The Texas Legislature adjourned May 29 ending its 88th regular legislative session. In its wake, a lot of bills were sent to Texas Governor Greg Abbott to become law with his signature. Many more bills were not passed or even considered. In this review of the Texas Legislature, we will review the bills that passed…
Category: Government
“Public-Private” Partnerships are Corrupt
God’s Word provides us with more knowledge than any of us could learn in a lifetime. I’m fact, I’d suggest it provides us with more knowledge than all of humanity could learn throughout eternity. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep mining it for everything we can learn from it. Thus, I’d suggest it would…
Property Taxes Up 12% in 2022 Despite Legislature’s Promise of Tax Relief
This was originally published by the Huffines Liberty Foundation. Executive Summary The office of Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar reports that school property taxes in 2022 increased 13.7% over the previous year. City taxes were also up 9.1%, county taxes 12.7%, and special district taxes 9.4%. This adds up to a $8.9 billion property tax increase…
How to Eliminate Texas School Property Taxes in 10 Years (or Less)
Texas’ school M&O property tax, about 43% of the current $76.4 total property tax levy, can be eliminated in as little as six years without raising any existing taxes or creating a new tax. Yet, for 25 years Texas politicians have been unsuccessful in their attempts to reduce the heavy burden of property taxes on…
The Problem with Big Government
I recently spoke to the Brazos Valley Republican Club about the problem with Big Government. We focused on the problems with Texas’ budget, property taxes, and electric grid. While there are a lot of problems in Texas that Christians and conservatives need to deal with, such as election integrity, Democrat chairs in the Texas House,…
Big Government Isn’t the Solution to Big Tech Censorship
It is no secret that Big Tech and conservatives aren’t close friends these days. Responding to this concern, Republican House members last year assembled a Big Tech Censorship and Data Task Force to hold Big Tech accountable for anti-conservative bias and censorship. Now, however, Republicans in Congress are taking things too far by partnering with…
Texans Property Taxes are High Because Texas Politicians Like it That Way
States compete using various means to attract new businesses and residents to drive economic growth. For instance, CNBC ranks America’s Top States for Business with criteria such as Cost of Doing Business, Infrastructure, Business Friendliness, and Technology and Innovation. It also includes criteria that are more focused on residents, including Life, Health, and Inclusion and…
Texas Politicians and Citizens Enable Corporate Theft
It was not that long ago that property tax abatements were illegal in Texas because they wereconsidered to be theft. The market’s job was to create jobs and grow the economy. The government’s job was toensure a level playing field for all market participants through efficient civil and criminal justicesystems and limited regulation. Acknowledging the…
Protestant Resistance Theory
Romans 13 tells us to “be subject to the governing authorities.” Yet the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, from Luther and Calvin to Knox, Rutherford, Junius Brutus, and others, had a problem: the rulers they were supposed to be subject to were trying to, or actually did, murder them. To understand what the Bible taught…
Rule by Experts: Two Approaches to Economic Development
“The conventional approach to economic development … is based on a technocratic illusion: the belief that poverty is a purely technical problem amendable to … technical solutions.” ~ William Easterly Under significant political pressure from the left and the right, the Texas Legislature last year let expire the Chapter 313 “economic development” program that allows…