This commentary originally appeared in Breitbart Texas in January 6, 2015. Richard Florida, from the University of Toronto, had an opinion piece in the New York Times on Sunday, January 4 entitled, “Is Life Better in America’s Red States?” In it, Florida makes this initial observation about “red states”: Red state economies based on energy extraction, agriculture...
Texans deserve a transparent Texas budget. The Foundation provides more budget transparency by publishing The Real Texas Budget and an associated worksheet with our data since the 2004-05 budget. We find that the 2014-15 (adjusted) total budget is up 13.4 percent above population growth plus inflation since 2004. We understand that this is at odds with the Legislative Budget Board’s reported adjusted total budget decrease of 1.2 percent since 2002 as noted in their table published in August 2013. Let’s consider the following changes we made to accurately compare past budgets and calculate our 2014-15 budget of...
Texas has proven that lower taxes and less regulation — along with a solid civil justice system — provide the only way to reliably increase jobs and keep the economy going strong.
Texans want and deserve the best educational opportunities for every single child. Strong economies, however, are dependent on great educational results.
Last week, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar released the Biennial Revenue Estimate 2016-17 that acts as a guidepost for how much revenue the 84th Texas Legislature will have available to appropriate during the 2015 Legislative Session. Given the state’s constitution requires a balanced budget, the report also sets the stage for how much legislators have available...
Former Texas Comptroller Susan Combs released her last report “Path to Stability: ERS at the Crossroads” before leaving office. This report provides valuable information on the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS), the pension fund for state employees, that includes the following highlights: “Based on ERS’ fiscal 2014 actuarial valuation, if current assumptions hold, the...
This commentary originally appeared in The Federalist on January 6, 2015. Few individuals outside of the music editorial realm consider Rolling Stone a reliable source of journalistic content. In recent years the publication’s rank amateurism has been made patently evident in its coverage of the nation’s criminal justice system. Whether a quixotic exercise in the apologetics of a butcher or whole-cloth fabricationof...
This commentary originally appeared in Forbes on January 13, 2015. A new book by Frank Mussano, former dean of York College of Pennsylvania,and Robert V. Iosue takes on the crisis of tuition hyperinflation. The book’s title conveys its conclusion: College Tuition: Four Decades of Financial Deception. Summarizing their work in a recent article, Mussano and Iosue argue that...
This commentary originally appeared in Dallas Morning News on January 12, 2015. To sustain the Texas model’s economic success, the 84th Texas Legislature should slow the growth of the state’s budget and eliminate the costly business margin tax. Since 2004, Texas’ total budget has increased by 64 percent to $204 billion for the current two-year fiscal period....
Economic development incentives such as tax abatements are often simply presumed to work by their proponents. But the real-life consequences of incentives gone wrong are rarely considered, and yet affect real lives and real families. The study that the Center for Local Governance released today, The Failure of Tax Abatements: Corporate Handouts That Just Don’t...
Richard Florida, from the University of Toronto, had an opinion piece in the New York Times on Sunday, January 4 entitled, “Is Life Better in America’s Red States?” In it, Florida makes this initial observation about “red states”: Red state economies based on energy extraction, agriculture and suburban sprawl may have lower wages, higher poverty...