Posts Tagged ‘Texas Public Policy Foundation’
Thursday, August 27th, 2015
Got a bunch of links building up concerning Wallace Hall, Joe Straus and related topics that I’m just going to shotgun out here:
UT reforms admissions process so it can only admit unqualified, well-connected students if it really, really wants to.
Wallace Hall was not impressed with the reform. “This memorializes bad acts from a hidden admissions policy.”
Hall says that Joe Straus came after him to make an example of him.
Hall sues University of Texas chancellor McRaven for access to all of the Kroll report, not just the expurgated version.
Meanwhile, the UT system is sueing Attorney General Ken Paxton in turn, to keep their dirty laundry secret.
Former Texas Public Policy Foundation President Jeff Judson is running against Joe Straus for his state house seat. Here’s his website.
Tags:2016 Election, Crime, Elections, Jeff Judson, Joe Straus, Ken Paxton, Republicans, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, University of Texas, Wallace Hall, William McRaven
Posted in Crime, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 24th, 2015
It’s been a while since I did a Texas vs. California update, so this is going to be a meaty one:
The Texas Comptroller has released a 50 state overview of how Texas stacks up to other states. There’s a lot of information to mine there. A few nuggets”
- Texas ranks first as the best state for business, while California ranks 50th.
- Texas ranks as the best state for net migration; California ranks 49th.
- There are area in need of improvement. Texas ranks 49th in states whose residents over 25 hold high school diplomas. California? 50th.
Texas has enjoyed 100 straight months of unemployment below the national average. (Now it’s 101 months, but I can’ find a link right at the moment.)
The previously mentioned California pension reform ballot initiative has been filed.
Can it help California voters avoid pension armageddon?
“Low Taxes And Economic Opportunity In Texas Lead To Youth Population Boom.”
I was unaware that CalPERS owns its own planned community in Mountain House, California, and which it’s invested more than $1 billion in. A community that in 2008 was the most underwater in terms of mortgages in the entire country, and which was estimated to be worth only $200 million at some point. And now their water is being cut off due to the drought. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Speaking of the drought, California is running on empty:
We suffer in California from a particular form of progressive immorality predicated on insular selfishness. The water supplies of Los Angeles and the Bay Area are still for a year longer in good shape, despite the four-year drought. Neither area is self-sufficient in water; their aquifers are marginal and only supply a fraction of their daily needs. Instead these megalopolises depend on intricate and expensive water transfer systems — from Northern California, from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and from the Colorado River — that bring water and life to quite unnatural habitats and thereby allow a MGM or Facebook to thrive in an arid landscape that otherwise would not support such commerce and population. Without them, Atherton would look like Porterville.
Quiet engineers in the shadows make it all work; the loud activists in the media seek to make it unwind. These transfers have sterling legal authority and first claims on mountain and northern state water. If Latinos in Lemon Cove are going without household water, Pyramid Lake on I-5 or Crystal Springs Reservoir on 280 are still full to the brim.
Why then do those who have access to water delivered in a most unnatural way seek to curtail supplies to others? In a word, because they are either ignorant of where their own water comes from or they have not a shred of concern for others less blessed, or both. We will confirm this ethical schizophrenia should a fifth year of drought ensue. Then even the most sacrosanct rights of transferred water will not be sufficient to accommodate the San Francisco and Los Angeles basins. Mass panic and outrage will probably follow, and no one will care a bit about the delta smelt, or a few hundred salmon artificially planted into the San Joaquin River watershed, or a spotted toad that holds up construction of an urgently needed reservoir.
The greens who pontificate about the need to return the San Joaquin watershed to its 19th-century ecosystem will become pariahs. When the taps run dry in Hillsborough and Bel-Air, very powerful people will demand water for their desert environs, which will in fact begin to return to the deserts that they always were as the thin veneer of civilization is scraped away.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Hey, remember how California’s are always saying “Sure, Texas has lower taxes, lower cost of living, and better job growth, but California’s awesomely moderate weather beats Texas’ summer heat hands down!”?
Yeah, not so much this year… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
California legislature votes to reinstate Kelo-like seizure of private property for private development use. Shamefully, 12 Republicans joined Democrats to vote for eminent domain abuse.
“Pension payments are starving basic city services.”
A Marin County grand jury wants more openness about government employee salaries and pensions. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Of the four “minority majority” states, minorities in Texas are doing best.
California farm workers are suing to get the United Farm Workers out of their lives and pockets.
Among cities with high prices and stagnant wage growth, California has the nine worst, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Jose.
Because California homes just didn’t cost enough already, new energy regulations are going to make them even more expensive.
The San Bernardino sheriff’s department has used a “stingray” to capture cell phone communication over 300 times in the past year or so without a warrant.
Apple continues expanding in Austin.
Texas is one of the states General Electric might leave Connecticut for.
California-based retailer Anna’s Linens files for Chapter 11.
California holding company Premier Ventures uses yet another bankruptcy filing to prevent an Akron, Ohio mall from being sold at auction. (Previously.)
Not news: California bankruptcy filing. Still not news: From a fraud judgment. News: For a lawsuit first filed in 1989.
Tags:Austin, California, Chuck DeVore, Crime, Kelo, Mountain House, San Bernardino, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, unions, United Farm Workers, Victor Davis Hanson, Welfare State
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Regulation, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 21st, 2015
Time for another Texas vs. California update:
“March marked a phenomenal run of 99 consecutive months when Texas’ unemployment rate was at or below the national average.” Also: “Texas employs an impressive two and a half times more people since December 2007 than the rest of the nation combined.”
The Texas state legislature is on the verge of passing an actual conservative budget.
Will Franklin looks at local bond debt in Texas. It’s creeping up, partially due to big government advocates scheduling off-year bond elections when fewer people are voting. Even so, voters seem willing to reject big-ticket bond items.
San Bernardino’s bankruptcy plan: CalPERS gets theirs, bondholders get screwed.
And San Bernardino is planning to outsource their firefighting operations, not least of which because the fire department sucks up $7 million worth of overtime a year. And the fact their union stopped participating in bankruptcy talks didn’t help… (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
How a few wealthy California environmentalists give the illusion of a mass movement.
How retroactive pension increases destroyed California budgets. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
California is a victim of repeated short-sighted thinking.
Los Angeles joins the minimum wage hike bandwagon. Expect another wave of small business closure stories over the next few months…
Why public employee unions are the elephant in the room for California’s debt crisis. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
California’s majority Democrats shelve legislative transparency bill written by Republican. This is my shocked face.
Compton teachers get laid off, Do-Da, Do-Da…
“In another corporate exodus from Torrance, California, to North Texas, Kubota Tractor Corp. and Kubota Credit Corp. announced Thursday that they will move their headquarters to Grapevine from the Los Angeles area.”
“The number of young adults admitted to California hospital emergency rooms with heroin poisoning increased sixfold over the past decade.” (Hat tip: Cal WatchDog.)
The Weinstein Company hit with $130 million lawsuit. File under: Hollywood Accounting.
Tags:bankruptcy, California, CalPERs, Crime, Democrats, environmentalism, Grapevine, Regulation, San Bernardino, Texas, Texas 84th Legislative Session, Texas Public Policy Foundation, unions, Welfare State, WILLisms
Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Regulation, Texas, unions, Welfare State | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2015
To a certain extent, this Texas vs. California roundup is incomplete, since we’re hot and heavy into the new legislative session and I haven’t had a chance to fully digest the proposed budget numbers yet. By the Legislative Budget Boards numbers, they’re only projecting a 1.5% increase in the 2016-2017 biennium budget over 2014-2015. But see the first link…
Setting the story straight on the Texas budget. TPPF uses a different baseline…
California’s public employee unions would prefer that you not know how well they’re compensated.
How California’s public employees use sick leave to spike their pensions.
Supreme Court may take on California union mandatory dues case.
Though not nearly as bad as California, Texas state and local public employee pensions are also in need of reform.
California’s Kern County declares a fiscal emergency over dropping oil prices. “Collapsing crude prices are squeezing the finances of Kern County, home to three-fourths of California’s oil production.” Thankfully, oil and gas extraction is a lot more widespread in Texas.
The City of Sacramento’s unfunded liabilities have reached $2.3 billion. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“Fresno? No one goes to Fresno anymore!” Except for job growth percentage, that is, where Fresno outpaced Silicon Valley.
Remember the Newport Beach police department firing a whistler-blower? Via Dwight comes a followup: “A husband and wife who sued Newport Beach and its police department for alleged retaliation and wrongful termination have settled their lawsuits for $500,000, according to city officials.”
“Physician-assisted suicide has returned to California’s political agenda.” Well, why not? California’s ruling Democrats have been attempting fiscal suicide for well over a decade now…
Toyota breaks ground on its new Texas headquarters.
A public school in California is having a Hijab Day.
Tags:Budget, California, Democrats, Fresno, Jihad, Kern County (CA), Legislative Budget Board, Newport Beach, oil industry, pension crisis, Sacramento, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Toyota, unions, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Jihad, Supreme Court, Texas, unions, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, December 22nd, 2014
Two bits of news dropped right after I put up the most recent Texas vs. California update.
First, Texas added 34,800 nonfarm jobs in November, and 441,200 more jobs year-over-year, more than any other state. And this happened despite the drop in oil prices.
One reason Texas does so well is that it has the highest level of economic freedom of any state (tied with South Dakota).
Needless to say, those two facts are strongly correlated. In the long run, free states produce jobs and economic activity while less free states produce dependency and stagnation.
(Hat tip: TPPF.)
Tags:economy, jobs, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Posted in Economics, Texas | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 4th, 2014
It’s another Texas vs. California update!
The real reason the University of California system is raising taxes: “The real driving force behind the tuition hike is the university’s woefully underfunded pension system, which currently serves 56,000 retired employees. It’s a generous system, despite some reductions the university made for new hires in recent years. An Associated Press analysis found 2,129 retired UC employees collect pensions of more than $100,000 a year; 57 receive more than $200,000; and three receive more than $300,000.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Here’s the rare Texas vs. California item where both Texas and California get dinged: “Calpers holds about 75% of its portfolio in stocks and other risky assets, such as real estate, private equity and, until recently, hedge funds, despite offering benefits that, unlike IRAs or 401(k)s, it guarantees against market risk. Most other states are little different: Illinois holds 75% in risky assets; the Texas teachers’ plan holds 81%.”
A look at the relative pension costs of three bankrupt California cities: San Bernardino, Stockton and Vallejo. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Magpul, is moving its headquarters from newly gun-hostile Colorado to Austin. This is on top of moving its manufacturing facilities to Wyoming.
“Something is happening in California. An unstoppable movement for reform is building, attracting support from conscientious Californians.” Much as I’d like to believe it, I remain skeptical that real education and pension reform can happen in California as long as it remains a one-party Democratic state… (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
How California’s three-decades old Proposition 65 is threatening to bankrupt small businesses and enrich trial lawyers.
California: Roads? We don’t need no stinking roads. 57% of San Diego County’s projected infrastructure spending is on mass transportation…and critics are saying that’s not enough.
I’m surprised that I stumbled on this piece on the Newport Beach Police Department before Dwight did:
In recent years, daily examples of faithful public service inside the Newport Beach Police Department (NBPD) have been overshadowed by alarming corruption. City officials ignore or downplay the misconduct, but NBPD bosses turned the agency into a darker, stupider version of Animal House. Court records and internal documents show the city’s boys in blue have accepted gratuities in exchange for favors, gotten frat-boy drunk at work, lied under oath, passed out confidential information to pals, encouraged oral sex from female job applicants, committed wild adultery on duty, doctored official reports, hurled feces, dished out horrific domestic violence against wives and girlfriends, engaged in intoxicated bar fights, issued criminal threats, vandalized property, converted powerful agency spy equipment to personal use, and rigged promotion systems to ensure mostly see-no-evil, management-loyal employees rise–and let the hijinks continue.
Plus open war against whistle-blowers.
Speaking of public employees behaving badly, from Dwight comes this story of LA firemen being investigated for faking certifications.
Texas home sales reach their highest level in five years.
The headquarters of national buyer’s co-op NATM Buying Corp. is moving from Long island, New York to Irving, Texas.
Finally, in case you missed it a few days ago, three Texas budget links from the Texas Public Policy Foundation:
A detailed call for greater transparency in the Texas budget
A look at what an actual conservative Texas budget would look like; and
A real Texas Budget Worksheet, with historical budget data.
Tags:Budget, California, CalPERs, Magpul, Newport Beach, San Bernardino, Stockton, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, unions, University of California, Vallejo, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Texas, unions, Welfare State | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
The folks at the Texas Public Policy Foundation are cranking up the analysis in advance of next year’s budget fight. So this would be the perfect time to offer up a deep, insightful delve into the labyrinth structure of the Texas state budget process, from the roles of the Legislative Budget Board and the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts all the way to the Governor’s desk, to the intricate details of the biannual and supplemental budget processes. Such a piece would also break down the various revenue streams, from oil and gasses leases, property tax, sales tax and federal grants.
Too damn bad I’m not doing that.
It’s not for lack of material. Just in the last few days, TPPF has produced:
A detailed call for greater transparency in the Texas budget (funny how government always seems to spend more (never less) than the legislature actually authorized)
A look at what an actual conservative Texas budget would look like; and
A real Texas Budget Worksheet, with lots of tiny little rows of historical budget data.
But frankly, I’m still recovering from Thanksgiving and have fallen behind on a ton of stuff I need to do (raking leaves, vacuuming, cooking and book cataloging, to name but four), so I’m going to pass on the heavy analytical lifting today, thank you.
But don’t let me stop you…
Tags:Legislative Budget Board, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Posted in Budget, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 17th, 2014
Time for another Texas vs. California roundup:
The Texas economy continues to hum along:
During the second quarter, Texas employers added 148,200 net nonfarm jobs—an average of 49,400 per month. This amounts to an 18 percent share of all jobs created nationwide over this period in a state with only 8 percent of the country’s population and about 10 percent of total economic output. Over the last year, the addition of 382,200 net jobs in Texas was more new jobs than any other state. These employment gains increased the annual job growth rate to 3.4 percent, which is higher than those of the national average and other highly populated states.
The city of Los Angeles is at an impasse over police raises: the police union (naturally) wants raises, while the city says they can’t afford them. So what happens next? The issue goes before the Employee Relations Board, which just happens to be packed with union-approved appointees. In one-party Democratic cities and states, it’s always government together with unions against taxpayers. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“The ugly reality is that so long as the boards of CalPERS and CalSTRS are controlled by public employee union loyalists, pension reforms enacted by state lawmakers and signed by governors will never live up to their billing.”
Jerry Brown lies about pension spiking.
Why San Antonio’s public-private partnerships are better at dealing with drought than Los Angeles.
A FAQ on Costa Mesa’s pension situation. Including answers to such questions as “How could the $228 million in unfunded pension liabilities affect the city budget?”
Watsonville, California passes a sales tax hike solely to pay for additional union pension payments.
A judge rules that bankrupt San Bernardino can cut firefighter pension benefits in order to exit bankruptcy.
A union-sponsored bill tries to increase liabilities for companies that hire contractors.
California is evidently cooking up a whole new batch of unconstitutional gun laws.
A look at phony baloney jobs numbers for California’s high speed rail boondoggle.
Firefly Space Systems is relocating from California to Burnet County, Texas. “King said Firefly was attracted to Texas partly because of its business and regulatory climate.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out California offers a lousy climate for business. Or to put it another way: My days of underestimating California’s ability to improve its business climate are certainly coming to a middle…
Drone-maker Ashima is relocating to Reno, Nevada from California.
If you hadn’t heard, Tesla is building its battery factory in Nevada, not California.
An actual good law out of California: A law that prevents companies from suing customers for negative reviews.
North Carolina offered twice as much incentive money to Toyota but still lost out to Texas for relocating their HQ.
Your dedicated BART employee in action:
Tags:Ashima, Austin, BART, Budget, Burnet County, California, CalPERs, CalSTARS, Democrats, drought, Firefly Space Systems, Jerry Brown, Los Angeles, North Carolina, Regulation, San Antonio, San Bernardino, Tesla Motors, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, unions, video, waste, Watsonville
Posted in Austin, Budget, Democrats, Regulation, Texas, unions, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2014
There seems to be some confusion over Texas Public Policy Foundation numbers for Texas budget estimates. Take, for example, this post by Erica Grieder. (She seems to be sharing space on Burkablog with the titular liberal fossil; I’m going to assume it’s a Sith-apprentice sort of thing…) She accuses TPPF of walking back their estimate of a 26% increase back to a more modest 9% increase.
The problem is she’s comparing apples to oranges by comparing their numbers for the amount appropriated by the legislature, which increased by some 26% between biennium, as opposed to the total amount spent, which increased by a far more modest 9%.
Here’s a chart:
Here’s an in-depth report by Talmadge Heflin, Vance Ginn, and Bill Peacock that explains it in more detail, including such budget arcana as “backfilling” and “patient income funds.”
Here’s a table containing the actual numbers. Remember that there are multiple line items that don’t get included in the “official” legislative budget document.
Here’s an editorial by Heflin and Arlene Wohlgemuth explaining it further.
Now, I do have one criticism of TPPF: All those documents I linked separately above should be boiled down into a single document. Flannery O’Conner once said “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.” To which I add “For members of the press, you put key information in the front of the document is visual form so even the skimmers can comprehend it.” Asking some members of the press to look in four places for key information is simply asking too much of them. Especially if there’s drinking to be done, or interviewing another liberal interest group for pull quotes about the perfidious evil of Republicans.
Ideally there should be a spreadsheet or table near the front of that document with columns showing information just the 2012-2013 and 2014-2015 Bienniums and the % change between them with the following rows of information:
Amount appropriated by the legislature
Amount actually spent by Texas government for same period
Difference between the two
Backfilling
Patient Income
Rainy-Day Fund drawdown (if any)
Any other off-budget spending
State Revenue
Federal Revenue
That sort of thing would go a long way toward clarifying state budget expenditures for people who would otherwise protest that they told there would be no math.
Tags:Arlene Wohlgemuth, Bill Peacock, Budget, Erica Grieder, Paul Burka, Talmadge Heflin, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Vance Ginn
Posted in Budget, Media Watch, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, May 12th, 2014
The Texas House Transparency Committee voted to impeach University of Texas regent Wallace Hall.
Hall’s case will go to the full Texas House of Representatives. If a majority of the members of the House approve of the case’s merits, it will go to the Senate, where members will convene as a court to make a final decision. If the Senate concurs with the committee’s recommendation, Hall will be the first non-elected official to be impeached in Texas history.
His crime? “Hall’s unreasonable and burdensome requests from records and information from UT Austin violated, and continue to violate, the Texas Education Code, the Texas Penal Code, the Board of Regents Rules and Regulations, and the best interests of the [UT System].”
Translation: Hall found evidence of our sacred system of kickbacks and cronyism, and we’ll never forgive him for that.
The Wall Street Journal: Hall “asked uncomfortable questions about lawmakers getting special favors at the state-funded school and has become a political target…Hall’s real offense has been to expose a cozy and possibly corrupt relationship between politicians and the university.”
Michael Quinn Sullivan:
That targeting, of course, has been handled by Speaker Joe Straus’ falsely named “transparency” committee co-chaired by Dan Flynn and Carol Alvarado. The committee has operated like a witch hunt, denying UT Regent Wallace Hall the ability to defend himself while impeaching his character.
Recent revelations that the committee’s “report” (created by an outside counsel chummy with the corrupt university administration) contained out-right lies should be enough to cause lawmakers to impeach not Wallace Hall but the members of the committee!
As Tony McDonald wrote several days agoo, Dan Flynn is trying to weasel out of his responsibility for the cover-up only after his committee’s work product was shown to be a fraud.
Sullivan also fingers the politicians most responsible for the with hunt as David Dewhurst, Dan Branch and Joe Straus.
TPPF’s Tom Lindsay:
For exercising his right and duty to request information of one of the universities he is entrusted with overseeing, Wallace Hall now faces impeachment and possibly jail. The biggest losers in all this are Texas college students, their parents, and taxpayers. This vote is a powerful deterrent to future efforts to ensure transparency in government, and therefore directly contrary to the best interest of our public higher-education system.”
The cockroaches and worms hate it when you pick up the rock they’re hiding under…
Tags:Austin, Dan Branch, David Dewhurst, Joe Straus, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, University of Texas, Wallace Hall
Posted in Austin, Texas, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »