TexasPolicy.com Home
National School Choice Week: Let’s Start Talking Change for Texas
- Jan 27, 2012

Tax Foundation: Texas’ Tax Climate Ranks among the 10 Best in the Nation
- Jan 26, 2012

Texas Unemployment Rate Reaches 2.5 Yr. Low
- Jan 20, 2012









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.
Research Link

Institute for Justice

 View all Research Links


Highlighted Research


Costs and Consequences: America's Misguided Energy Policies
The Obama administration's energy policy seems designed to reduce availability and increase prices of fossil fuels out of a misguided environmental policy. Those policies will not favor alternative energy sources—they will only hurt working families.

Medical Loss Ratios
Medical Loss Ratios are a significant new regulation of insurance markets, and the Texas Department of Insurance contends that they will destabilize the state’s small group and individual insurance marketplaces.

Amicus Brief: Florida v. HHS et al
The Medicaid expansion provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are impermissibly coercive of state governments
In this brief of amici curiae to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Foundation (joined by 36 members of the Texas Legislature) argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should rule that the Medicaid expansion provisions of the ACA are impermissibly coercive of state governments, and strike them down.

Texas Business and ObamaCare
ObamaCare will be a significant burden to Texas business if it stands as it is today. The employer mandate creates a divide between small and large employers that is difficult to overcome and threatens the continued prosperity of the state of Texas.

Finding Real Efficiency in Texas Public Schools
The future of school finance in Texas is at a critical juncture. With new funding lawsuits moving through the courts and medicaid costs rising, the state must find a way to fund an effective and efficient system of public education.

Higher Education Facts at a Glance
Surveying higher education across the country, a number of trends have emerged that point to both a contemporary crisis and a coming, radical transformation. Very soon, our institutions of higher education are going to look very different.

Amicus Brief: NFIB v. Sebelius et al
The individual mandate is not severable from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
In this brief of amici curiae to the U.S. Supreme Court, we argue that the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not severable from Titles I and II if that mandate is found unconstitutional.

Ten Truths about Juvenile Justice Reform
These 10 truths about juvenile justice reform provide a guide for policymakers across the nation seeking best practices or to initiate successful reform. Each truth is directed at cost-efficient and effective reform, with examples from various states.

Visit the Publications section for all of our reports.

Latest Commentaries


Thinking Economically: Tort Reform Working in Texas
Despite the complaints of some plaintiff’s lawyers, the truth is clear: tort reform is working in Texas. All Texans and the Texas economy are benefiting.

A Tale of Two Energies
Two recent stories in the news offer a perfect illustration of why the best vehicle for harnessing abundant and reliable energy is the free market, rather than government planning.

China Is No Model
Former union leader Andy Stern looks at China and suggests the United States not “double down on an empirically failing free-market extremism.” Mario Loyola asks what "free-market" is Stern referring to and explains how the United States needs to free itself from the regulations stagnating the economy.

America's Job Creators vs. the Federal Government: The War Continues
Sovereign immunity and limitless litigation resources create an incentive for unscrupulous officials to persecute individual companies and whole sectors of industry at no risk or cost to themselves or to the government. That is a structural problem and it needs a structural solution, one which should be a matter of priority for the next Congress.

New Era for Texas Juvenile Justice
Today is more than the beginning of a new month. It is the beginning of a new era for juvenile justice in Texas.

Higher Education’s Cost and Value
Many products either become less expensive or deliver increased value or functionality over time. But the available evidence strongly indicates that American education – elementary, secondary, and especially higher – is an exception.

Republican Defections Stall Attempt to Thwart Obama EPA Agenda
On Thursday the Senate failed to pass a resolution that would have invalidated a major new environmental regulation governing interstate emissions after a veto threat from the White House. Passage of the resolution would have been a major setback for the Obama Administration, and at least a symbolic victory for those who argue EPA has run amuck.

Puncturing the Poverty Myth
As of late October, 2011, there were more than 1,000 Google News references to “Texas” and “poverty,” with the general theme being that there are a lot of poor people in Texas according to Federal poverty data. But as with many things having to do with the Federal government, there’s far more to the story than a simple reading of official poverty thresholds.

Thinking Economically: Texas Supreme Court Leading the Way in Property Rights Protections
Several recent Texas Supreme Court decisions and legislative actions are beginning to restore constitutionally-granted property rights to their proper place in Texas law.

More commentaries are found in the Newsroom.



Recent Press Releases


Foundation: Medicaid provisions of ObamaCare are unconstitutionally coercive of state governments
36 Texas legislators co-sign amicus curiae brief to United States Supreme Court
The Medicaid expansion provisions of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA) are a “massive frontal assault on State sovereignty” and unconstitutionally coercive of state governments, argues an amicus curiae brief submitted yesterday to the United States Supreme Court by the Texas Public Policy Foundation and 36 members of the Texas Legislature.

Statement on Keystone XL pipeline ruling
Statement by Kathleen Hartnett White, Director of the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment
“After 40 years of dependence on imports from countries hostile to U.S. interests, North America stands of the verge of becoming a net exporter of oil. The Administration’s denial of the Keystone pipeline stymies this achievement, and is a blow to the still-fragile economy.”



TexasPolicy.com
Texas Public Policy Foundation
900 Congress Ave., Ste. 400
Austin, TX 78701
Phone 512.472.2700
Fax 512.472.2728
info@TexasPolicy.com
Contribute to TPPF
 
Current edition:
'More effective re-entry for juvenile offenders'
Complete archive and podcast.
Marc Levin, a director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, based in Austin, applauds the small handful of states, like Oklahoma, that have used so-called medical-release laws to free ailing patients that have served much of their sentences.
- The Wall Street Journal
Talmadge Heflin, director of the Center for Fiscal Policy in the Texas Public Policy Foundation, supports Bill King's position and has made presentations to Texas legislators to change the state's traditional retirement system.
- The Bryan-College Station Eagle
Bill Peacock: “The fact that more corporations are winning before the Supreme Court shows that the Supreme Court is doing its job.”
- Texas Tribune
Arlene Wohlgemuth and Talmadge Heflin: Texas should keep government spending at the level necessary to match available revenue
- Austin American-Statesman
Joshua Treviño: “Conservatives (accurately) perceive the media mainstream to be a de facto organ of the liberal left, and by extension, the Democratic Party. And they understand that conservative governance is absolutely impossible unless that organ
- The New York Times
Josiah Neely: Cheap energy comes when market rules
- Austin American-Statesman
Tomas Lindsay: Nationwide, tuition has gone up four times faster than inflation and two times faster than health care spending in the past 25 years
- Austin American-Statesman
That was the backdrop Thursday for a conversation at the Texas Public Policy Foundation's 10th annual Policy Orientation for the Texas Legislature
- Austin American-Statesman
"When somebody says that the tea party scares Hispanics, tell them to come to San Antonio,"says George Rodriguez
- Reuters
TPPF along with Empower Texans hosts first Texas Republican U.S. Senate debate
- Houston Chronicle
George Rodriguez: When we used the word 'conservative,' people were more responsive
- Chicago Tribune
Gov. Walker gives speech at TPPF's Policy Orientation for the Texas Legislature
- Associated Press