With the number of homeless individuals rising ever higher in California, one might think that policymakers would seek to ensure that taxpayer funds earmarked for affordable housing will be put to good use. However, a recent report highlighted one city’s grossly ineffective and potentially wasteful efforts at housing the homeless — a symptom not just of a...
North Dakota, Detroit, and rural Vermont are not necessarily what comes to mind when you think of growing tech hubs, but they are. From students in Vermont to doctors in Michigan to entrepreneurs in North Dakota—all have had their lives transformed by broadband expansion. Broadband internet is defined by the FCC as internet with 25...
Since President Joe Biden took office, he has prioritized strengthening relations with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Biden has called the Mexican leader a “friend and partner,” proclaimed his “great respect” for him and often touted their “strong and productive relationship.” AMLO, as the Mexican president is commonly called, successfully campaigned on promises to pacify the...
Growing up in a small border town, we weren’t accustomed to large volumes of crime, such as road chases, home break-ins, damaged property, large amounts of drugs, and human smuggling rings in our own backyard. The morning chatter from my neighbors used to be ranchers looking for lost livestock or congratulating the local basketball team...
The Biden Administration has announced “joint actions with Mexico” to address the border crisis that has resulted in more than 2 million border encounters and hundreds of thousands of “gotaways” in the last year. The focus of its announcement was to declare that it would begin turning away Venezuelans who enter the U.S. illegally between...
It’s early October, which means that property tax rate-setting season is officially over. With the rate-setting process concluded, homeowners and businesses can finally get a sense of whether their property taxes are going up, headed down, or staying the same. In the past, Texans would have to navigate a complex web of public notices, agendas,...
Mexico’s interior minister appointed men allegedly part of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel to top security positions in Tabasco state, where he was governor from 2018 to 2021. A soldier sold weapons from an army base, arming drug cartels at the same the Mexican government was filing suit against U.S. gunmakers for allegedly fueling mayhem south of the...
President Joe Biden’s war on American energy started the day he took office on Jan. 20, 2021 and hasn’t let up since. Voters pay the price. In the last 12 months, Biden’s policies have pushed prices higher by 8.3 percent; gasoline is up almost 26 percent, and food up 11.4 percent. America went from energy dominance under...
WAUCHULA, Fla.—It wasn’t even about the kids—at least, not at first. Julie Taylor began planning the Alane Academy in tiny Wauchula, Florida because she felt unfulfilled as a teacher. “I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, and I was—I was a public school teacher for seven years,” the head of the 75-student rural...
The city of Austin is becoming an increasingly expensive place to live, not least because of the overgrown local governments which seem determined to drain taxpayers’ money. It might be different if this money at least be spent on things within the proper sphere of government, which would will serve Austin citizens and protect their...
The legal doctrine of standing is enjoying its moment in the sun in the wake of the Biden Administration’s student loan cancellation plan. The doctrine requires someone to suffer “concrete and particularized” harm—and not just a “generalized grievance”—before filing suit. It will be the Administration’s chief weapon in blocking legal challenges to the loan forgiveness...
It can, it turns out, be done. Local governments can, in fact, be responsible with taxpayer funds without prompting from voters or the state government. That’s exactly what Hays County officials did with their new $354 million budget. Hays County adopted the no-new-revenue (NNR) tax rate, which drops the tax rate in proportion with property...