It’s a plan based on false assumptions—not facts. At last week’s city council meeting, Austin city council declared a “climate emergency” and called for immediate mobilization of resources to “restore a safe climate.” The false assumption here is that one city, or even many cities, could measurably impact the weather. In reality, the council’s resolution...
Though recent legislation goes a long way to improve Texas’ system for teacher pay, the manner in which teachers are compensated in Texas is fundamentally flawed. Teacher pay in the Texas system is not based on merit. It is instead based on the teacher’s level of education, years of experience, and varying Independent School District...
A new study confirms what conservatives have long suspected: Expensive climate change programs, such as the Green New Deal, would hurt the poor the most. Researchers from the Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change estimate that if every country participating in the Paris climate accord actually fulfilled its greenhouse gas emission reduction pledges, more than 3 million...
In a recent House committee hearing, witnesses came forward to say that if the ACA is invalidated, important patient initiatives would be eliminated. They brought up the initiatives pertaining to combatting the opioid epidemic, curtailing the AIDs epidemic, and advancing kidney health. Perhaps they didn’t know that these were all put in place by the Trump Administration. Repeated claims...
The city of Austin is giving taxpayers one more run for their money before the new property tax trigger comes into effect. An article recently published in the Austin American-Statesmandetails city manager Spencer Cronk’s proposal to “bump up property tax revenue by 8% one last time before the newly adopted, stricter 3.5% property tax revenue cap” takes...
Where you live has a huge effect on how much purchasing power your dollar has—and how far your paycheck truly goes. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was $4,690 in April. In Dallas, a similarly sized place would set a renter back $1,433 a month, less than one-third the cost in the City by the...
The Mackinac Center’s David Guenthner has a new think piece in The Hill challenging some of the conventional wisdom surrounding gentrification. Guenthner’s central point is that low-income Americans may actually stand to benefit from gentrification. As evidence, he points to a working paper recently published by the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia that argues that displacement is...
There’s an order to these things: Defendants in the U.S. must be found guilty before they’re punished. But a celebrity’s case overseas demonstrates the order is often reversed, elsewhere, and even here. American rapper A$AP Rocky is now free, after previously being indefinitely detained before trial in Sweden. Unlike A$AP Rocky, thousands of Americans are in...
California Gov. Gavin Newsom just violated his oath of office by signing a patently unconstitutional law to score a few political points against President Donald Trump. The new law requires anyone appearing on California’s presidential primary ballot to disclose their federal income tax returns. Should a candidate refuse to release their tax returns — a wealthy candidate’s returns might run...
“Small businesses need the flexibility to work with their employees and offer benefits to keep them competitive,” wrote Andy Ellard of Manda Machine Company to members of the Texas House State Affairs Committee earlier this year. “A one-size-fits-all government mandate is not the answer.” Ellard echoes the sentiments of many small business owners across the...
Folks in the city of Longview — an oil patch town making its way in a new economy — are a little confused by a recent New York Times article that portrayed the city as left behind by the Texas Miracle. “They don’t see Longview the way I see Longview,” Mayor Andy Mack told the Longview News-Journal. “I...
Public education pundits have recently heralded the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future as a potential plan for the nation. If true, it’s worrisome, because the actual bill passed by the Maryland legislature is unlikely to provide much help. The most fundamental obligation of our schools is to teach children to read at grade level or above. If a child cannot read — and...