The Texas elections are over and one thing is clear: Voters want small government. Despite a flood of outside money pushing liberal causes and candidates, Texans rejected the siren call of socialism and sent many of its most ardent supporters packing. The electorate left no doubt that the Lone Star State remains red and its...
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), the California firm that literally kickstarted Silicon Valley in a garage in 1939, is moving to Texas. The low-key announcement was made via an SEC filing on Dec. 1. If California’s anti-jobs policies, its high taxes, capricious regulatory enforcement, and blackout-inducing energy policy can chase out the company that launched Silicon Valley, is any...
Since March, state and local governments have been exercising broad, but temporary, emergency powers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While limited use of such powers may be reasonable, there have been many instances of government overreach and abuse of these powers—the most egregious occurring at the local level. However, for the city of Austin,...
The COVID-19 pandemic delivered a staggering blow to the U.S. economy, leaving millions of Americans unemployed. Low-income families were hit particularly hard and continue to struggle as the recovery rate for low-wage jobs lags behind that for high-wage jobs. Prolonged periods of unemployment for low-income families carry a number of risks, most notably an increased...
Public safety is of paramount importance. To achieve it, those who commit a crime must be held to account. But it can’t end there. Ideally, after accountability comes restoration—and a clean slate. One of us writing this op-ed, Scott, is a former probation and parole officer. The other, Josh, is a former incarceree who has...
Just when you thought school spending couldn’t get any worse, this happens. Two weeks after signing a five-year, $1.6 million contract, Lancaster ISD’s superintendent was let go for unknown reasons—but not before being sent away with a severance package worth more than $2 million. The buyout is so massive that it threatens to “virtually clear...
COVID-19 continues to take a toll in the U.S., with more than 13 million cases and over 260,000 deaths. The rise in cases has led to interventions by state governments. Given that the health threat is real, we should learn from what has worked —and what has not. That means we must work hard on a...
Democrats are scrambling to explain away the inroads Republicans have made with minorities, as evidenced in the November election results. Instead of listening to the concerns of the Black and Hispanic voters who voted for President Trump — after years of being assured that Trump is one of the “most racist presidents” in history — Democrats are instead blaming...
My childhood involved times of frustration, disappointment, guilt, and depression. My teachers were often frustrated too—though at the time, none of us knew why. I was not diagnosed with autism until years after I graduated from college. I went on to earn a graduate degree in special education. What I learned in the classroom—both as...
During his successful run for the presidency in 2000, George W. Bush warned against “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Then-candidate Bush delivered his remarks at the 91st annual meeting of the NAACP on July 10, 2000. Bush added, “A great movement of education reform has begun in this country built on clear principles: to raise the...
The media got it wrong. Again. For months, we were told that Texas was turning blue. One outlet confidently assured us that: “the state is just as competitive as more traditional battleground states (and more competitive than some!)” Another commentator declared: “For the first time in 18 years, Democrats are seriously challenging Republicans’ political monopoly...
Connecting with people via video has become routine for many personal and professional settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing restrictions have increased the use of new video tools to maintain connections and streamline operations during uncertain times. Even entities reluctant to adopt modern technologies had to adapt to unexpected circumstances. Prisons serve as a...