If the 86th legislative session were a football game, then the home team — the Texas Tax Reformers, of course — is battling back, with two minutes to go, and there’s a chance for overtime. The good news, at least, is that they have the ball and they’re driving. With almost every homeowner cheering them...
President Donald Trump is flying to El Centro, California on Friday, April 5 and then traveling five miles south to the border town of Calexico to inspect a newly completed section of the border wall. He is also scheduled to hold a roundtable discussion with local law enforcement officials. As Pres. Trump tours California’s Imperial Valley—a...
Not only is President Trump’s administration in agreement with the lawsuit brought by 20 states attorneys general — and the Texas Public Policy Foundation — against the Affordable Care Act, President Trump is leading the way on developing an alternative plan to present to Congress. That plan should be simple — empower the states to find solutions on...
Forced annexation appears headed for the dustbin of history. Prior to 2017, Texas cities could unilaterally poach property just outside their official boundaries. The conscripted property owners were usually forced to swallow higher taxes, tougher regulations, and old public debts. That didn’t sit well with a lot of folks, including a big, bipartisan group of...
The House Committee on Ways and Means recently heard nine hours of testimony on two controversial economic development provisions of the Texas Tax Code. Chapters 312 and 313 allow local governments to reduce the amount of property taxes paid by favored businesses that locate or expand within the district’s geographic boundaries. Both programs have significant...
New Mexico is the latest state to succumb to the siren song of the environmental misinformation powering the Green New Deal. Just a few months after New Mexico accepted nearly half a billion dollars from the federal government for oil and gas leases, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a “zero-carbon” energy mandate on public utilities,...
President Trump has had a very good week. But no decision he has made is more consequential or more correct than his decision to stand with Texas and 19 other states in challenging the constitutionality of ObamaCare. While the left and the center-right “intelligentsia” often malign the president for acting thoughtlessly or impulsively, the defining characteristic of...
Is anyone else saturated by the media’s coverage of Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed energy revolution? Perhaps more appropriately called an energy experiment, the heralded Green New Deal assumes that the renewable energy generated by wind turbines and solar panels can completely replace fossil fuels by 2030. Yet the viability of a policy to power...
President Trump’s executive order regarding free speech on college campuses is a solid first step toward restoring colleges and universities to their original mission — guarding free inquiry and the free exchange of ideas. The executive order — the signing of which I was honored to attend — will tie federal funds to real, measurable...
Since President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 into law in December 2017, private sector job growth in states with smaller state and local tax burdens has run 77% ahead of states with heavier tax loads from December 2017 to February 2019. Among its provisions, the new law limited state and...
Last week was an eventful one for higher education. On March 18, President Trump released his proposal for reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Three days later, the president issued an executive order focused primarily on campus free speech. The order also contains some exciting news about expanded reporting on how much students earn by program (e.g.,...
When the Green New Deal comes to the floor of the Senate, its supporters won’t want to talk about it. After the publication (and near-immediate deletion) of an FAQ page detailing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s lurid plans for “massive transformation of our society” through the Green New Deal, some supporters publicly distanced from the specifics; now the bill is being...