Local Government

California’s Homeless Problem Moves Out of the Shadows and Into the Realm of Public Health

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), California had about 130,000 people without a home in 2018. Oddly, Gavin Newsom, California’s governor and former San Francisco Mayor, laid the homeless problem squarely at the feet of… Texas. PolitiFact rated Gov. Newsom’s claim as “Pants on Fire” and “ridiculous.” So, what is the nature of...

September 13, 2019

Local Government

City Hall’s actions harming Austin residents, neighborhoods

It’s a curious contrast; the city of Austin is cracking down on short-term rental operators—ostensibly over nuisance and livability issues—while at the same time legalizing camping by the homeless throughout the city (with the exception of City Hall). The city is outlawing STRs because they might be “detrimental to the character of Austin neighborhoods.” But...

September 13, 2019

Economy

Poverty And Affordable Housing – California’s New Rent Control Law Will Make Things Worse

The U.S. Census Bureau issued its annual reports on poverty in America on Sept. 10. Once again, California had the nation’s highest poverty rate, 18.2% over the last three years surveyed, using a measure of poverty that accounts for regional cost differences and a larger array of government welfare and expenses. California’s Supplemental Poverty rate was proportionately...

September 13, 2019

Local Government

New State Laws Lasso Liberal Local Governments

State lawmakers took aim at liberal local government overreach this past session, and they passed a slew of legislation hoping to rein in some of the worst of it. Among the new laws is one ending forced annexation. For decades, city governments forcibly annexed property on their outskirts in a bid to grow their tax...

September 11, 2019

Border Security

Congress Has Been On Recess, But The Trump Administration Has Been Busy

What would your “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essay look like? More to the point, what would Congress’ look like? While the House and the Senate adjourned for all of August (and had little to show for June and July), the White House was hard at work addressing the crisis at the border....

September 9, 2019

Local Government

Michigan Brothers Push Back Against Town’s Retaliation in Christmas Tree Farm Fight

When your favorite tool is a hammer, every project looks like a nail, and apparently, a similar rule holds true for local government. When said government’s favorite tool to get its way is threatening residents with ruinous, unconstitutional fines, its response to every problem is to threaten them with even larger, more ruinous—and more unconstitutional—fines....

September 9, 2019

Health Care

Are insurance companies driving doctors out of the profession?

Earlier this year, my mother made a hard choice. After reviewing her medical history with her physician, she chose to have a preventative double mastectomy and hysterectomy. Her employer-based insurance did not question the procedures. Four months later, her incisions began opening and her physician determined she needed a second, outpatient surgery. While recovering in...

September 7, 2019

Family

Parental Rights Should be Paramount

A box of cereal has been collecting dust in my small apartment pantry for seven months. I have no attachment to this box; I simply neglected to throw it out once it went stale, and it’s now a fixture of my residence. Under Texas Family Code 102.003 (a)(9), if this cereal box was a sentient being and...

September 4, 2019

Economy

Relax this Labor Day, but don’t rest on your laurels

Message to Texas workers: Relax. You’ve earned it. Just like in years past, this Labor Day weekend is your chance to stay in, grill out and unwind. But perhaps even more so than before, it’s important that we also think about the prosperous economic times we enjoy — and the knife’s edge that prosperity rests...

September 2, 2019

Family

Trump’s new detention rule: The least traumatic option

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had finalized new federal regulations governing the detention of migrant families who enter the country illegally. These regulations replace the Flores Settlement Agreement, a court agreement that has governed national policy for the detention of minor children for more than two decades, and preserve its substantive provisions protecting the...

August 31, 2019

Higher Education

‘After All, Didn’t America Invent Slavery?’

If you think the title’s question is silly, you’re right. But here’s the problem: Increasing numbers of college students today would unhesitatingly respond, “Hell, yes!” to the query. Could it be because that is what they are being taught? I first learned of this misconception about slavery about three years ago, when a professor published the...

August 30, 2019

Energy & Environment

G-7 leaders should look to affordable energy to combat inequality

Everything old is new again, at least at the G-7. The seminal G-7 meeting was convened in 1973 over energy issues. Now, nearly half a century later, leaders of the world’s seven largest economies gathered again, and once more, energy was a key topic. But the G-7 also discussed how to reduce inequality among nations....

August 29, 2019