The Texas Senate just passed Senate Bill 17, which will require Texas colleges and universities to close their offices dedicated to “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” (DEI). Senate Bill 17 will also prohibit universities from requiring applicants for teaching and administrative jobs to provide a so-called “diversity statement” that is free of any offensive words like,...
Texas’ 2024-25 budget continues to swell to uncomfortably high levels. On Monday, the Senate Committee Substitute for House Bill 1 (SCSHB1) passed unanimously on the Senate floor. This version added $6 billion in total spending as compared to the House counterpart (CSHB1), bringing the total to $308 billion. This additional spending means a biennial increase...
The electrical pricing scheme may work as income redistribution social policy, but it fails the test of reducing energy consumption. What’s behind California’s shift to paying for electricity based on income? In a few words, it’s the consequence of California’s futile fight against climate change. California’s quixotic pursuit to save the planet by reducing greenhouse...
In April 2002, Levi’s cut 3,300 jobs nationwide from its workforce, as it moved production overseas for cheaper foreign labor. Of those 3,300 jobs, 1,919 were in Texas, and one of those was my mom, who had worked at the Brownsville factory for years. Levi’s was trying to keep up with the oversaturated jeans market,...
President Biden’s “tailpipe rule,” intended to force Americans into electric vehicles, despite their own needs and preferences, is nothing new. The thinking behind it goes back to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)—and broccoli. We can’t say we weren’t warned. The subject came up before the United States Supreme Court in 2012, when the Affordable Care Act...
In schools across Texas, dorm hallways and school bulletin boards are now adorned with grim messages. Next to flyers promoting the basketweaving club and the Harry Styles concert are flyers warning students of the deadly effects of fentanyl. In Hayes County, four children lost their lives after consuming a lethal amount of the drug. One...
In the fight for freedom, the Texas Public Policy Foundation develops workable ideas for elected officials to consider in their roles as representatives of the people.
Ryan Reynolds says, “When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.” But when it comes to Texas and our electric grid, we must have high expectations—our modern lives are completely dependent a reliable supply of electricity to our homes. And the reliability of electricity supply is the fundamental problem facing the ERCOT...
There’s a commonsense solution to address the inflation that’s plagued America since Biden became president. It starts with Congress. If Americans can come together across the aisle to agree on anything, it’s that the Biden administration’s agenda has been disastrous for Americans. With no end in sight to price hikes causing financial turmoil for so many families,...
The former Mexican governor of Tamaulipas and one-time presidential hopeful was sentenced to nine years in prison two weeks ago, after spending millions of dollars in illegal bribes to fraudulently purchase property in the U.S. Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and has long been accused of accepting millions in bribes from...
Subsidies for wind and solar have long distorted Texas’s electricity market, threatening higher prices and greater likelihood of blackouts and ‘demand reduction’ events. The April 2 piece, “Texas Targets the Free Market,” by California Policy Center president Will Swaim, misses the mark. Mr. Swaim’s instincts are right; markets are generally superior to government fiat. But in making...
Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jarrod Kelly chides the Right for pushing back on accreditation. While the headline is a bit aggressive (“The Right-Wing War on Accreditation”), authors generally don’t get to choose their headlines, and the piece itself is quite measured. While the ostensible focus of our disagreement is accreditation, I think the root cause...