Is a pay-to-play scheme underway in Harris County? A shocking new Houston Chronicle investigation makes it appear so. According to the paper’s latest exposé, Harris County commissioners are raking in campaign cash from “executives at companies awarded no-bid contracts by those commissioners.” The article even puts forward some eye-opening data to support its proposition. “From...
State politicians are finally stepping up to exercise appropriate oversight of K-12 education under unrelenting pressure from parents who have learned what Texas and many other states have allowed to replace education in our public schools. Unfortunately, there remains extreme hesitancy to tackle the upstream problem of the co-opting of higher education toward mindless activism...
Last week, the Texas Public Policy Foundation published a new report looking at property taxes in Texas’ major urban centers. In the report, the authors, Anthony Jones and James Quintero, compare property tax levy growth vs. population and inflation increases over five years in select communities. The facts and figures are aimed at helping taxpayers...
I’ll admit it: I used to subscribe to modern culture’s distorted prejudice against homeschooling. I used to believe that homeschooling was a relic of the past, merely for socially awkward children whose families had an elitist grudge against the state. Now that my prejudices have been replaced with the dangerous combination of facts and real-life...
Nearly two years of upheaval and uncertainty in America’s schools during the COVID pandemic has led many parents to feel powerless, and they’re not taking it anymore. At the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s annual Policy Orientation on January 19, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott received a roaring applause when he said “parents are losing a voice...
Government spending is at the heart of sound public policy. But out-of-control spending for decades has created substantial economic destruction and ongoing threats that must be remedied before things get worse. Fortunately, we have examples of how fiscal rules can solve this problem. We must put these rules into place before our economy gets any...
The city of Austin owns a lot of land. In fact, according to a 2019 CBS Austin report, the city “has bought more than 28,000 acres of raw land over the last 20 years.” The fact that it owns so much property—especially in the midst of a raging affordability crisis—raises some serious concerns about purpose...
Policies that make energy scarce and expensive, promoted by wealthy elites, result in domestic unrest while diminishing a nation’s ability to vigorously pursue its national interests. Since 2011, this has been the case in Egypt, France, Kazakhstan, Germany, and others. Even California and Texas are grappling with similar problems. Texas is approaching the one-year anniversary...
Conservative leaders have a duty to govern with a bold commitment to the principles that best serve our citizens and communities. In 2018, the voters of Oklahoma put their confidence in Kevin Stitt who received more votes than any gubernatorial candidate in Oklahoma history. In just three short years, Stitt has proven that evidence-based policy...
January’s jobs report showed better-than-expected growth, with 467,000 nonfarm jobs added last month. The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage points to 4.0%, and the labor force participation rate climbed to 62.2%. The number of unemployed increased 194,000 to 6.5 million. There are now 602,000 more unemployed people than in February 2020, the last month before...
The first offshore wind farm in the United States was supposed to have signaled a turning point in the green energy revolution. Instead, officials have spent the last five years mired in equipment failures and struggling to respond to concerns about potential environmental damage. Block Island is Solyndra all over again—except this time, wasted tax...
The idea of being alone evokes a special kind of dread for many people. Reams have been written on how to avoid this fate, and those who can’t tend to earn our sympathy. Unless, that is, they’re cut off from meaningful human contact because they’re one of the thousands of federal inmates held in solitary...