Economy

Texas, Other Low-Tax States, See Jobs Increase At More Than Double The Rate Of High-Tax States

The federal government just released its latest state-level jobs report, showing private-sector job growth remains concentrated in low-tax states. That has remained true since the 2017 tax cut limited the deductibility of state and local taxes (SALT) to $10,000 per filing household. The 27 states, led by Texas, with average SALT deductions under $10,000 saw private-sector...

August 16, 2019

Family

The doctor will accuse you now

A recent essay in Time Magazine called for a massive expansion of the nanny state through mandatory medical screening of children for signs of child abuse. The proposal, which is based on the assumption that racial bias is causing doctors to miss some cases of abuse, would strip doctors of the ability to apply reasoned,...

August 16, 2019

Border Security

Congress Can Help Migrant Children With This Key Fix

By now it is irrefutable that there is a crisis at the border. Unfortunately, those who are suffering the most are the most vulnerable, namely children. The stories of children being separated from their parents were heartbreaking—as are the accounts of the brutal journey migrant children must undertake to reach the border, of fake family...

August 14, 2019

Taxes & Spending

Is the Cost of Government Going Up for El Paso families?

El Paso County commissioners plan to raise taxes this year, but they’re placing the blame on state lawmakers. According to KFOX 14, Commissioner David Stout said the new tax trigger was the reason for hitting homeowners and businesses with bigger tax bills. “We have so many things that we need to pay for this time around because next...

August 14, 2019

Energy & Environment

Austin’s climate change plan is a government power grab

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...

August 14, 2019

K-12 Education

Why Texas is Making the Right Choice by Investing in Merit-Based Pay for Teachers

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...

August 14, 2019

Energy & Environment

Expensive climate change programs hurt the poor most

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...

August 13, 2019

Health Care

‘Sabotage’ of the Affordable Care Act is just political rhetoric

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...

August 9, 2019

Local Government

One Last Call for Higher Property Taxes

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...

August 7, 2019

Economy

When Is A Dollar Not A Dollar? States And The Cost Of Living.

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...

August 6, 2019

Local Government

The Good, the Bad and the Gentrifying

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...

August 6, 2019

Criminal Justice

A$AP Rocky is free, but thousands like him are still locked up in the US

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...

August 5, 2019