What do you think of when you hear about El Paso, Texas? I was born and raised there, so when I think of El Paso, I think of home. I think of the early mornings when my family and I would cross the border to go to church with my abuelitos at La Primera Bautista...
The latest Labor Department statistics show an all-time record 9.3 million unfilled jobs, even though more than nine million Americans remain unemployed. Alarm bells should be ringing in Washington. Twenty-five Republican governors have wisely suspended the $300-a-week supplemental unemployment benefits starting this month. But 25 mostly blue-state governors will let the bonus run into September,...
“In this economy I can’t fill the jobs I have.” “I would hire someone with a criminal record, but I can’t because my insurance rates will go up if I do.” These are some of the comments I have heard from employers during Arizona’s economic boom. With thousands of people released from state prison each...
Rising health care costs continue to be a major frustration for Americans. Nearly 60% of the country wants Congress to make lowering health prices the top priority. There are differing opinions about a solution: Some want bigger subsidies and more government spending, while others say the key is removing mandates and regulations to open the...
It’s been more than a week since the Texas Legislature adjourned, and yet the 87th session is likely still not over. Some representatives in the Texas House all but assured a special session this summer when they walked out off the House floor. The walkout also ensured that numerous good pieces of legislation failed to...
Everything that’s wrong with revisionist history is summed up in the lead paragraph of Time magazine’s new piece, “We’ve Been Telling the Alamo Story Wrong for Nearly 200 Years. Now It’s Time to Correct the Record.” Authors Brian Burrough and Jason Stanford begin with a hypothetical: America opens up Alaska for colonization, and Canadians move...
America’s labor market has significant structural problems. Despite about 9 million people being unemployed, there are about that many job openings and employers cannot seem to find willing workers. There were 9.3 million unfilled job openings on April 30, 1 million beyond the previous record in March. More than a third of the 1 million...
On the high north bank of the Rio Grande River, an uninhabited home overlooks the river. Our small group — members of the Border Security Coalition who traveled to Val Verde County to see the border crisis for ourselves — stood on a pleasant green landing near the property, but we weren’t allowed to enter....
You know what they say about assumptions. And two specific assumptions in the Texas media’s chorus of condemnations of the Legislature for not expanding Medicaid stand out as both ill-informed and short-sighted—the assumption that expanding Medicaid would result in better health and fiscal outcomes, and that coverage equals care. Both assumptions are made in a...
We think of an invasion as an armed assault on a nation. In our history classes, we were taught about instances like the Nazi invasions of neighboring European countries, the ancient Roman Empire’s onslaught of surrounding nations, or maybe North Korea’s attempt to impose on her southern counterpart. But recently, several notable Republicans and conservatives...
The world wants to come to America and many in America – at least in the Biden administration and the Chamber of Commerce – want the world to come. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the Texas-Mexico border, where the surge of would-be immigrants has completely overwhelmed the Border Patrol and local law enforcement. If current trends continue,...
Val Verde County is like a lot of South Texas counties: sparsely populated, rugged, dry, and vast. If you’ve never been there, well, I’m not sure there’s much reason to go. It’s not for everyone, but it’s for me. I happen to think places like this are the best places in the world: places where...