In the private sector, a business that consistently serves fewer customers faces numerous unpleasant consequences. Layoffs. Furloughs. Pay reductions. Rightsizing. In the public sector, things don’t seem to work that way in Texas local government. Take Austin ISD, for example. For years, Central Texas’ largest public school district has witnessed a steady decline in its...
It’s the first week to pre-file legislation in the run-up to the 88th Legislature and already swarms of bills have been proposed to make big changes to Texas’ onerous property tax system, which continues to wallop renters, homeowners, and practically everyone else. Here’s a look at just a few. House Bill 29: Proposes to prohibit...
In June 2021, the Biden administration announced it would change how it enforces the Gun Control Act of 1968. The act allows the federal government to revoke gun dealers’ license to sell firearms—commonly called federal firearms licenses or “FFLs”—when dealers “willfully” violate federal or state gun laws. Central to its policy is a new zeal...
President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is currently being evaluated by the courts. While we wait on them to rule on whether Biden’s actions are legal, we should make sure not to forget about the top five underappreciated scandals that accompanied the announcement: No. 1: Even liberals object to Biden’s abuse of emergency powers Biden...
Last July, 8-year-old Lalani Walton had just returned to Temple, Texas after a road trip with her family. They got home, unpacked their things, and her stepmother promised to take her out for a swim once Lalani cleaned her room. Tired from the trip, her stepmother rested her head and took a quick nap. When...
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas got it right on Monday when the court heard arguments about affirmative action. “I’ve heard the word diversity quite a few times and I don’t have a clue what it means,” said Thomas during oral arguments. “It seems to mean everything for everyone.” So what does “diversity” mean to...
After early voting ended on Friday night, Texas voting data guru Derek Ryan issued his final report of who voted, compiling all the information available from the Texas Secretary of State, Two telling points emerged for us to ponder while we wait for the polls to close tomorrow night. First, the number of voters who...
“The death of one man is a great tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic.” We don’t really know who first said this, but it’s often fittingly attributed to Joseph Stalin, one of the greatest mass murderers in history. Due to the Soviet Union’s shoddy bookkeeping and dubious censuses, we’ll never know Stalin’s...
Conversations around Sherri Bukovskey’s kitchen table are much like yours. A dental hygienist from Maine, Sherri remembers the days not long ago when she could keep her home toasty warm in the wintertime for half the price it would cost today. She remembers when no one in her neighborhood would even consider foregoing medication in...
There’s a political tactic called “inoculation” that came into mainstream parlance in the Bill Clinton era—it’s a kind of pre-emptive strike designed to protect against expected attacks and allegations. Going down to the wire to Election Day on Nov. 8, Texas Democrats have begun an inoculation strategy, deploying their strongest resource, the Texas press, to...
President Joe Biden’s border policies have led to monthly records of illegal immigrants crossing our southern border and being shipped, most often by the federal government, to different cities across the nation. In fact, some 2.2 million people have taken advantage of Biden’s aversion to enforcing immigration law, meaning the nation is on track to see close...
A highly controversial article in The Atlantic has issued a call for a “pandemic amnesty,” in which the public is presumably supposed to forget about the lives destroyed, the fortunes lost, and the freedoms smashed due to the excesses of emergency governance. The article’s concluding point sums up the surprising ask: “The standard saying is...