When Texas public school students return to the classroom later this month, the state’s portion of their educating funding will be based on a number of factors, including whether their seat is in their seat. That’s the current model for school funding in Texas—it’s partly determined by the number of minutes that a student is...
In March, my 18-year-old brother fell and broke his nose (in my experience, that’s what little brothers do). He took himself to the emergency room, to see if it was truly broken—and to find out what he should do about it. He got his answer—and a $14,000 hospital bill. Instead of a simple X-ray, he...
President Biden and Congressional Democrats have proposed roughly $6 trillion in new spending over a decade of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. To put this into perspective, this exceeds the economic output of every country except the U.S. and China, matches the $6 trillion authorized for COVID-related items since the pandemic—with nearly $1.5 trillion unspent—and exceeds the...
Texas House Democrats continue their quorum-busting, COVID-19-spreading walkout in Washington, D.C. as they take their public relations disaster to the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday morning in a hearing bearing the ominous title of “Democracy in Danger: The Assault on Voting Rights in Texas.” Texas Democrats fled to D.C. to stall Republican efforts to pass a...
Every dollar the government spends comes from taxpayers. The late economist Milton Friedman said, “The burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes, but by how much it spends.” Taxes should only fund limited government at the least economic harm, which Texas does well by depending mostly on sales taxes—though local property...
“Elderly inmate sent home during COVID is back in prison after going to computer class.” That’s probably not the kind of headline that liberals expected to see after heralding President Joe Biden’s win last November as a victory for justice and decency. Yet, it stands to be just the first of many similar sad stories of criminal...
The current two-year suspension of the federal government’s debt limit is set to expire on July 31, 2021. U.S. Treasury officials will likely be able to push this deadline back to Sept. 30, when fiscal year 2021 funding runs out, using accounting gimmicks or “extraordinary measures.” Without suspending or raising the debt limit by then,...
CNBC recently published an article whose original title demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding about inflation. The wording was so misinformed that it prompted intense criticism and CNBC changed the article’s title. It originally read “The upside to inflation: rising wages” and was changed to “It’s not certain rising wages will be enough to outpace inflation.” Ironically,...
Many Americans have historically associated “socialism” with things like the Red Scare, Nazism, the Cold War, and McCarthyism. Today, that fear has largely faded—particularly among young people—and has instead become a love affair. A recent Axios/Movement poll found that 51% of 18 to 34 year-olds view socialism positively, though the share is only 41% for...
Tonight, an estimated 13 children will sleep on the floor of CPS offices throughout Texas. “Every day was uncertain,” one child who experienced it routinely told the Texas Tribune. “You don’t know where you’re going to lay your head — where you’re going to get your next plate of food.” The child described the experience...
In recent days, hair-on-fire reports like this one from the Huffington Post claim that the Texas Senate “has passed a bill to eliminate a requirement that public schools teach that the Ku Klux Klan and its white supremacist campaign of terror are ‘morally wrong.’” The reports are misleading at best; even Texas news outlets that...
Holdout Texas Democrats remain in Washington, D.C., denying the state House of Representatives the two-thirds quorum needed to conduct business, with their walkout over election integrity legislation now entering its second week. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session starting July 8 to consider legislation left undone when House Democrats walked out in...