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Budget woes strengthen calls to privatize post office
- Jul 22, 2010

New university transparency requirements pass the test
- Jul 14, 2010

Income tax wrong for Texas
- Jul 14, 2010









About the Foundation

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit, non-partisan research institute. The Foundation’s mission is to promote and defend liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise in Texas by educating and affecting policymakers and the Texas public policy debate with academically sound research and outreach.
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Highlighted Research


Energy Efficiency: Is Texas Getting Its Money's Worth?
Proposals to expand Texas’ energy efficiency program ignore the fact that there is simply no way, given the existing data and methodology, to properly determine the efficiency—or inefficiency—of the program.

Regulatory Takings: The Next Step in Protecting Property Rights in Texas
Texans no longer have the right to use their land without approval from the state. Regulatory restrictions on property use—even more than eminent domain abuse—are the main threat to private property rights today.

The Role of Risk Assessment in Enhancing Public Safety and Efficiency in Texas Corrections
In allocating limited correctional resources to maximize public safety returns for each taxpayer dollar spent, it is important to know which offenders pose the greatest risk and what strategies are most effective in reducing that risk for various types of offenders.

Driven to Spend: Funding the State's Transportation Needs without Raising Taxes

Texas faces some significant transportation challenges, but much of the crisis can be averted if the state rethinks and re-prioritizes transportation funding. This policy perspective examines some alternatives to generate additional transportation revenue without raising taxes and fees.

Examining Decades of Growth in K-12 Education
A Close Look at Spending and Achievement Trends

In the current fiscal climate and anticipated state budget shortfall, it is more critical than ever that Texas policymakers have accurate information about public school expenditures, understand where the money is actually spent, analyze major trends, and know the corresponding results in student achievement.

Visit the Publications section for all of our reports.

Latest Commentaries


Federal Interference a Bad Collective Bargain
Even Texas’ prisons may not be secure enough to withstand the latest intrusion from Washington D.C.

Texas Insurance Market Still Unprepared for Hurricane Season
A major hurricane blowing through Texas this year would likely leave consumers with few choices and high rates in an insurance market still recovering from Hurricane Ike. Although it is easy to put the blame on the insurers, they have been hit hard too. The past two years have seen the insurance providers suffer major losses.

Administration Using Oil Spill to Force Radical Energy Policy
The federal government has enlarged the destructive aftermath of the explosion at BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. With the oil flow’s increasing coastal intrusion and an inept response by the federal government to containment, government edict now adds a greater blow to the regional Gulf economy.

Consumers Are King…
The concept of the consumer-driven economy is everywhere. We are told a consumer-driven recovery is going to turn our economy around. Consumer-driven health care was supposed to drive down medical costs. Yet the real power of consumers is generally ignored by those proposing government solutions to problems.

A Case Study on Tort Reform
Six thousand claimants in Texas silica lawsuits await their day in court. For most, that day will never come. Though it seems like justice is not being served, this is actually good news for courts and these claimants.

Transit Agencies Should Open Their Books
Last year, Texas’ metropolitan transit authorities (MTAs) spent more than $4 billion of your transportation tax dollars. If you’re curious to know why, how, or on what, good luck.

The Tenth Amendment Protects Our Liberty
If the Tenth Amendment is respected – if the Constitution’s limits on the federal government are given force – then government power will be restrained. Governmental leaders will be accountable. And our liberty will be preserved.

Deepwater Horizon: A Tragedy Four Decades in the Making
BP is drilling for oil one mile beneath the surface of the Gulf and 50 miles from the coast of Louisiana not because the U.S. has run out of more easily recoverable oil, but because the federal government has erected off-limits signs across energy-rich areas in western states, Alaska, and nearer to shore. BP is operating at a depth, pressure, and temperature challenging the most advanced technology to stop this spill.

In Juvenile Justice, Less Is Often More
Texas has made remarkable progress in lowering juvenile crime while reducing costs. Policymakers can build on these gains for public safety and taxpayers by continuing to strengthen community-based programs that hold juveniles accountable through proven supervision and treatment strategies, ensuring that the most costly destination for Texas youths is truly the last resort.

More commentaries are found in the Newsroom.



Recent Press Releases


Foundation research: Claimed returns of Texas’ energy efficiency program “highly speculative”
Public Utility Commission proposal to be considered Friday would expand program despite questions of program’s effectiveness
Texas consumers may have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for an energy efficiency program that may not be effective, according to a report released today by the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Institute for Energy Research. The report, “Energy Efficiency: Is Texas Getting Its Money’s Worth?” is on the Foundation’s website, www.TexasPolicy.com.



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Current edition:
'Beyond the spill - part 2'
Complete archive and podcast.
"In the early 2000s, we had a governor and a legislature that said they were going to make transportation a major statewide priority," says Justin Keener
- The Weekly Standard
TPPF's Mario Loyola on offshore drilling moratorium: "Rule by decree"
- National Review Online
"Most Texans can easily buy electricity today below 2001 regulated prices," says Bill Peacock
- El Paso Times
Justin Keener: "When a state agency doesn’t want to do something, they inflate the cost."
- The Daily Texan
Obama Administration using Gulf oil spill to force unrealistic energy policy, writes Kathleen Hartnett White
- Amarillo Globe-News
Essential for public colleges and universities to post professors' salaries online, says Justin Keener
- Dallas Morning News
TPPF Policy Primer shows Texas windstorm insurance rates remain actuarially unsound
- Insurance Journal
Consumers aren't always king, writes Bill Peacock
- Odessa American
TPPF study: More than 40,000 children across Texas are on charter school waiting lists
- Dallas Morning News
Talmadge Heflin: Texas transit agencies should open their books
- Fort Worth Star-Telegram
TPPF study shows "bilingual education in Texas, which is required by law, has been more expensive and less effective than immersion programs"
- Miller-McCune
Joseph M. Nixon: A case study on tort reform
- Odessa American