Tale of Two Republics
What to know: Texas’ Lt. Governor Dan Patrick spoke on how strong conservative policies attracted 12 million Blue State Americans to move to Texas at the GOP’s Midterm Convention.
The TPPF take: California’s model of big government picking winners and losers, aided by the nation’s best weather, appears in serious jeopardy of collapse. While Texas’ model of freeing job creators to do what they do best through low taxes, less regulation, and a better lawsuit climate is looking stronger by the month.
“Texas’s legislature being run by makers and California’s by takers is glaringly obvious from the two states’ respective balance sheets,” says TPPF’s Chuck DeVore. “California’s elected officials are particularly adept at dreaming up ways to spend other people’s money. While the state struggles with interminable deficits caused by years of reckless spending, the argument in Sacramento isn’t over how to reduce government; rather, it’s over how much to raise taxes and on whom.”
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LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ Class
What to Know: Students at 11 Texas A&M University System schools will see fewer classes related to LGBTQ literature, climate change and women writers meet graduation requirements under a proposal to remove more than 200 classes from general-education course lists.
The TPPF take: Curriculum reform needs institutional protection if it is going to last.
The university has taken an important step. It should now think seriously about how to make that step long-lasting,” says TPPF’s Thomas Lindsay. “There is also a larger point here. A genuine liberal education is not politically or civically indifferent. Education has always been connected to the kind of polity a society hopes to preserve. The American Founders understood this.”
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Electric City
What to know: The Public Utility Commission of Texas on Friday gave its approval to the second 765-kV transmission line project to West Texas, pending two transmission companies work with landowners to make modifications.
The TPPF take: Here’s what nobody’s saying loudly enough: ERCOT built this entire transmission expansion plan around the assumption that over 90% of new generation coming online would be wind, solar, and storage.
“Here’s the kicker: Texas ranks 4th best in the country for industrial electricity rates but 28th for residential rates,” says TPPF’s Brent Bennett. “The same entities pushing for these transmission projects are benefiting from the current system while residential consumers pay more and more. More transmission built under the same broken rules doesn’t fix that. It makes it worse.”