Subsides are just not for renewable power; but also for electric vehicles. Congress is considering extending a tax credit for electric cars: “Initially, Congress sought to jump-start the electric vehicle industry with this incentive,” Matt Mackowiak explains in the Washington Times. “But the phase-out concept was also a recognition that once a manufacturer sold a...
The American education lobby is caught in a pickle. On one hand, advocates and influencers are trying to convince people that public education is chronically underfunded, even going so far as to claim that schools are “starving.” On the other hand, watchdogs have documented countless examples of waste and misuse of funds—everything from the McKinney...
The rural-urban divide is clear, if nuanced, and paying attention to it can have significant returns. This was never clearer than in 2016 when Donald Trump rode a populist wave, driven by rural America, into the nation’s highest office. Sadly, rural Americans aren’t just ignored, they’re laughed at. On Netflix’s “Patriot Act,” host Hasan Minhaj showed a video from...
Families in some part of the state are paying less than $2 per gallon of gas — just in time for holiday travel. It may seem a small matter, but those are real savings for Texas families. We ought to be thankful in the little things as well as the big things, in the unexpected...
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., offered Amazon $1.5 billion in corporate cronyism tax breaks, saying, “It’s not a level playing field to begin with. All things being equal, if we do nothing, they’re going to Texas.” State and local taxes matter. After the historic tax cut passed with President Trump’s signature last December, they matter even...
Texas restaurant and bar Threadgill’s World Headquarters is as Austin as it gets. Threadgill’s owner Eddie Wilson once flashed his underwear to the audience as he introduced a sitting Texas governor at a music festival (Wilson was justifiably proud of his armadillo boxers, and Gov. Ann Richards reportedly took it in stride). On top of...
Most people don’t like to compete. Athletes sometimes doctor their equipment to gain an edge in winning their games. Politicians gerrymander their districts rather than compete with their opponents for votes. In the case of businesses, many of them go to the government get more profits from taxpayers than they could by competing for consumers....
At least 63 people have been killed with 631 reported missing in the California fires as thousands of firefighters, including 200 sent from Texas as well as other states, battle to contain the blazes. More than 7,000 structures have been destroyed, including up to 90 percent of the homes in Paradise, population 26,682, in Northern...
College athlete and YouTube star Donald De La Haye is an American success story. At the age of 7, Donald immigrated to the United States with his family from Costa Rica. As a teenager, he began posting online unique, creative videos of himself. He also was a skilled athlete, recruited by the University of Central...
When thinking of renewable energy, one often conjures up images of impressive turbines and swaths of land covered in silicon panels and thoughts of technology, progress, and a cleaner, brighter future. Renewables are popularly accepted as the latest and greatest technological improvement in energy. This position, however, is inaccurate. Use of renewable energy can be...
As Dizzy Dean once said, “It ain’t bragging if you done it.” Louisianans should be proud of the criminal justice reforms achieved in the historic Justice Reinvestment Initiative legislation passed on 2017 — reform that has improved public safety, increased funding for victim services, all while saving millions of tax dollars. “Community involvement and support...
Over the river and through the woods – if you can afford it. The holiday season is nearing, and families are starting to think about travel. But visiting grandma could soon be cost-prohibitive, if the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has its way. The IPCC claims in its latest report that action must be taken...