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...
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...
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...
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....
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Georgetown, Texas – population 75,000 – was to be the new poster child of the green movement. Environmental interest in Georgetown’s big push to generate all of its electricity from wind and solar power was amplified by three factors: the town and its mayor were nominally Republican; Georgetown is...