With Texas’ extraordinary job creation leading the nation again in 2014, the success from the state’s low-tax, less-regulation and sensible-lawsuit approach provides a model that other states and D.C. would be wise to follow.
Most Texans recognize the need for immediate and lasting property tax relief. In fact, it’s so understood that high and fast-growing property taxes are a problem that lawmakers from both political parties are working to advance various tax relief bills in the statehouse. And yet despite the obvious need for reform, mayors from some of the largest cities in Texas gathered earlier this week to voice their opposition to statewide property tax relief efforts, proclaiming: “We know how to manage our budgets” and that “Texas cities are frugal…”
Across the country, state legislators have introduced over 200 measures aiming to prevent the enforcement of federal laws and regulations they believe to be unconstitutional. Here in Texas, 25 such measures have been filed.
While Texas is often held up as a paragon of economic freedom and opportunity, we still have our fair share of cumbersome regulations and laws restricting free enterprise. A good example of this can be found in the laws regulating the production and distribution of alcohol. Most recently craft beer brewers have been assaulted by...
Now don’t get me wrong — reducing debt is a good thing. But advocates of this approach never talk about the one idea that would allow the government to cut taxes, spend more on priorities, and reduce debt — cutting unnecessary spending.
We will likely spend about $62 billion in the upcoming biennium on a program that provides increasingly poor access to providers and substandard health outcomes to our neediest residents. Forcing more than a million able-bodied Texans into a strained program will only make it worse.
"Testimony: Strengthening the Texas Model" includes Center for Fiscal Policy Director The Honorable Talmadge Heflin's submitted testimony before the House Ways & Means Committee on the Foundation's fiscal policy priorities.
I believe this bond package is “all hat, no cattle.” The wild claims the school district is making should not inspire confidence, but instead raise eyebrows. McAllen ISD should know that its taxpayers are smarter than that.
Speaking at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s 13th annual Policy Orientation last month, Democratic Senator Kirk Watson and Republican Senator Paul Bettencourt showcased a handful of bills that would, each in their own way, provide Texans with some much-needed property tax relief.
For years, there’s been a growing divide between the kinds of policies enacted at the state level and those imposed locally. As Texas state government has gotten more conservative, our local governments have become less so.
Things have changed drastically in Texas compared to when it was primarily an oil-producing state in the early 1980s. In 1981, the mining industry, the vast majority which includes oil and natural gas activity, was 21% of the state’s private economy, 5% of the labor force and 28% of total state revenue.
Since the last national recession started in December 2007, Texas employs 1.4 million more people. However, after a long seven years, the rest of the nation employs 276,000 fewer people.