Taxes & Spending
Lack of local control to blame for pension woes?
Today, Texas’ 13 state-governed systems have unfunded pension liabilities totaling $8.7 billion, or an average of $171,155 owed per active member.
March 14, 2016
Taxes & Spending
Feel-good wage policy counterproductive
Research shows that a minimum wage most hurts those it’s intended to help, particularly the young, low-skilled and less-educated, as they have fewer job opportunities.
March 13, 2016
Energy & Environment
Stay means stay
Now EPA’s defiance of the Court’s order is an end run around the Judiciary. This is Executive overreach at its worst.
March 10, 2016
Public Safety
Scalia’s legacy of objectivity
In a democracy, rights are only threatened once they become unpopular. So the threat will always be from modern values.
March 9, 2016
Health Care
Texas could miss a big economic opportunity in telemedicine if medical board regulations stand
Although Texas has one of the strongest economies in the country, it could fall behind in telemedicine. After all, forty-eight other states have fewer restrictions.
March 9, 2016
Health Care
5 reasons Donald Trump’s health plan is worthless
Based on what Trump has put forth, combined with his past support for government-monopoly health-care programs like the United Kingdom’s, Trump’s cure for American health care might well be worse than the disease.
March 7, 2016
Economy
Why Texas needs competition in the title insurance market
The problem with government limits on competition is that they usually don’t deliver what’s promised and leave us wishing for something better — and more stable. Such is the case with the Texas title insurance market.
March 7, 2016
Health Care
Beware feds bearing gifts
Forcing the states to accept an entirely new program or lose the largest single source of funds in the state budget was, in Chief Justice John Roberts’s memorable phrase, a 'gun to the head.'
March 4, 2016
Energy & Environment
Is the climate crusade stalling?
At this point in time, the intermittent, and far more expensive, renewable energies cannot provide the countless energy services on which our long, healthy, affluent, and comfortable lives with personal freedom depend.
March 3, 2016
Criminal Justice
Fingerprinting rule penalizes pocketbook for small mistakes
Some 68 million Americans — roughly one in five — have some sort of a criminal record and as a result are often excluded from certain areas of the workforce.
March 2, 2016
Criminal Justice
End of the road for the Driver Responsibility Program
The Senate Research Center says 1.2 million Texans have lost their licenses due to the program, leaving people with the choice of driving on a suspended license or losing the means to get to their job to support themselves and their family.
March 2, 2016
K-12 Education
Who fired Melissa Click? Free markets
Professor Click was fired by the UM Board of Curators last Thursday. But it wasn't really the board that did her in. It was free markets — prospective students, their parents, donors, and alumni — expressing their displeasure with their checkbooks.
March 2, 2016