Texans are tired of sitting in traffic, and elected officials have a choice. They can continue to pass the buck by offering only new taxes and greater spending for pet projects that won’t relieve congestion. Or they can do the hard work we expect of them by reprioritizing existing taxes and demanding greater accountability and transparency in transportation spending.

Federal proposals to cap carbon emissions are tantamount to dumping sand in the gas tank of America’s economic engine.

Now is the time for our best laboratories of innovation, the 50 states, to take the lead. There is much that can be done in Texas without federal action to lower costs and improve access.

Coming off a recession year, you can expect that Texans will be in no mood to see the next Legislature simply raise taxes and move on. Instead, expectations are high that lawmakers will balance the budget by tightening their belt—just as many households have already done.

The Texas Legislature and our last two governors have acted in good faith to reduce property taxes, but the combination of rising property valuations and local government excesses have caused property taxes to continue their surge. So what can our state do to relieve this burden?

College coursework focusing on Western civilization and American traditions would teach students critical thinking and reasoning skills and provide a solid grounding in civic responsibility and ethical character – improving society in the wake of moral muddiness.

Proponents of “net neutrality” offer no explanation of how our government’s regulation of the Internet would differ from that of the Chinese government. In fact, the attack on current providers for prioritizing data is odd, considering both sides of the debate generally agree that prioritization is necessary—the FCC has included a “reasonable network management” exception to each of the proposed rules.

It now appears that some form of a health care bill will be passed unilaterally by congressional Democrats. But the fat lady has yet to warm up. Key provisions in the bill could be unconstitutional and need to be challenged. It could be a close constitutional call, as there are arguments on both sides.

Public safety is job one, but recent improvements in Texas parole outcomes demonstrate that we can be safer while saving money.

Snake-oil stimulus dollars were supposed to be a cure-all for states faced with severe budget shortfalls. As it turns out, they may end up making a bad situation even worse.

While almost 130,000 students benefit from attending a public charter school in Texas, 40,000 more are prevented from attending due to space constraints. Clearly, demand is increasing for public charter schools, but supply is not.

The most important impact health care reform will have is on your personal health, and this particular issue has not received enough attention. It seems some in America take their current ability to make their own health care choices for granted.

Most objections to the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the federal health care legislation that narrowly passed the U.S. House on November 7th, relate to money. Fair enough. But one section relates to something far more precious than money—your life.

Congress has been so doggedly determined to pass a bill that it has: passed a "bill” out of Senate committee that was only conceptual and not actually written; ignored legitimate warnings regarding the bill’s multiple violations of the Constitution; forged ahead despite surging public disapproval as we discover the actual provisions and costs; and attempted to silence the opposition by engaging in open and vicious attacks against critics in business, media, and the public.

Consumers, taxpayers, and businesses all win when voluntary, market-based relationships work out complex problems like windstorm and homeowners’ insurance. However, when government steps in to fix the problem, it becomes a zero-sum game which pits one side against the other.

Does medical liability reform affect the cost and quality of health care? Supporters of President Obama’s health agenda allege, not much. CHRISTUS Health, however, might beg to differ.

But if not the Obama plan, or one of the similar proposals pending in the U.S. Congress, then what? Our research establishes that a patient-centered approach to health care reform would build on America’s world-leading quality and high patient satisfaction in a way that extends those benefits to even more people and empowers all patients to make their own medical decisions.

When we elect people to serve in Congress, we send them there as our representatives. In exchange for giving them our authority to make national decisions, they have the responsibility to provide us with sufficient information so that we can provide feedback on their decisions and gauge how well they represent us. Unfortunately, our current national leadership has scotched that understanding.

As American businesses navigate a challenging economy, it is imperative that any immigration reform legislation balance the private sector’s appropriate role in enforcing immigration laws with the need for greater fairness, predictability, and efficiency.

Renewable energy may provide a welcome contribution to the Texas and national energy portfolio. Consumers, however, must demand the hard facts of the matter. Wind power must shed the government supplement and meet the tests of the free market place to find its appropriate niche.

Current federal proposals would preempt common sense lawsuit reforms that Texans fought so hard to achieve and from which they have benefited so greatly.

Texas lawmakers need to examine whether the state’s bilingual education programs can be more effective at teaching students English. The new research report I produced for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Does Bilingual Education Work? The Case of Texas, examines this question and determines that current bilingual education programs are ineffective and should be replaced with sheltered English immersion.

Developing countries such as India understand energy reality far better than do many members of the U.S. Congress. An affordable, reliable, and plentiful supply of energy is critical to economic growth. And there are no near-term, comparable alternatives to the fossil fuels on which the overwhelming majority of world-wide energy relies.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed ACES (American Clean Energy and Security Act) in late June by a mere seven votes. How many of the 435 House members even scanned the contents of this huge bill? The August reading assignment for the U.S. Senate should be to read ACES and note that it includes the kitchen sink.

While in the short term some trial lawyers have certainly gained by their affiliation with the liberal agenda, it makes no economic sense in the long run that those who are busy pursuing negligence claims on a contingency fee basis would support those who are taking away the right to bring those claims through nationalized health care and the growth of big government.

Current proposals for health care reform are frightening—not so much because of stratospheric costs but because of the reduction of the quality of health care that these proposals will mandate.

After years of following the wrong path, Texas’ juvenile justice system is on the right track to become a national model rather than a source of embarrassment.

State lawmakers had an opportunity to fix this problem by expanding quality charter schools and raising the cap on the number of schools that can open. Unfortunately for Texas schoolchildren, politics prevailed over good public policy and the bill died in the closing moments of the legislative session on a technicality.

The proposals coming from Washington, D.C., put federal bureaucrats in charge of health care decisions, the fast track to government-run health care. A better approach, rooted in principles of individual freedom and choice, would provide patients with greater access to treatments and medical providers, and less interference from insurance companies, bureaucrats, and politicians.

Whether it is more government programs, renewable energy mandates, or trial lawyers looking out for the little people, all of these measures wind up costing consumers and taxpayers more money.

As Washington tries to lead the nation down the pied piper path toward government-run health care, it is incumbent on the people to examine the promises versus the reality.

A worrisome article that appeared recently in USA Today points out that federal aid has now surpassed the sales, property, and income tax as the biggest revenue generator for the states.

Next time gasoline prices jump, or electricity rates are going through the roof, or we find ourselves paying more for less car, we could do what everyone else does and blame the market. But whatever we do, we shouldn’t ask questions. After all, what we don’t know won’t hurt us.

Some people equate federal dollars to the states to supplement state unemployment insurance (UI) programs with a free meal that should be enjoyed for as long, and often, as possible. The reaction to governors who question the efficacy of the recent stimulus package – most notably Texas Gov. Rick Perry – is simply the latest example of this mistaken belief.

Instead of remaining in the corner created by the EPA Endangerment Finding and reluctantly supporting the 600-page juggernaut of a climate bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congress should pass a one-liner: “Under the legal terms of the CAA, CO2 is not a pollutant endangering human health and is not subject to regulation under this law.”

As it stands today, there is a good chance that after the legislature adjourns, Texas property owners will still be subject to the same takings that outraged the nation in the Kelo case.

It’s time for the Texas Legislature to stop writing “blank checks” to our state colleges and universities for tenured professors to spend as they please. Instead, all state higher education funding should be directed to scholarships, so universities once again will have to answer to the people who pay the bills. That’s the only way students, parents, and taxpayers will ever regain control of our universities.

Carbon cap-and-trade proposals have carried staggering price tags, but check out the carbon whopper in President Barack Obama’s budget plan.

I worked in Washington, D. C., with Congress virtually every day for nine years. I know how the place works, and I have come to the findings that most government activity can be boiled down to two words: coerced charity.

Mentally ill offenders will always pose a substantial challenge in the criminal justice system. But through initiatives like these, we can achieve our goals of enhanced public safety and reduced costs to taxpayers.

A simple law change to expand the scope of practice for nurse practitioners would help fix Texas’ broken health care delivery system by providing more primary care options and allowing these clinics to thrive in both urban and rural areas.

Wherever you wind up, Rush, we'd welcome your entrepreneurial spirit to Texas. Let’s hope that you join with another famous Texas transplant and freedom fighter, Davy Crockett, in saying, "You can all go to hell; I am going to Texas."

Policymakers who feel their constituents’ urgent need to “do something” don’t have to just sit back and watch the marketplace work. By repealing current subsidies, taxes, and mandates and rejecting new ones, they can save consumers as much as $4.3 billion a year.

There are better options to address the projected trust fund deficit that control the level of taxes paid by Texas employers and preserve Texas’ ability to manage our unemployment system as we see fit.

Performance pay can make the teaching profession more attractive by recognizing and rewarding talent, improving teacher morale, and preventing excellent teachers from leaving the profession or moving into administration for financial reasons. Texas has the largest pay-for-performance program in the nation, with funds available for the purposes championed by President Obama.

Texans are beginning to feel the pain of the national recession and a cooling state economy. The Federal Reserve recently updated its forecast and said Texas could lose nearly 300,000 jobs this year with an unemployment rate upwards of 8 percent. Perfect time for a massive tax increase? Sadly, several of our state legislators seem to think so.

The only people who could possibly fear a bonus system based on student satisfaction are those who fear being held accountable by the customers who pay their salaries. That’s exactly why we need such a system in the first place.

Just how much money should Texas businesses pay under the newly revised franchise tax? That is the question many legislators are trying to answer and one that will soon be up for serious debate.

Legislation creating this colossal carbon tax would be the biggest tax increase ever, surpassing in real dollars the 1942 law providing funds for World War II. If included in budget reconciliation bills – which cannot be filibustered – it would only require 50 votes in the U.S. Senate.

There are significant opportunities to reduce corrections costs to the state without compromising public safety.

To date, Texas has avoided the economic woes of California by avoiding high taxes, excessive regulation, and overspending. Texans would be wise to question the California example of state-only tailpipe standards and state carbon mandates.

Bringing jobs back to Texas is going to require smart, forward-thinking public policy that emphasizes low taxes, fiscal discipline, and limited government. How closely lawmakers choose to follow that model will dictate much of the coming economic recovery and how quickly all of us see an improved job market.

It takes only one moment of weakness by the legislature to raze the solid foundation of fiscal responsibility that allows us to stand strong while others collapse. Above all things the legislature considers, first, do no harm.

Lawmakers outraged at the staggering number of dropouts are looking for solutions. They should consider charter schools as a proven way to address the dropout crisis.

News coming out of the Massachusetts experiment with “socialized medicine lite” – the combination of insurance coverage that is free, subsidized, or mandatory to make it near universal – continues to be distressing for reasons other than the predictable, ever-escalating cost to the state.

Competition can make any system better, and the juvenile justice system is no exception. Whatever the agency running state lockups is called, what is most important is that it competes with local and private providers.

Citizens expect that the transportation user fees they pay—whether tolls, vehicle registration fees, or gas taxes—will be used to alleviate traffic congestion; that is simply not the case.

This unprecedented reach of EPA authority disproportionately hurts Texas because we are the nation’s leading energy producer, the most productive economy, and the second largest state population.

If the U.S. Congress succeeds in its push next year to end secret ballots in union elections – paying back Big Labor for its truckloads of financial contributions and personnel during the last presidential campaign – countless workers’ lives will become nightmares, pitting friends against friends. I know the hard way.

Bailout requests by numerous states have recently been a top news item, as everyone lines up behind the financial sector with their hands out. Rather than debate the wisdom of these bailouts, it is time to look at the states’ fiscal policies and see whom they hurt.

Legislators have the opportunity to give Texans the option of affordable, convenient health care by eliminating onerous state regulations. The question is, will they seize the opportunity.

As we move forward, Texas’ continued commitment to limited government, fiscal conservatism, and low taxation, both in times of excess and shortage, will only strengthen what is, arguably, the nation’s strongest economy.

In less than a year, many unanticipated developments have complicated the political dynamics of “ending the era of fossil fuels” through the enactment of carbon reduction mandates. Consider six such developments that may give pause to policymakers otherwise inclined to support these measures.

Texas’ renewable energy mandates – combined with the federal government’s generous tax credit for wind-energy production – have propelled the Lone Star State to the forefront of the wind-energy movement. Billions of dollars in capital investment have muted most criticism of wind energy’s rapid expansion, but only because Texas consumers have yet to realize the long-term price we will pay for everyone else’s short-term gain.

If a graffiti “artist” spray-paints your house or business, you could be the one who draws the attention of law enforcement.

We didn’t know the half of it, perhaps, when Arthur Laffer cut loose a few weeks back concerning Texas’ superiority over California as a place to do business.

Higher test scores, higher state accountability ratings, improved teacher morale, and lower teacher turnover prove that students are benefiting from teacher incentive pay in Texas.

Throughout our nation’s history, the size and scope of government has grown by leaps and bounds during times of crisis, financial or otherwise. The political class’ natural instinct is for government to rush to the rescue, particularly when an election is near.

U.S. energy policy has been supplanted by counterproductive environmental policy. Built on mandates, subsidies, trade restrictions, and bans on production, federal energy policy operates like slipshod energy central planning. Let ethanol compete in the market without government preference.

There is simply no one-size-fits-all solution for insurance prices, and attempts to impose one wreak more havoc on consumers than the supposed problem.

James Russell Wiggins, the late editor of the Washington Post, once said that “the more that government becomes secret, the less it remains free.” Thankfully, Texas is leading the way toward opening the workings of its governments, particularly when it comes to how they spend your tax dollars.

Clearly, the objective should be to provide access to health care for the uninsured in the most efficient way possible. The answer will not be easy. But Texas should look for new ideas and innovations and also promote what is already working here.

If public charter schools are really so bad, then why are tens of thousands of Texas students standing in line for admission?

The emotional linkage of alchemy and the more-money-for-public-schools movement is an unhappy one – a reminder that baseless and unwarranted faiths can be as stubborn as, well, education lobbyists, making their umpteenth pitch for another financial transfusion.

The truth is that creating the right incentives for faculty and students can help UT-Austin and other Texas higher education institutions to truly become more productive, not just more expensive.

Among other salutary things, Milton Friedman was a gentleman, not a scoffer. He trafficked in ideas, not the vituperation we see everywhere nowadays, from the internet to the campaign trail.

To this point, we have been successful in avoiding the pitfalls of nationalized health care. But putting more of our private health care consumers into government programs and granting the government more financial control over the health care market gets us closer to the Canadian model that even its architect says is in “crisis.”

When misguided environmental theory dictates energy policy, the result is high prices, unreliability, and inadequate supply. It is time to reverse course.

While Texas taxpayers are busy earning a living, taking care of their families, and paying their taxes, they deserve to know that their tax dollars are being used judiciously by the state and local governments that are spending them.

Giving consumers more choices would improve access to health care by providing individuals with more choices that would be affordable, regardless of insurance status.

A state (or a city or a county or a country) that wants to be loved, economically speaking, must make itself lovable, by implementation of business policies that business loves.

For most of the last 20 years, Texas regulators have battled homeowners’ insurers, attempting to block “excessive” rates. The losers in these battles have been consumers, who have been harmed by the instability injected into the market by over-regulation.

Albert Einstein once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This sounds oddly familiar in the world of education policy. Throw more money at it and expect different results.

Lieberman/Warner’s unrealistic, exorbitant approach is an ineffective way to address risk of adverse climate change. Modest carbon taxes have fewer economic pitfalls. Accelerated development of carbon capture technology and of new energy sources with intensity comparable to fossil fuels is the most practical long-term approach.

In their appointed capacity as leaders of these university systems, Regents can establish a new vision for Texas higher education that reorients these already strong institutions to be more competitive, more efficient, and more responsive to the students they serve.

A new British blueprint on prison reform could send ripples across the pond, leading Texas and other states to rethink the way they fund corrections. Following the lead of the U.K's Conservative Party, Texas could truly make less crime pay, given the freedom to innovate using the most successful programs.

The push to end Houston's status as the largest U.S. city without zoning is once again underway. If Texans were paying attention to how good the Houston economy has fared over the years without zoning, we'd instead be seeing a lot of other cities trying to emulate Houston's decentralized approach to economic development.

American dependence on unreliable foreign sources for more than 60 percent of domestic oil demand, indeed, drives the price at the pump. With new policy, the United States certainly could increase domestic production of oil.

Cutting the telephone and cable franchise fees in half would reduce most consumers’ bills by another 3 percent or so, lowering Texas telecom taxes by more than $500 million a year.

A return to competition and personal responsibility will cure America’s health care crisis...if we let it.

Texas is the appropriate state to call for a change in federal ethanol mandates. The indirect costs of ethanol hurt Texans in the grocery store as well as key agricultural sectors of the state economy.

It goes with the robins and the roses – the bad news of what property ownership costs in a society that leans heavily, for the satisfaction of public wants, upon the owners of homes and businesses.

Who knew a “free” source of energy could be so expensive?

All too often, it takes cutbacks to force government to re-prioritize its core functions and correct its indulgences.

Characterized by the EPA as perhaps its most expensive rule ever, this 75-ppb standard begs for solid scientific justification.

Performance and results are commonly rewarded in the private sector via bonuses and raises tied to positive performance reviews. The same should hold true for education.

The only things that have skyrocketed since full deregulation took effect in January 2007 are consumer choice and competition.

As policymakers review the Texas homeowners’ insurance market, they should keep in mind that Texas insurers and Texas consumers are the proper parties to determine homeowners’ and windstorm insurance rates. Markets, not governments, will ultimately find the proper balance.

The "right" price, every time, is that on which a willing buyer and willing seller agree in an encounter perfected by the tender of a credit card or a handful of pennies. A buyer who doesn't want your Edsel won't be induced at any price to acquire it. A buyer, by contrast, who truly, deeply wants a certain doll will calculate need, resources, and the present or future availability of this wonderful contrivance. He'll buy if he wants; he won't if he doesn't.

Ultimately, Texas farmers and food vendors don’t profit from making their customers sick. In such very rare instances, they can face incredibly costly lawsuits. Instead of producing another crop of rules that stifle entrepreneurship and criminalize ordinary business activities, government should leave the field and let the market for food and flowers bloom.

Of course, a single mandate does not have a crushing impact on the cost of health insurance. However, researchers have found that the combined effect of the mandates drive up the cost of a basic health plan by nearly 50%.

Last month, dozens of Austin parents camped out on the cold concrete of the Austin Independent School District headquarters parking lot with one goal in mind: securing a better learning environment for their children.

Rather than being handcuffed to the past – to the detriment of the taxpayers – legislators charted a new course that emphasizes alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders while continuing to lock up violent and sexual offenders.

As the presidential candidates discuss their plans for the American health care system, they point their fingers of blame in several directions – toward insurers, toward employers, and even toward over-eaters and non-exercisers. But none of the leading candidates are pointing toward the main culprit – the government.

Combine inflated ridership projections and enormous cost overruns that have plagued rail projects like this across the country with the reality that people have not given up their cars en masse despite the construction of fancy rail lines, and the only promise taxpayers can count on is that this will require their continued and growing financial obligation for decades to come.

The purpose of a state accountability system is to evaluate school performance and provide that information to parents and the public so they can determine the quality of a particular school or district. The current accountability system fails in this regard and needs to be redesigned.

Energy production from fossil fuels, e.g., coal, oil and natural gas, is often blamed for many of the world’s environmental ills. But no one today was around to experience firsthand how dirty the world was before the invention of the internal combustion engine, when horses—and horse manure—were prevalent on city streets.

The label of a “Do Nothing” Congress might well serve as a badge of honor, given the misguided national energy bills now being debated.

The “Football Follies” series of films contains classic highlights of players bumbling, stumbling, and fumbling their way across the gridiron. While highly entertaining – such as ex-Minnesota Viking Jim Marshall’s fumble recovery and ensuing 65 yard run to the wrong end zone – they also provide excellent examples of how not to play football. Recent government forays into consumer regulation provide similar examples of how not to intervene in markets.

Among the report’s dozens of observations and recommendations, perhaps the most astonishing finding is that none of the best practices require any changes in law by the legislature or Texas Education Agency. These innovative public schools are working within existing budgetary and legal guidelines to implement strategies that provide greater support to teachers and result in greater achievement for students.

Though there is much room for improvement, Texas is showing the rest of the country what happens when doctors are freer to practice their trade and less encumbered by frivolous lawsuits and runaway juries.

Remember the big school property tax cut you were supposed to get? Your local school district might be about to take it away.

Today, there are too few people willing to follow the facts when it comes to the Texas electric market. Though the facts clearly point to the success of deregulation, many still refuse to believe that consumer choice is a good idea.

The true promise of competition in corrections lies not in saving money while providing the same product as state-run prisons, but in harnessing the innovation of the private sector to develop programming that will reduce recidivism, since 99 percent of inmates are ultimately released.

Last year, 35 percent of all freshmen at Texas public higher education institutions had to enroll in at least one remedial education course because they were unprepared for college-level work in math, reading, or writing. This equates to more than 162,000 incoming freshmen expending time and energy on remedial coursework that does not count toward their degree.

If the popular press is your source for climate science, you are probably terrified the end is near—moving as far inland as possible and staying inside to avoid heat stroke. You might be altering your lifestyle to combat the effects of carbon dioxide emissions. But if you look at the facts about “global warming,” the picture is not as bleak as it may seem.

Our criminal justice system is bursting at the seams. There are simply not enough law enforcement and correctional resources to keep up with the glut of lawbreakers. Federal and local authorities are recognizing that it is more efficient to use carrots in addition to sticks.

While the public school lobby has traditionally opposed any introduction of competition into the education system, the state’s largest school district seems to have embraced it.

“Many people want the government to protect the consumer,” said the late economist Milton Friedman. “A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

Give George W. Bush credit. He's drawn a lot of criticism for not doing more to control federal spending over the past six years. But he is now deep into a spending fight against a sacred liberal program. And he isn't backing away.

If student learning is the main objective, then it defies common sense to bar a genius like Albert Einstein or business guru Jack Welch from the classroom because he doesn’t have a teaching certificate.

What’s in a name? Apparently, to a government school monopoly, it’s everything.

Even the wealthiest man in Texas may be no match for the gargantuan growth in criminal law.

The recent decisions by Farmers Insurance and Allstate Insurance to withdraw their proposed homeowners’ insurance rate increases in the face of opposition from the Texas Department of Insurance are an unfortunate turn of events for Texas consumers and taxpayers. The regulation of homeowners’ insurance in Texas has for years produced poor results for consumers.

Twenty years of incremental expansions took the percentage of children on government health care from 17 percent to 47 percent. Today’s proposals would push that past 70 percent.

"The words of a prophet are written on the subway wall,” Simon and Garfunkel once sang. Perhaps "I love Alex" could be a hit record, but in Katy these words written on a gymnasium wall instantly made a 12-year-old a potential felon.

“Whenever the people are well-informed,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789, “they can be trusted with their own government.” No doubt the Founding Fathers’ faith in self-government would be challenged today with the reality of how little Americans know about their heritage.

People suffering from depression must often hit rock bottom before they get better. The same can be said for criminal justice in Texas. Few could have imagined the abuses that surfaced earlier this year at the Texas Youth Commission, but they led to landmark reform legislation. Indeed, reforms made this session indicate that lawmakers are finally rethinking all aspects of the criminal justice system.

Despite previous lessons learned and the overwhelming evidence that price controls simply do not work, Congress is again looking to shelve the requisite leadership needed to implement sound energy policies based on supply and demand. Rather than helping to increase domestic refining capacity and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, they instead have chosen a purely political strategy void of economic fundamentals.

To be employable in today’s economy, students need a solid foundation of reading, writing and arithmetic; strong technical skills; and problem-solving and creative thinking skills. To meet these new demands, vocational education must continue to change.

What is more important for our children than a rigorous education? Strong math, reading, and writing skills enable all students from a range of backgrounds to achieve their dreams.

Across Texas, hundreds of charter schools educate thousands of the state’s neediest students. But a bill scheduled for vote today by the Texas House would shut down many of these schools.

While many Texas families rightfully fear violent criminals and child predators, no police alert has yet gone out for an interior decorator on the loose. Yet, as the Legislature continues to produce solutions in search of problems, a pending bill would criminalize thousands of interior decorators.

A common saying around the Texas Legislature is that bad facts make bad law, meaning that lawmakers too often respond to an isolated bad situation or actor with an overreaching law that applies to everyone in every situation. Imagine, then, how bad the law can be when lawmakers respond not to facts, but to myths and misrepresentations.

The issue boils down to basic honesty and fairness. The TIF was created for a specific purpose and for a specific period of time. The original goal has been met and the policy rationale has disappeared. Given the disproportionate taxes they already pay on telecommunications, Texas consumers deserve relief. And yet the tax lives on.

A recent e-mail from the Children’s Defense Fund, a leading lobby in the push to expand government-subsidized health care, asks its state coordinators to send “stories of children who have died because they did not have access to adequate health coverage” and adds that “a picture of the child to include with the story” would be especially valuable.

Public education is one of the few industries that deny management the ability to evaluate employees annually so that the top performers are rewarded and the ineffective ones dismissed.

Despite $14 billion in new revenue coming into the state’s coffers, any notion that the legislature will be measured by how it treats hardworking Texas taxpayers has been forgotten. Some lawmakers who wrapped themselves in the flag of limited government, limited spending, and low taxes during their election campaigns have removed it from display now that they are in Austin.

To the extent we put more money into our institutions of higher education, it should be targeted to producing the type of graduates Texas needs to preserve its competitive advantage.

Unfortunately, the Texas House stripped the promising incentive pay program last month, converting it to a meager across-the-board “pay raise” of $850 for every teacher, counselor, nurse, and librarian. Make no mistake: this is not a pay raise. No new money has been added, and average teacher pay will remain the same. The legislature merely reshuffled the existing money from the highest-performing teachers to give the most ineffective ones another $850. The best teachers could lose up to $10,000 each.

No Texan should be fooled into thinking that we need more prisons to keep up with population growth or lock up sex offenders. The real question is whether we need more prisons to lock up more nonviolent drug offenders.

From tort, tax, and budget reforms to deregulation of the telecom and electric markets, Texans have decided that markets are often a better solution to our problems than government intervention. The results have proven this to be the right approach.

Taxpayers have a right to know how and where their money is being spent. What better way to hold schools accountable than by letting the sun shine on their checkbooks and allowing taxpayers to examine their spending?

If the nation isn’t prepared for the aging baby boomers, it isn’t because the boomers sneaked up on us. For some time, we have seen the warnings and been conscious of the coming “age wave.” The problem is that few have taken heed and been moved to act thus far.

Texans have been horrified to learn that some of the 5,000 juveniles allegedly being rehabilitated at Texas Youth Commission facilities have instead been molested and mistreated.

Now that TXU will no longer exist as we knew it, what is left? Just the facts, which show a very different picture than what most people are trying to paint.

Texans need to understand that as long as current state spending increases at the low rate already proposed, a vote to exceed the constitutional spending cap is a vote for promised tax relief…and nothing more.

Private sector experts are too often kept out of the classroom because of antiquated state certification requirements. If our primary concern really is our children, the Texas Legislature will act this session to start removing those barriers.

When your cable TV bill gets too high, you can switch to satellite providers. Home telephone too expensive? Go with voice-over-Internet protocol. Don’t like your cellular service? The kiosk at the mall will give you a free camera phone if you’ll switch. We routinely comparison shop for cars, for groceries, for clothes, for insurance... Why not shop for electricity?

We must not view crime as simply an offense against the state, and instead ensure that crime victims have a place in the courtroom and a seat at the table. The marginalization of victims is not only unjust, but deprives us of the public safety benefits that are only realized when an offender’s conscience is awakened upon realizing the harm caused to another human being.

When U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm introduced the “Dickey Flatt test” to his colleagues and to the country, he brought a new conscience to budget writing and created an iconic image for fiscal discipline.

Opponents of school choice fight parent choice and competition among schools by arguing that school choice takes money from schools. Unfortunately, they turn a blind eye to what is both a serious problem in education and the largest drain on school funding: dropouts.

The chief argument for new spending is always the desire to “meet people’s needs.” As good as this might sound, it is a strategy often doomed to failure.

El Paso is set to be the new poster child in the battle over private property rights in Texas.

End-of-course exams can move Texas students in the right direction.

Texas will need more electric power in the coming years - lots more - and coal will be critical to meeting those power needs.

Competition and retail choice are working in the Texas electric market.

The wartime economy of the last century should no longer be allowed to dictate the health care choices available to this century’s health care consumers.

Milwaukee's school choice program benefits children, strengthens communities, and unites unlikely allies.

We are entering a period of great peril for Texans’ pocketbooks.

Less costly alternatives should be used for effective punishment.

Increased electric regulation will threaten innovation, investment and the reliability of supplies, harming our ability to bring new employers to Texas and maintain the strong job creation rate.

Research has shown preschool can actually hinder social development, especially for children from the poorest families.

Poorly defining poverty is the first step in making us all much poorer.

Many of the state's parks should be privatized.

Too many nonviolent offenders are entering state lockups while unreformed violent offenders go out the back door.

Consumers would adore a setting in which power companies beg for their business, encouraging them to turn thermostats to the coldest point.

Illegal immigration is certainly a public policy priority in its own right, but it cannot be confused as the silver bullet solution to rescue government budgets from insolvency.

With the start of a new school year, many Texas kids are missing the bus on math and science.

If Texans are serious about addressing the bite government takes out of our wallets, then we must be serious about restraining the size of the mouth doing the biting.

Without a meaningful limit, government tends to grow out of control.

The traditional and legitimate use of criminal law is being trivialized.

It shouldn't surprise people to know we are facing the Catch-22 of choosing between clean air and consumers’ pocketbooks because of a history of poorly thought out environmental regulations.

Rather than relying on in-person interviews in a field office with limited hours of operation, the new system allows applicants extended hours by phone, and 24-hour access online.

While the concept of paying for every child's preschool appears laudable, in reality it is an expensive notion that results in a bureaucracy and a massive financial hit to taxpayers.

Local governments taking private property from one person and giving to another cannot happen here, right? Wrong.

Government’s demand is unlimited. For any given program, no matter how generous, someone can be found who would benefit if the program was even more generously funded.

The newest Texas pipeline funnels children from schools to prison, by way of alternative education programs and juvenile detention centers.

Who is surprised that in its haste to show its big heart, the government lost millions of dollars in debit cards and fraudulent payments?

It is simply wrong for local governments to use eminent domain to take private property from one person and give it to another.

Competition creates better working conditions, more competitive salaries, and greater public esteem for teachers.

Studying the state’s budget and trying to get answers to basic questions is a little like a physicist studying the big bang. But the Texas state budget is not the cosmos.

Building new jails and hiring more personnel is a costly stopgap measure.

In a world where voice, video and data communications are merging into almost indistinguishable packets of electrons, taxes still discriminate based on the type of telecommunications service provided.

Texas has become the latest state to jump on the anti-Wal-Mart bandwagon.

Lawmakers and educators fail to recognize there is plenty of money in our education system to pay teachers more – it’s just a matter of prioritization.

It is contradictory to praise increased costs passed on to the poor on one hand, while criticizing increased costs passed on to the poor on the other.

The Texas Legislature has much to do to protect private property owners from the overreach of local governments.

Declining assistance rolls reveal a startling difference in worldview; one expects individuals to rely on government, while the other emphasizes personal responsibility and private charity.

Giving victims a seat at the table in plea bargaining is a matter of justice.

Texans are working longer just to pay the cost of government.

Shared services would enable districts to save thousands of dollars each year on non-academic expenses.

New regulations will soon require animal owners to tag their animals, creating new costs with few benefits.

In determining the best tax policy for Texas, class warfare should not be part of the debate.

Greater price transparency within the health care industry will go a long way in helping to right the market, bring greater competition to the marketplace, and encourage more sensible pricing.

Consumer choice, not government regulation, has provided the best value for policyholders. More of this, along with some fair weather, is what will lead to lower homeowners' insurance costs in Texas.

Current property tax reduction debate is only a temporary solution.

With the recently announced $4.3 billion revenue surplus, lawmakers have the solution to the state's school finance problem staring them in the face. Let's hope they put it to good use to buy-down property taxes, and not engage in more spending.

Criminal law is a blunt instrument and should be reserved for conduct that is blameworthy and threatens public safety, not wielded to enlarge the power of government at the expense of ordinary Americans.

To combat rising energy prices, we need to remove burdensome regulations, not add new taxes.

The current focus on renewable energy is doing little to meet America's energy challenges.

A new drug-labeling rule from the FDA aims to give medical providers and patients clearer information about prescription drugs.

According to some, bigger government extracting more resources from the economy will build a healthier and more prosperous middle class.

It's good news that telecommunications reform is moving forward in Texas. But there is a lot of work to be done before we enjoy the fruits of a truly deregulated marketplace.

Approximately half of all students in Texas’ state universities and colleges need remedial classes. But particularly in math and the sciences, Texas’ school children are lagging behind.

We have heard it before and no doubt we’ll hear it again: business must pony up more cash. It turns out Texas businesses pay just over 60 percent of all state and local taxes, the fourth highest business tax burden in the nation.

The impact of one teacher on student learning has gone unrecognized in public schools for far too long, but that is changing.

The barrage of news articles and opinion columns calling on the state to scrap plans for call centers to handle applications for government aid have thoroughly represented the critics' position, but uniformly neglected the whole story.

Since the early '90s, an unprecedented effort to restore justice to its rightful place in Texas courtrooms has taken place. With a little more effort, we can finish the job.

For consumers, the results of air competition have been stunning; prices are lower enabling more people to fly more often to more places, more safely.

Charter schools don’t just impact the learning of charter school students; they have a positive effect on public school students as well.

The health care system today is generally devoid of incentives to do the right thing.

Compromise is common, but consensus is rare in the world of politics.

Step off a ladder twenty feet up, you are going to get hurt. Just as physical laws can only be ignored at one’s peril, economic laws are equally unforgiving.

Being a criminal involves additional burdens not placed on the average citizen, which by design are neither ordinary nor convenient.

The appearance of impropriety is almost as bad as the reality.

For the last eight months Texas has been the major battle ground in the telecom wars with the traditional phone companies and the cable industry going head-to-head over deregulation and access to millions of Texas consumers.

At least the legislature left town without doing any new harm; small condolence for a state eager to receive tax relief and education reform.

How to radically reduce property taxes and transform public education cannot be answered with tax hikes and massive new spending for district administrators and teachers’ unions.

As Medicaid celebrates its 40th birthday, it has become a government leviathan, devouring state budgets and leaving taxpayers bracing for the future.

One of the worst kept secrets at the Capitol this session is that some legislators say they can’t vote for HB 2 or HB 3 because school officials oppose it.

School administrators are suffering severe heartburn over House Bill 2 because it requires schools to devote at least 65 percent of available funds on core instruction.

Texas led the way for telecommunications reform in 1995 and has the opportunity to do so once again. But the market doesn't wait for anyone. If we don't act, other states will, and Texas consumers will suffer from delayed improvements in products and pricing.

Everything is bigger in Texas and our prisons are no exception. Although California has nearly twice as many people as the Lone Star State, Texas has only 13,000 fewer prisoners – with over 150,000 inmates. The inmate population is approaching prison capacity.

With the special session on school finance and taxation currently underway, Texans need basic knowledge in order to cut through the political rhetoric. Much of how our current system operates is not exactly how it was intended to operate. But the fact remains it is broken.

Economic freedom did not come easy for the American colonists, and it has not proven easy to maintain for American citizens. The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling makes it far easier for local government to transfer the private property of one landowner to another using eminent domain. Texans today find themselves quite vulnerable to economic development takings of private property.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation has examined the state of Texas’ taxes, repeatedly urging lawmakers to pursue only those policies which promote economic growth, limit government’s access to the taxpayer’s wallet, and offer transparency to all. Success is within our grasp.

Consumer protection is big business these days. Many people and organizations benefit tremendously from appearing to protect the “little guy” from profit-seeking corporations.

If you think your health care costs are going up, hold on to your wallet. You don’t know the half of it. Literally. Whether you insure yourself, get health care through your employer, or purchase health care for your employees, chances are you know that costs are on the rise. But that’s not all; you are also bearing the hidden cost of providing health care to other people.

While the Supreme Court’s reversal of the trial court conviction of Arthur Andersen will not give the company’s 85,000 former employees their jobs back, the ruling will benefit all Americans if it helps rein in criminal laws that permit convictions without a guilty state of mind. In recent years, crimes that dispense with any culpable mental state have proliferated well beyond the traditional exception of speeding.

When Texas legislators concluded their constitutionally mandated 140-day session, they left Austin with a $139.4 billion biennial budget for the taxpayers to cover. That represents a 19 percent increase over the budget they passed just two years ago. What are they spending money on? Lots of really good causes. The time has come to end the state’s spending disorder before it gets worse.

There is perhaps no more famous legal truism than the phrase that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Yet, it is simply not always true. In the closing days of Texas’ legislative session, there are several important policy areas – from zero tolerance to taxes – where the Legislature is confronting the question of criminal intent.

What enterprise do you suppose wrote checks amounting to $1.6 million for lawyers, $375,000 for various chambers of commerce, $311,000 for professional association fees, $90,000 for Franklin Covey (personal effectiveness and productivity training), $14,500 for Billie Arbuckle Adventures, and $2.7 million for Young Audiences of North Texas (arts and cultural programs)? Would you be surprised to learn it was a Texas public school district?

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Even though oil is not a significant source of fuel for electricity generation, recent spikes in oil prices have increased fears that affordable supplies of fossil fuels are running short, heightening interest in renewable energy in Texas. After all, it isn’t likely that we will run out of sunlight, water and wind. Unfortunately, abundant supplies of renewable resources do not guarantee abundant supplies of affordable energy. Even with sizable subsidies, renewable energy is generally more expensive than energy produced from nonrenewable sources.

The lobbyists working for your city council and county commissioners are telling legislators that implementation of HB1006 will mean the end of emergency services. Not true. The legislation doesn’t tell cities how to prioritize their spending; it simply demands that taxpayers be afforded more information, and the opportunity to be involved.

Public school administrators say they need more money. They say they don’t have enough money to provide the classroom instruction required by the state. Administrators could well be right about the need to increase funding for instruction, but they’re dead wrong about needing more money.

For two years newspapers, lawmakers and promoters of government spending have relentlessly criticized the state budget and policy decisions passed last session that were made to balance a state budget without increasing taxes. These policies make sense: the use of an assets test to check eligibility, and the requirement that families re-enroll every six months – both measures ensure the state directs funds to Texans most in need, and reduces fraud. These policies did not change eligibility; they merely enforced the eligibility guidelines already in place.

Confronted with the staggering costs of the state prison system, the Legislature appears ready to replace the longstanding policy of “lock’em up and throw away the keys” with “don’t build it and they won’t come.” However, this change will only succeed in reducing crime and relieving the burden on taxpayers if the probation system is reformed. Currently, half of all probationers have their probation revoked and these probationers serve an average of 4.5 years in prison. Probation must evolve from a revolving doorway to prison into a gateway to responsibility, restitution, and rehabilitation.

Though opinions differ on its nature, everyone seems to be in agreement that Americans today face a crisis when it comes to asbestos. One side says America is in the midst of an “asbestos disease crisis,” while the other side claims we face an “asbestos litigation crisis.” So which is it? There is no better place to look for answers than the Lone Star State.

Education, we are constantly told, is the great equalizer. It is key to opening opportunity for all. Education is about preparing children for adulthood and responsibility. What we hear more often though is that education is about preparing students to compete in a global economy for the sake of future prosperity. In other words, for its loudest advocates, government education is all about jobs, productivity, careers, and living the good life.

Almost 99 percent of Texas schools are rated “Academically Acceptable” or better by the Texas Education Agency. Does this mean that public schools are doing an acceptable job? The answer is an unfortunate no. How can “Acceptable” ratings mask such poorly performing schools around the state? The answer lies in low expectations for student achievement.

Telecommunications remains one of the most highly taxed and regulated industries in Texas. But legislation passed by the Texas House will provide more economic freedom, lower costs and better service.

With state budgets expected to collapse under the weight of Medicaid spending within a decade, states are beginning to look for ways to deal with the coming crisis. Unfortunately, many states are talking more about simple change rather than reform.

No matter how the Legislature resolves school finance, one lawmaker wants kids to know they should use books and paper, not school buildings and stop signs, to communicate their ideas. Using tough but smart measures that don't involve incarceration to discourage minor crimes like graffiti, we can intervene early in the lives of youths who may be drifting toward a life of violent crime and send a message that lawlessness will not be tolerated.

House members who put their reputation on the line to vote for an enormous tax bill will soon realize what was obvious almost immediately: no one will remember the property tax cut, only the vote to tax small business through a hidden income tax and increase the sales tax to the highest rate in the nation.

Lawmakers in Austin will soon consider legislation that will prevent cities from competing with the private sector in providing wireless internet service. Municipalities argue they should be allowed to offer this service. But is it good for consumers and taxpayers?

Once again, politicians and former politicians are lamenting the complexity of our tax laws, as though their own spending measures have nothing to do with it. But we’ve heard this song before. Until the federal government is held to its proper constitutionally limited functions, tax reform will remain a mirage.

The enormous growth of non-teaching personnel prevents teachers from reaping the benefits of increased funding for public education. In other words, bureaucracy increasingly and detrimentally consumes funds that should be devoted to the teaching profession.

The effort to cut property taxes by 50 cents is driving bad policy and tax decisions. Lawmakers would do well to attempt only a 25-cent cut that doesn't do irrevocable harm to the Texas economy.

As the legislative session heats up, the political Left has wasted no time in demanding more money for causes big and small. The money can only come from taxpayer pockets. By flirting with tax hikes – even hikes on “unpopular” things like business activity, smoking, income and wealth – the 79th Legislature of Texas risks doing grave damage to the economic well being of our state.

It is a fascinating study to watch the psychological ploys that political leaders use to get more of our money. Their method is based on the classical utilitarian principle of reducing pain or, more exactly, our consciousness of pain. Now that the Texas Legislature is in session, taxpayers need to be wary of the approaches used to raid our wallets.

Like the special-interest-protecting bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., the state’s media and liberal elite – if I may repeat myself – make the faulty assumption that current spending should be automatically increased. The argument goes that we must “maintain” the current level of service for any particular program, which means increasing the money spent. That’s not bad math; that’s bad public policy.

A general rule of thumb is that when you start to see politicians jumping on a bandwagon, taxpayers are about to get run over. The latest bandwagon is an across-the-board payraise for teachers. Economic evidence and commonsense tells us this is a bad idea. What does work? Paying people based on job performance; letting the best teachers make more than the worst teachers.

Are the children of Texas stupid or are our schools inefficient? If your answer is “neither,” you’re wrong. You have to decide. Which is it? Stupid kids or inefficient schools? School administrators obviously have an opinion, because they say they absolutely cannot adequately educate children even at the planetary-high funding level they already enjoy. The fact is we could triple the amount of money going to our schools and it would not be enough. Oh wait! We’ve done that already!

A child’s fear of the dark is understandable. What’s equally understandable is the average lawmaker’s fear of the light. After all, revelations of bumps and stumbles over bad public policy can be a scary thing when pesky constituents come a’ calling. But Texans deserve to know how their lawmakers vote. No matter how scary it might be for politicians.

One of four Texans lack health insurance and one of five children live below the federal poverty threshold. For financially-strapped Texans, health care is a daunting challenge. Economists say Medicaid and CHIP will bankrupt every state, including Texas, by 2014. Signs of the impending crisis are evident in health care cost over-runs and budget shortfalls.

Texans are comfortable spending almost $90,000 of taxpayer money to see a kid fail. But the thought of spending less money to see the same kid succeed is wholly unacceptable to our elected officials. Are we so enamored with the institution of public education that we are unconcerned with how well the public is actually educated? It is time for Texas lawmakers to give choice a chance.

Income tax aficionados spend a great deal of time looking for problems needing their economically dangerous solution. Most recently, that problem has been education finance. Not any longer. But a new federal law has taken the wind out of the income tax sails, and helps ensure Texas lawmakers will do the right thing with school finance. There are good reasons that consumption taxes consistently appear as a reasonable way to fund education.

Austin's CapMetro is once again asking for a “blank check” to spend tax dollars on a superficial mass transit "commuter rail" plan that is flawed, incomplete and misleading. Other cities’ experiences indicate a strong likelihood it will cost our taxpayers as much as $10,000 or more per year to subsidize each train rider.

In the final throes of an election, cries of despair and gloom fill the airwaves as politicians plying for final votes paint increasingly horrific scenes of life without them. Elections are, of course, quite important. But for most, the political process is background noise in the business of life.

The way we fund roads simply makes no sense. Roads are viewed as simply more free stuff “given away” by government. Of course, roads are not really free; they actually cost a lot, but that doesn’t affect the way we use them.

Our cultural appetite for making political decisions based on emotional responses to incomplete facts spells trouble for the future of liberty. Focus this election should be on liberty, not more handouts.

In the wake of District Judge John Dietz’s ruling that the current system is in violation of the Texas Constitution, the scramble is once again underway to fix the problem politically, while awaiting the inevitable appeal of the decision by the State to the Texas Supreme Court.

The 2004 SAT scores are out and, according to Texas’ major newspapers and the Texas Education Agency, the news is generally good. A closer look at the details, though, raises serious questions about the performance of Texas’ most able students and the honesty of reports on public education.

Aided and abetted by Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, there has been a shrill cry from the left about the fate of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The problem at hand is not a failure of conservative compassion. The problem is a failure of vision on the part of liberals -- they continue to define compassion in terms of government appropriations.

Recently my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 inoperable non-smoker’s non small cell lung cancer. The five-year prognosis for lung cancer survival is 15 percent. Clinging to hope, my wife agreed to a clinical drug trial. After eight weeks, the lung tumor shrunk by at least 10 percent! That only happens because drug companies can justify taking the risk. Introduce price controls, and new drugs probably won’t exist.

Texas taxpayers are suing themselves in a lawsuit that goes to trial this week– the latest in a string of school-funding lawsuits. What we have are 46 school districts (all taxpayer funded) suing the state (also taxpayer funded) for (you guessed it) more taxpayer money – and the lawyers are all paid with (get ready) taxpayer money.

Political rhetoric would have us believe we're on the verge of a second Dark Age. But in truth, we've never had it so good. Could it be our phenomenal cultural prosperity has bred something akin to survivors’ guilt?

Everyone, it seems, is anxious to tax cigarettes. Cigarette smoking is a legal activity, but the hodgepodge of state taxes has made cigarette smuggling almost as lucrative as drug running for terrorist cells.

Before we rush to increase teacher pay, let’s look at the facts. Just how do Texas teachers fare in comparison to teachers in other states or in comparison to other professions?

Academic inequality has actually been compounded in Texas. The top 10 percent law is riddled with inequalities, unfairness, anti-intellectualism, and backfiring ironies. It has been tested by experience since l997, and it has flunked.

Income taxes, like heroin, are addictive and dangerous. It is time the federal government stopped encouraging states to dig their own economic graves.

For months Texans have suffered the loud wailing and gnashing of teeth from the public education bureaucracy and their allies in Texas politics. Their demand has a familiar ring: Give us more money.

Our new school finance system is broken—and we haven’t even finished creating it yet. The about-to-be-created system is broken because legislators in Austin are focusing on only half the problem. Finding a financing mechanism is only half of Texans’ predicament. Many legislators seem to have forgotten about the spending side of the equation.

With the hours ticking away, one is left wondering if anything good can actually come from this special session of the Texas Legislature. If you are a taxpayer, the future is especially bleak. No one is talking tax increases. Just the opposite; politicians are falling over themselves to reassure us of impending cuts to our property taxes. Pleasant rhetoric, just don’t believe it.

If it’s possible to do something better, with less time and effort, then we should. It only makes sense, right? Who could disagree? You’d be surprised. To suggest public education can be made more efficient borders on heresy.

Over the years, the biggest hurdle to school choice has been the reluctance among many (including a large number of supposedly market-sensitive business leaders) to understand and accept the dynamics of competition. In a choice environment, these dynamics will produce a supply of quality education alternatives to meet the demand. So well entrenched is the one-size-fits-all delivery system, with its top-down mandates and accountability, that we fear the dynamics of a deregulated market for education.

It is increasingly clear teacher unions in Texas represent only the status quo. As long as more money is spent, bad teachers kept on the payroll, and accountability kept to a minimum, the unions are happy. But Texans are demanding true reform in education, not a defense of the status quo. Texas teachers and taxpayers deserve a system of education that promotes academic excellence through efficiency, accountability and competition. In short, everything the unions oppose.

Texas is embroiled in a debate about schools; the education of children and the financing of public education. Many people are focused solely on the question of changing the amounts and forms of taxation, implicitly assuming the basic method of delivering services is essentially a good one.

This is an assumption that poses considerable risk for Texans concerned with academic achievement.

Once again, the ability of consumers to get a good deal is under attack – by state regulators allegedly empowered to help consumers. With the imposition of new rules regulating insurance rates, many Texans won’t be getting the discounts they have been. All in the name of “protecting” the consumer, of course.

Advocates for increasingly intrusive government have set their sights on the spring of 2004 as an opportunity to bring more money into the state coffers when the legislature meets in special session to restructure school finance. That no city, state or nation has ever taxed its way into prosperity is without question. One almost trips over the mounds of evidence; a thousand people a day moved from high tax states to low tax states in the 1990s. On the other hand, economically sound policies benefit everyone, especially our children.

Spending on health and human services will quickly surpass education as the state’s top expenditure. Over the years, as new programs aimed at meeting particular health and social needs have arisen, agencies were created with little regard for fundamental issues of fiscal restraint and operational efficiency. With each new program and agency, came a new – and duplicative – layer of administrative bureaucracy. And because each represented the political fiefdom of champions in the Legislature and bureaucracy, they were operated in a vacuum.

Texas’ teacher certification system is shortchanging children in our public schools. It certifies too few teachers for important subject areas, such as mathematics and science – all but ensuring children will not be taught by qualified teachers. Today, one of every five students in Texas public schools is taught by a certified teacher who has little or no formal education in the subject area.

It may well be the best-kept secret in Texas: the cost of medicine is going down. This shouldn’t be a surprise. When Texans voted to limit noneconomic damages in medical liability cases, this is the outcome they were expecting.

The shrillness of many press releases and news stories disguise the fact that many without health insurance are making a rational choice. Trumping feelings over fact, the uninsured are portrayed as hapless victims of hard employers and greedy insurers. While passing legislation to create more programs that spend more money might make for good politics, they do no good in the long run and often deflect resources from the truly needy.

For far too many disadvantaged parents, the issue is not whether their child is getting a good education at the public school. They wonder if their child will survive the school day unharmed. How many parents would choose to let their daughters remain in a school that has seen two girls raped or murdered on campus in less than 12 months? Not many.

Thousands of people are out of work. Entire companies have been shut down. The future of the American economy could well hang in the balance. Not from terrorism or war, shady accounting or corporate malfeasance. But from lawsuits. Specifically, some 250,000 lawsuits filed to date because of ties to asbestos and some illnesses.

From trash collection to telecommunications and printing to parking, Texas’ local governments are bucking an international trend. Unfortunately, in this case that’s nothing of which to be proud. While foreign governments have been steadily withdrawing from economic regulation and involvement since the 1980’s, the commercial activities of governments in Texas and other states are expanding.

Getting a second opinion is always a good idea, particularly when you have a serious medical problem. Today, Texans are suffering from a serious lack of medical care. Is Proposition 12 good medicine for Texas? I urge you to ask your doctor for an opinion.

All across Texas, early morning commuters are beginning to see the familiar sight of flashing red lights on school buses and the warnings at student crossings. These signals remind us to ask ourselves if every child is out of the way. Too bad school finance discussions for the past several years were not similarly equipped with warnings.

How can an idea be so publicly popular, offer such demonstrable benefits, have the endorsement of the Supreme Court, and yet still be categorically rejected by so many in the education and media establishment?

When the people said “limit the growth of government,” they had a leadership that sympathized. When the people said “make government more efficient,” they had a legislature willing to act. And when the people said “hold the line on taxes,” they were presented a budget that did it.

The religious fervor with which the state’s major media clings to the notion of an income tax borders on irrationality. Once relevant to the political life of the state, Texas’ major newspapers have become little more than cheerleaders for outdated beliefs and discredited ideas. Fortunately, our political leadership – mirroring the populace – has stopped paying attention.

This goes beyond extending the reach of a tax; it is a violation of both legislative trust and existing law. If the TIF tax is extended, the legislature will only prove again that politicians cannot be trusted to keep their word – even when set in law. The debate should be a reminder to us all: if old Texas taxes won’t die, we must be exceedingly careful about implementing them in the first place.

“If you give a mouse a cookie” begins a classic children’s story involving the ever-expanding problems created by incrementalism. First a cookie, then milk, a straw, and more and more. Havoc is wreaked as the child in the story caves to the mouse’s increasingly ridiculous demands... Texas government is poised to concede to the mouse’s demand for a cookie – passing legislation that stimulates the all-too-common urge to take more of whatever belongs to someone else.

For 25 centuries doctors have taken the Hippocratic Oath, vowing to keep patients "from harm and injustice. (and work) for the benefit of the sick." But flaws in the legal system are making it increasingly difficult for doctors to abide by these words. Caring men and women are forced to abandon the healing arts, leaving sick patients without access to care.

Spending has been, and remains, Texas’ biggest budget problem. In the late 1970s, Texans approved a constitutional amendment that was supposed to limit spending growth. Unfortunately, legislators still had lots of wiggle-room, and the limitations are all but meaningless – as evidenced by an explosion in state spending.

The solution to our insurance woes will not be found in the halls of the legislature, but in the decisions of individuals in a free market. A consumer’s best interests are never protected by the heavy hand of regulation, but rather by the presence of a highly competitive marketplace.

It is a scene all too familiar in Texas’ metropolitan regions. Rush-hour is at its peak, and tensions are high. The traffic report notes an accident ahead involving an 18-wheeler and a passenger car. All around cars and big trucks jockey for position as frustrated commuters dart between slow-starting trucks.

Students in Texas public schools just put their pencils to the state's new test that will determine whether third graders qualify for promotion. But as soon as the testing began, flaws were found that cause alarm about the test, giving those opposing our accountability system another excuse to fight high standards.

Fundamentally, the tax issue is not about taxes, it’s about spending, so we can’t have it both ways. We cannot one moment ask government to pay for our projects, and the next tell legislators to cut our taxes.

From the Governor’s Mansion to the lowliest of state House freshmen, the people of Texas have said in no uncertain terms that they are ready for significant changes in both the style of governance and the state’s approach to issues. They want conservative ideals -- not compromising deals -- reflected in the new laws that will govern this state.

In this commentary written for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Michael Quinn Sullivan notes that Will Rogers suggested that we be thankful for not getting all the government we pay for. But as we enter the final days of the campaign season, Texans should hope that we get something better than what statewide politicians have been babbling about.

Last month, my family received our homeowner’s insurance renewal notice and were shocked. If we continue our current level of coverage, our premium will almost triple in cost. If we reduce our insurance, by getting rid of mold coverage, our premium will still double! Such skyrocketing insurance premiums are an outrage and like all Texans, I want to know who is responsible.

During the past 20 years, history has been removed from public schools and replaced with social studies. This new subject crams geography, psychology, sociology, religion, culture, government, and history into the 55 minutes that schools once devoted daily to teaching the past of our state, nation and world.

Patriotism - not a flag on a pole - inspired men to live and die so the beacon of liberty could shine brightly in our world. Our children must be taught the immeasurable contribution our nation, people and system has made improving the human condition. If children do not learn the historical value of our system today, as adults they will accept any other.

The State Board for Educator Certification has increased the likelihood that children sit in classrooms without an academically qualified teacher. Since its inception, SBEC has methodically dismantled the academic requirements for prospective teachers. Today, you could be certified to teach algebra even if you failed or never took algebra in college.

In coffee shops and cafes from Dallas to Dalhart, San Antonio to Sherman, Texans find themselves debating the merits of various taxing tools the legislature could implement. No one denies that some government is essential for prosperity; the chaos of anarchy is as dismal a place to start a business as one with heavy government intervention - the former Soviet economy providing a case in point. But the overwhelming weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates that in most industrialized countries, government has reached the point where it is a serious drag on economic growth.

Inanities litter the TAAS landscape. They might be excusable were it not for the fact that parents, teachers, schools, the legislature and others rely on the test results to judge student performance and hold our schools accountable.

The challenge of teacher recruitment and retention is on any short list of problems facing public education in the 21st century. The problem is so severe that we often hear about a growing teacher shortage.

If your child was critically ill, you'd demand the best medical treatment possible. You'd call not only for the best doctors, but for the best medical technology. After all, a simple kink in the tubing that provides medicine, nutrition, oxygen, and water to your child could prove deadly.

In my view, it is vital to assess the connection between human health effects and air quality conditions before imposing any new and more strict economic and societal costs on the Dallas-Fort Worth region.

Government must fund all education and educational speech equally and neutrally and let individuals decide for themselves what brand of education they desire for their children. This not only comports with First Amendment religious neutrality, but the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

Like most parents, mine felt that I deserved the best education they could afford. And part of that meant learning in a racially diverse school to prepare me to compete in a racially diverse world. Eventually many of those new kids, once they knew me, the human being, and not me, the symbol, came to understand the logic of my position and accepted my friendship.

Americans are grappling with major policy questions about education, from improving student performance to funding, charter schools to classroom size. More than a decade ago, New Zealand, a country only slightly smaller than Texas, faced similar, if not worse, problems. We "Kiwis" made bold, across-the- board reforms, with positive results.

Some 35 years ago, social scientists began unveiling unworkable philosophies of child management, characterized by a lack of adult guidance and punctuated with heavy doses of pop psychology.

Parent Teacher Association (PTA) members and officials often bristle at the suggestion that the PTA is dominated by the teacher unions. If one thinks of domination only in terms of explicit union commands to the PTA, this reaction is understandable. In practice, however, teacher union domination is subtle but highly effective.

There currently is much discussion about the state of the Social Security System. Some are advocating radical change such as privatization of the system. These calls are met with concern that nothing like that has ever been done. Even if we ignore the success of other countries that have privatized this remnant of paternalist government, we need to look no further than the Texas coast for an example of successful privatization.

For too many years now, one of the most important things that we consumers buy on a daily basis, electricity, has been rationed by a system of state control and central planning.

Texans don't have to raise taxes to obtain better services, or eliminate services to reduce spending. In fact, by harnessing the reins of the private sector, Texans can cut both state and local taxes and have better services: better streets, better libraries, cleaner water, better airports, better police protection, a better environment, better schools.

Liberal social planners in control of government agencies are playing a giant bait-and-switch game with the American people. Capitalizing on the prevailing belief that public schools are failing to provide students with basic academic skills necessary in the business world, a preexisting agenda for reform has been repackaged and offered as a "new" solution, called "Workforce Development" or "School-to-Work."

The state's top lawyer, sworn to uphold the law and protect taxpayers' interests, is bypassing the need for legislative approval and oversight in his zeal to use a private contingency lawyer to sue the tobacco industry.