Family

Letter to the Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Regarding Parental Rights

The Texas Public Policy Foundation writes to support Representative James White’s November 27, 2018 request (RQ-0258-KP) seeking your office’s opinion on the elements, factors, or standards courts have considered and applied when balancing the rights of the state against the fundamental right of parents to raise their children free from government intrusion. In light of...

January 8, 2019

Economy

312,000 Jobs Added In December, Manufacturing Growing 714% Faster Under Trump Than Obama

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its December jobs report Friday morning, showing nonfarm employment was up by 312,000, stronger than analysts expected. The impressive jobs number, along with the Fed signaling patience on rate hikes, shook the stock market loose from its doldrums, with the Dow posting a 747-point gain. With the December...

January 4, 2019

Economy

Instead of Apple perks, give taxpayers a break

Apple, the world’s most valuable company, recently announced a $1 billion deal to build its second corporate campus in Austin to initially include 5,000 employees. This deal comes at a cost to taxpayers statewide of a $25 million grant from the Texas Enterprise Fund and locally of a 65 percent property tax break annually for...

January 4, 2019

Energy & Environment

New National Geographic Documentary Highlights How Ill-Informed Climate Debate Has Become

In announcing the United State’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement last year, President Donald Trump declared, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” A company called RadicalMedia and Bloomberg Philanthropies attempted to counter the president this week with the release of a documentary titled “Paris to Pittsburgh” on the National...

January 3, 2019

Health Care

Obamacare Ruling a Victory for the Rule of Law

The truth is that the ACA is broken and has been from the start. The federal judge in Fort Worth who recently entered final judgment finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional now paves the way for the case to move to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. And as the attorney who argued the case on behalf...

January 3, 2019

Health Care

Ruling on Obamacare as Unconstitutional Caught Media Off Guard

When a federal judge recently ruled that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, many in the media were caught off guard. Little attention had been paid to the case, which was brought by the attorneys general of 20 states and by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (representing individual clients who have been harmed by Obamacare)....

December 27, 2018

Property Rights

Who owns that tree in your yard?

Who owns the trees on your property? That’s the question at the heart of a pair of lawsuits in Michigan. The township of Canton, Michigan makes it a crime to remove any tree (defined as anything with a 3-inch wooded stem) without a permit. But under the Township’s tree ordinance, the township will not grant...

December 27, 2018

Property Rights

Frogs or freedom? Landowners win as court rejects FWS power play

The dusky gopher frog is a critter that can be found in certain areas of Mississippi — and nowhere else. Yet the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to “protect” the dusky gopher frog by using the Endangered Species Act to designate a 1,500-acre tract of private forestry land in Louisiana as “critical habitat necessary...

December 26, 2018

Higher Education

Texas Takes The Next Step To Make College More Affordable

In 2011, then-Texas Governor Rick Perry called on the Lone Star State’s public four-year universities to craft affordable bachelor’s degrees, what the Governor labeled at the time, “$10,000 degrees.” Texas universities have risen to the challenge. In late 2013, the first Texas Affordable Baccalaureate Degree was launched by Texas A&M-Commerce and South Texas College. The...

December 26, 2018

Property Rights

Michiganders Face Excessive Fines For Cutting Trees On Their Own Property

The Founding Fathers included the Eighth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution to ensure the Federal Government does not perform “cruel and unusual punishment” on U.S. citizens or force them to pay “excessive fines” or bail. Fast forward a couple of centuries: problems that concern this rather vague (but important) clause are rearing their ugly head....

December 23, 2018

Economy

Low-Tax States, Led By Texas, Outpace Job Growth In High-Tax States By 71%

The historic passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act a year ago set off a surge of hiring across America. Since then, private employers added some 2.4 million employees through November 2018, according to the employment reportreleased by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics today. Further, the federal state jobs report shows that low-tax...

December 21, 2018

Health Care

Winning is not enough, we must look to states for healthcare solutions

Late Friday night the good news came that TPPF and the Texas-led coalition of state attorneys general scored a major victory in the fight against Obamacare. While the decision the will likely be appealed, such a decisive victory shows a clear legal pathway to overturn the disastrous Affordable Care Act. But that’s not where the...

December 21, 2018