Taking a look at the budget and Texas’ $80 billion budget surplus Executive Summary Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar’s Biennial Revenue Estimate (BRE) biennium projects a budget surplus of $23.76 billion in state funds for the current 2024-25 fiscal biennium.  But…

This headline in last week’s Houston Chronicle captured all that is wrong with the Texas electricity market: Since 2013, when the Operating Reserve Demand Curve was approved, the Texas Legislature has sought to deal with the grid reliability problems caused…

Like most Texans, I am fed up with the rapidly growing Texas budget filled with waste, corporate cronyism, and funding for leftwing causes like DEI. Unlike most Texans, I am able to go to the Texas Capitol and testify against…

Texans to Receive Only $6 Billion in Property Tax Relief New Spending Reduces Potential Tax Cuts Now and in the Future When the Texas Senate meets this week to debate and adopt the 2026-27 budget for the state of Texas,…

Since 2011, market participants, regulators, and watchers have understood that intermittent energy sources—wind and solar—are causing three major problems in the ERCOT electric market.  First, their intermittency has increasingly pushed the grid towards unreliability. Second, they have driven reliable thermal…

The failure of property tax relief efforts over the last six years is a perfect example of how local governments are using taxpayer money to lobby against the interests of Texans.  Most local governments have abandoned any semblance of fiscal…

A sentiment making its way around the Texas Legislature is that providing tax relief for property owners is “too big of a commitment.” An element of this sentiment was expressed several times in a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing where…

Texans Will Get Less Than $4 Billion Out of the $24 Billion Budget Surplus Executive Summary Though it is difficult to discern from recent statements made by Texas’ legislative leaders, the Texas Senate has budgeted only $3 billion for new…

The News Comes Despite Promises of Tax Relief New data released by the Texas Comptroller’s office shows that property taxes increased for the second straight year, despite recent claims of property tax relief from politicians. Figure 1 shows the total…

The Problem with Previous Texas School Choice Proposals K-12 education in Texas today comes in two forms, public and the private. For the most part in Texas, these two systems operate separately. Unlike many other states, Texas doesn’t have a…

State needs a similar effort to Musk’s federal crusade. This commentary was originally published at The Dallas Morning News here. It is being republished with permission from the author. One of the most amazing political phenomena Americans have seen in ages is…

The old truism is that there are two certainties in life, death and taxes. I’d like to modify that slightly to death and government spending.  After all, government spending is why taxes exist. No spending, no taxes. But there is…

Executive Summary The only thing the Texas Legislature must do when they meet every two years is adopt a budget. Not surprisingly, with years of practice they have gotten pretty good at spending taxpayers’ money. For instance, the Legislature appropriated…

Texas politicians had a choice to make this spring. With a record $80 billion of new revenue available, they could either spend the money or give it back to Texas taxpayers in the form of property tax relief. Unfortunately for…

Executive Summary The Texas Legislature is in the midst of a 20-year spending spree. Since 2003, the appropriation of state funds per legislative session has increased from $76.2 billion to $233 billion. Remarkably, 44% of that growth happened in 2023…