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…

Texas is often thought of as a conservative state. Teachers, for instance, complain about inadequate spending on public education and low salaries. Democrat State Rep. James Talarico (Austin) has argued that the low salaries are “pushing teachers out of the…

Executive Summary A lot of people know about Texas’ $32.7 billion budget surplus. What most don’t know is that the Texas Legislature has $78.4 billion more in state funds to spend this year than it spent in 2021 and that…