Paying more for housing? Blame City Hall. In spite of paying regular lip service to affordability, city officials continue to push big government policies that make it more expensive to live in Austin. In fact, officials are exploring a new one now. Earlier this month, Austin’s Code Department began seeking public input on a...
When most of us think of rural areas, we conjure up bucolic images of the countryside with more serenity and fewer hassles than are encountered in city life. However, in recent years, that image has been disrupted with revealing books such as J.D. Vance’s compelling “Hillbilly Elegy” and stark data showing rural areas are...
Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, infamously tweeted a link in early April to a story calling for a bloodless civil war to solve America’s problems. The piece, “The Great Lesson of California in America’s New Civil War: Why there’s no bipartisan way forward at this juncture in our history — one side must win” was...
When La Joya ISD’s $20 million Sports and Learning Complex (which includes the state’s first public school water park) opened last week, Superintendent Alda Benavides called it “exciting.” The complex includes tennis courts, a natatorium, a golf course and a planetarium. “I think it’s a dream come true and it will provide a lot...
Cities charge municipal right of way fees—or franchise fees—to certain utilities for the use of the public right of way. Like taxes on businesses, these fees are passed on to customers. Texas’ Local Government Code stipulates that these fees should be “consistent with the burdens on municipalities created by the incursion of certificated telecommunications providers...
A new article lays bare the increasing irrationality of ISD administrator compensation. According to the Texas Monitor, over the last 15 months, ISDs around the state have approved severance packages to 24 superintendents worth an estimated $6 million or an average of $250,000 per official. Troublingly, many of these arrangements appear to have been much...
A Texas mom, Valerie Gonzales, was thrown in jail because she couldn’t afford the $1,000 demanded in order to be released. What was her offense you might ask? Gonzales had racked up fines and fees for unpaid traffic tickets. There was nothing related to drinking and driving or neglecting to ensure her kids buckled...
The opioid problem is at a crisis level, but targeting pharmaceutical companies because of their deep pockets may enrich a few, but will fail to benefit many. Recently, personal injury lawyers have been chasing Texas counties to file lawsuits on a contingent fee basis against pharmaceutical manufacturers for the cost of dealing with opioid abuse. The...
Recently, the city of Denton passed a resolution to move to 100% renewable energy by 2020. This will be the second city in Texas to do so, and the 58th in the country. But what does 100% renewable energy mean? This question was asked a lot when Georgetown, the first city in Texas to move...
This issue of Veritas, the quarterly publication of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, features solutions to correctly measure poverty, introduces the Texas Prosperity Promise, explores whether free college is a good idea, a farewell from our CEO Brooke Rollins, an introduction of Lieutenant Colonel Allen West and the Booker T. Washington Initiative, and recaps the 2018 Policy Orientation and Visionaries Meeting.
Austin is in the throes of an “affordability crisis” that is being driven in large part by poor public policies, according to a recent op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman. In 2016, nearly 58,000 moved to the Austin area, marking a significant increase in population. But, as the author notes, city policies made it hard for...