that calls for responsible budgeting at every level of government, Republicans who hold power in many state capitals across the country do. That’s...
President Biden and Congressional Democrats have proposed roughly $6 trillion in new spending over a decade of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. To put this into perspective, this exceeds the economic output of every country except the U.S. and China, matches the $6 trillion authorized for COVID-related items since the pandemic—with nearly $1.5 trillion unspent—and exceeds the...
Every dollar the government spends comes from taxpayers. The late economist Milton Friedman said, “The burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes, but by how much it spends.” Taxes should only fund limited government at the least economic harm, which Texas does well by depending mostly on sales taxes—though local property...
Many Americans have historically associated “socialism” with things like the Red Scare, Nazism, the Cold War, and McCarthyism. Today, that fear has largely faded—particularly among young people—and has instead become a love affair. A recent Axios/Movement poll found that 51% of 18 to 34 year-olds view socialism positively, though the share is only 41% for...