"Testimony: Liberty Cities May Be Small, But They’re A Really Big Deal" includes Center for Local Governance Senior Policy Analyst Jess Field's support for Senate Bill 710.
Recently, squabbles over which states intend to comply with the Clean Power Plan have emerged. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, through the Clean Power Plan, seeks to extend its regulatory tentacles out to everything that has an effect on carbon dioxide emission.
Children who fail to show up to school can be jailed, ensuring that they will not show up to school in the future.
In August 2014, then-Attorney General Greg Abbott issued an advisory opinion finding that municipal ordinances restricting or prohibiting single-use plastic bags were likely in violation of existing state law. Ignoring the AG’s advice, the City of Dallas began implementing its 5-cent per plastic bag fee anyway in January 2015—and now the city could be in legal hot water.
In the course of debating Senate Bill 1760—a bill to increase transparency and accountability in the local property tax system—Senators overwhelmingly approved the adoption of a floor amendment to require local governments to reach a higher voting threshold before raising property taxes.
Until our academic culture embraces again what is truly higher in higher education—our capacity to discover Truth—expect still more exoduses from the liberal arts, regardless of how much attention STEM studies receive.
Like many states, Texas operates under a three-tiered system regulating the alcohol industry. In this system producers, distributors, and retailers must remain separate entities and cannot share ownership or coordinate their activities. The system was enacted with the intent of preventing monopolistic practices, but in reality gives a great deal of power to distributors, the middlemen in this system, and allows them to hold considerable sway in the overall trends in the marketplace.
"Testimony: Regulation & Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions" is Center for Energy & the Environment Policy Analyst Leigh Thompson's testimony before the International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives in opposition to House Bill 2080.
"Testimony: Lower the Expense, Not the Bar" is Center for Economic Freedom policy analyst Kathleen Hunker's testimony on House Bill 2045.
Among the top ten most populous states in the nation, local debt in the Lone Star State was the second highest overall, at $219.7 billion. Only California’s local governments had amassed more, at $269.2 billion.
On Monday, the Texas Intergovernmental Affairs Committee heard Senate Bill 710, which would allow Texans in unincorporated areas to protect their freedom from big-city taxes and regulations by incorporating “liberty cities.”
Eliminating the margins tax would be the best course to take the Texas model to the next level as the nation’s and world’s beacon of opportunity.