Texas has a lot going for it—low unemployment, population growth, and a favorable regulatory environment. People want to come here, and it’s not just for our brisket and breakfast tacos. But our prosperity is unevenly distributed, with some regions experiencing a disheartening “tale of two cities” dynamic. Port Arthur is one such place. With the enormous...
The 2019 U-Haul state migration index is out, and the top states Americans are moving to are no surprise—Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington. These are states with light state and local tax burdens. Conversely, four of the top five states people are fleeing—Illinois, California, Michigan, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania—feature high taxes (though Michigan’s tax burden...
For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), it’s time to fish or cut bait. Most Missouri voters are familiar with this colloquial expression; it means either take action or step back —and do something useful instead. That’s the position Pelosi finds herself in, now that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has introduced a resolution that would allow the Senate...
California’s Assembly Bill 5 just went into effect. With some exceptions, the law takes aim at the new gig economy and independent contractors, forcing businesses to choose between hiring contractors as employees or laying them off. A week before Christmas, Vox Media’s SB Nation, a sports website, sent notice to some 200 of its California-based freelancers that they...
The safety of our prison staff should be one of our paramount concerns — alongside the safety of inmates and the communities into which they eventually will be released. Some states are enacting reforms that enhance all of the above, through putting appropriate limits on solitary confinement. Why should we care about those in solitary?...
With a nod to “Auld Lang Syne,” there’s plenty about 2019 that shouldn’t be forgot. There were successes, slight improvements, and setbacks—which hopefully will be remedied in 2021 when the legislature meets again. The big win for Austinites came when an appeals court struck down the city of Austin’s attempted ban on short-term rentals. All...
Obamacare was supposed to fix all of this — so why are so many Americans still uninsured, even when they qualify for subsidized and even free insurance? According to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, “28 percent of uninsured individuals who could shop on the Marketplace, or 4.7 million people nationwide, are eligible to purchase...
The tide turned for the Soviet Union in 1989. It wasn’t just the Polish national elections in June of that year, which saw the rise of the Solidarity Party. And it wasn’t merely the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. It was also Boris Yeltsin’s visit to a Houston-area supermarket. Yeltsin, then serving as...
The Pardo family’s nightmare is finally over. A Texas judge signed an order dismissing the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services’ (DFPS) case against the family, ending a nearly six-month ordeal. The case attracted statewide attention following the wrongful removal of Ashley and Daniel Pardo’s 4-year-old son, Drake, by DFPS based on a tenuous allegation of...
The inner-city community of Bonton, near downtown Dallas, is thousands of miles and nearly two centuries removed from the Victorian London of Charles Dickens. But there are some important parallels. If I’m hesitant to cast Daron Babcock, of Bonton Farms, in the role of Scrooge for this re-telling, it’s only because we focus too much...
The wind industry once again has received a holiday season extension of its multi-billion-dollar tax break, the production tax credit (PTC). The extension—one of the many times Congress has refused to let the PTC expire over the last 27 years—is included in the $1.4 trillion government spending package approved by Congress last week, despite claims...
It’s that time of year. As New Year’s Eve approaches, we look back on 2019 seeking nuggets of wisdom from twelve more months of the human experience. Unfortunately, the Word of the Year selections from two top dictionaries reveal just how misplaced this year’s priorities were. The Oxford English Dictionary selected “climate crisis” as the...