In Aug. 25, the California Air Resources Board, the state’s air quality regulator, announced a ban on the sales of new gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035. Less than a week later, a heat wave threatened California with seven days of power shortages. So the state’s grid operator asked electric vehicle owners not to recharge when they...
Investing to support social or political causes is as old as investing itself, but what we now know as Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) investing began in the 1960s as socially responsible investing. In 2005, “Who Cares Wins” stated that “embedding environmental, social and governance factors in capital markets makes good business sense and leads to more sustainable markets and...
Ronald Reagan once observed that, “Whenever we lower the tax rates, our entire nation is better off.” The Texas version of that statement equates to: Whenever we lower property tax rates to the no-new-revenue level or lower, our entire state is better off. For those not familiar with the term, the no-new-revenue tax rate is...
Frankie Johnson, a college-educated single mother from Washington, D.C., moved to Atlanta to distance herself and daughter from an abusive husband. Without a job or place to live, she sought government assistance for childcare and transitional housing. While she waited for this assistance, she was offered a job paying $70,000. She turned it down. Why?...
Mexico’s president is pressuring the high court to declare automatic pre-trial detention constitutional, arguing public safety depends on it. Critics say the practice covers for sloppy investigations. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his functionaries have been jawboning the supreme court to uphold the practice of automatic pre-trial detention for a long list of crimes—resorting...
On Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pressed for property tax relief, telling a big crowd in Fairview that he wants to take half of the projected $27 billion state surplus and use it to reduce property taxes. If this happens, it’d make for the largest property tax cut in Texas history. The news is sure...
Former President Barack Obama once proclaimed that: “The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of the recession because that would just suck up and take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.” Like a broken clock, he got that one right. Raising taxes...
The president and vice president made up their minds as soon as they saw the photos of mounted Border Patrol agents riding behind fleeing Haitian illegal immigrants. With reins flying in the riders’ wake, there were immediate claims that Haitians had been “whipped.” “It’s horrible what you saw,” President Joe Biden said. “To see people...
At its invention, the stethoscope was revolutionary—the first non-lethal way of exploring a patient’s internal anatomy. It opened a new world to physicians. That’s the goal of the bipartisan Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act—a measure that is completely non-invasive, but that opens up a world of information about how our health care system delivers prescription drugs and...
UPDATE: From TheTexan.News: “State Board of Education Votes to Scrap Proposed Social Studies Standards Drafts Amid Allegations of CRT.” When we see statistics showing that almost half of younger Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, you have to wonder how they became so delusional and unaware of the opportunities and quality of life that the free enterprise system has brought to so many...
As a former U.S. Attorney with a criminal justice career that spans decades, I find it remarkable that some in the legal profession are already willing to close the case on the FBI warrant to search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home based on the heavily redacted affidavit. The unredacted portions of the affidavit attempt...
I want to address an issue in our Texas foster care system. But it’s not completely about foster care. It’s about an agency that ignores the wishes of the Legislature and the governor (elected by Texans) to do its own thing—and gets caught doing it. This is unacceptable in Texas. This is why our interim...