Putting Families First
What to know: League City’s newly-adopted tax rate is below the no-new-revenue tax rate threshold, which means residents’ tax bills will go down. Per the mayor, “we were able to get a tax rate that created a true tax decrease to the citizens for the ninth straight year in a row.”
The TPPF take: League City officials prioritized the family budget over the government’s budget. Other governments should take notice.
“League City officials deserve praise for truly lowering taxes. It’s a shame that more local governments didn’t follow suit and set their tax rates below the no-new-revenue tax rate,” said TPPF’s James Quintero. “Let’s hope that people are paying attention to what’s possible with conservatism applied.”
For more on local taxes & spending, click here.
Student Loans
What to know: The student loan repayment pause is over now, after three years.
The TPPF take: What have we learned from the pause? Conservatives learned that if they give an inch, progressives will take a mile.
“The first pause, implemented in March of 2020, wasn’t a terrible idea,” says TPPF’s Andrew Gillen. “At that point, we simply didn’t know how many people would lose their jobs, so a universal pause was a decent proposal. Yet that initial magnanimity was repaid with repeated extensions of the pause that cost taxpayers dearly.”
For more on student loan repayments, click here.
More Harm than Reduction
What to know: In Philadelphia, the empty promises of “harm reduction” have left the community devastated by the opioid crisis. Philadelphia officials are now moving away from “supervised drug use centers.”
The TPPF take: As Texans, we must denounce the hollow promise of harm reduction and recognize there is no such thing as a safe injection site.
“This may seem like a far-off problem, and something that Texas doesn’t have to worry about, but practices like these are slowly creeping into our cities,” says TPPF’s John Bonura. “Texas cities are already trying to treat their homeless population with zero accountability programs like Housing First that use taxpayer dollars to provide housing for anyone off the street without requiring substance abuse treatment or mental health screenings.”
For more on harm reduction and accountability, click here.