When the Food and Drug Administration approved the first antipsychotic, Thorazine, in 1954, mental health service providers hoped this drug would revolutionize mental health care. Finally, scientists had created a pharmaceutical that would cure the mentally ill. But as researchers have studied psychosis, they have learned that antipsychotics do not address the root causes...
In Texas, everything is big – but that’s not always something to boast about. For example, the Harris County Jail, which houses about 9,000 inmates daily, is the third-largest jail system in the nation. Prisons and jails are different. Prisons are state-level facilities for felony offenders who have been convicted. Jails are county-level facilities...
On Thursday, the San Antonio City Councilwill consider a restrictive ridesharing ordinance that could shutdown Uber and Lyft in the city. Government-protected taxicab companies, eager to shut out the new competition, are strongly supportive of the new rules. But if the council wants to put the safety and best interests of its citizens ahead of...
Having been a Rotarian for 30 years I am dismayed to see the Rotary Club’s Four Way Test being used for political purposes in various editorials circulated around the state recently. Rotary is a non-political civic club and its four way test signifies the club’s values: truth; fairness; good will and better friendships; and beneficial...
When conservatives and liberals talk about Texas, they are talking about two different things. Conservatives think Texas is important because its booming economy shows how limited government, low taxes and light regulation can create prosperity. Liberals, by contrast, see Texas as the poster child for conservatives’ refusal to provide a sufficient safety net for...
‘Inversion” is a word increasingly heard these days in Washington, D.C. In this case, instead of referring to a meteorological condition, inversion applies to tax law. It occurs when U.S. corporations lower their taxes by buying an overseas company, then transferring their headquarters to the newly purchased foreign firm. Recent moves in the pharmaceutical industry...
Last week, President Obama convened a “Summit on College Opportunity.” The gathering at the White House focused on “supporting colleges to work together to dramatically improve persistence and increase college completion.” For his part, the President lamented that “higher education increasingly feels out of reach.” True enough. Nationwide, college tuitions have increased 440 percent...
Texas’ cities, counties, school districts, and special districts are awash in red ink, and newly obtained data from the Bond Review Board (BRB) shows that the problem is only growing in scope and severity. According to the BRB’s latest figures, local government debt outstanding (principal only) grew to $205.3 billion in fiscal year 2014, an increase...
Property taxes have gone up nearly 80 percent this past decade and claim about 5 percent of a median household income. It’s hardly surprising, then, that some Texans cannot afford the upfront, lump-sum payment demanded by the government and instead seek to spread that cost out.
Texans went to the polls yesterday to decide whether to take $1.7 billion a year out the state’s savings account to build more roads, while Austinites decided if they want to go $600 million into debt to build a 9.5 mile, $1.4 billion light-rail line. Both choices presented to voters reflect an outdated approach to...
Recently, the Texas legislature devoted two days of hearings to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which was proposed last June. This rule aims to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide from existing power plants by 30 percent. Although opinions widely vary in the testimony, one thing was clear: the EPA’s plan assigns to Texas a regulatory...
Many in higher education worry continuously over the fact that only roughly half of students who enroll in college ever graduate, and that those who do graduate often take more than four years to do so. But few seek to go to the roots to attempt to discover the ultimate causes explaining these depressing...