Pushing for Prudence
What to know: One Dallas city councilmember is sounding the alarm over the “city’s ever-increasing, unsustainable budget and its effects on residents.” To help get things under control, she is pushing for the adoption of the no-new-revenue tax rate and to reduce spending in non-public safety-related departments where there has been lots of excess.
The TPPF take: Lowering the tax rate and cutting spending is the right call.
“Dallas residents have been shouldering the heavy cost of city government for years. It is time to lighten that load and give taxpayers some relief,” says TPPF’s James Quintero. “Ample opportunity exists to bring commonsense change to Dallas’ finances. All that’s lacking right now is the political will to get it done—but that may soon change.”
For more on Dallas city spending, click here.
Save the Children
What to know: Alabama’s new law preventing experimental gender treatments for children can go into effect, a panel of judges has ruled.
The TPPF take: States such as Texas and Alabama are right to prohibit surgical and chemical modification of children.
“’Gender-affirming care’ sounds harmless and even positive,” says TPPF’s Robert Henneke. “Yet it covers horrific medical procedures on children that result in a lifelong need for treatments, sterility, and the inability to orgasm. More and more research documenting risks to the health of children and irreversible side effects associated with these treatments has led several European nations to reverse course on providing such care to minors.”
For more on gender and medical care, click here.
Summer Sizzle
What to know: It’s Friday, and we’ve just about survived another sweltering week of August in Texas.
The TPPF take: The Texas grid is handling the heat. And as new data shows, summer isn’t really the problem for the Texas energy grid now.
“We should be fine for the next few summers IF we don’t lose more dispatchable generation, but what the unreliable apologists are not telling you is that winter is going to be the new summer in Texas,” says TPPF’s Brent Bennett. “In the winter, demand peaks at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., when there is no sun. And the wind often doesn’t blow in the coldest hours of the winter. Therefore, winter peak demand growth is rapidly outpacing our supply of firm capacity.”
For more on the energy grid, click here.