Almost on a daily basis, we’re bombarded with startling new reports about the erosion of our individual liberties. From the freedom of assembly to protections against unreasonable search and seizure to our right to keep and bear arms, every area of individual liberty seems to be under attack from the Nanny State.

The attacks on our freedom don’t stop there.

Congress is now considering a number of different proposals that pose a very real danger to all of our economic, political, and social freedoms. These proposals include:

• The cap-and-trade bill would limit emissions from certain industries and create a scheme where many companies would have to purchase carbon permits. These costs would ultimately be passed on to the consumer. The measure has been called “the biggest tax in American history.”
• Sweeping health care legislation which would provide for an effective government takeover of our health care system, at a 10-year cost of well over $1 trillion.
• The Clean Water Restoration Act would expand the scope of the Clean Water Act to allow federal regulators to dictate the use of any land with even the slightest amount of water on it. The Heritage Foundation has said it represents “the most dangerous federal intrusion on private property rights in existence.”

Needless to say, the escalation of intrusive behavior by the government, particularly at the federal level, into the lives of private citizens is happening at an alarming rate.

With Independence Day coming up this weekend, I hope that we all take a moment to consider how severely our freedoms are being eroded by an overreaching national government.

- James Quintero ]]>PublicationThu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 MDTUniversity of Houston System regents recently voted to raise tuition at all four of its campuses beginning next fall.

Not surprisingly, UH officials claim they have done everything possible to cut costs. However, students don’t seem to agree with that assessment. They presented regents with alternatives, including freezing faculty salaries.

When asked how much staff the system was willing to let go, the administrator of finance said it would be less than one percent.

Regents did express sympathy for students but maintained they couldn’t manage the loss of revenue during a time when the university was striving to become a tier-1 research institution. This excuse begs the question: should research be the top priority at UH when it requires raising tuition during the worst recession our country has seen in decades?

One student had it exactly right when he told the regents who would be voting on the increase, “In the real world, this business model would not happen. When revenue is low, businesses don’t raise prices.”

In making this observation, the student brings up an important point, intentionally or not. The higher education market lacks sufficient competition. If universities operated under a free-market model, they would have scrubbed down every aspect of their operations before asking their customers to pay higher prices.

Free markets have a funny way of forcing businesses to re-prioritize during economic hard times. The same cannot be said for government agencies because they have the luxury of asking for more money. The Foundation’s higher education reforms would help infuse competition into the higher education market, keeping costs under control and quality high.

- Elizabeth Young ]]>PublicationTue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDTZogby poll commissioned by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency reveals strong public support for alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders. The poll, which was released earlier this month, finds 77 percent of those surveyed believe the most appropriate sentence for non-violent, non-serious offenders is supervised probation, restitution, community service, and/or rehabilitative services with prison or jail as an option if the offender fails. Non-violent, non-serious crimes are defined in the survey as those offenses that do not involve violence and sex and where the loss is $400 or less.

Some 68 percent of respondents felt that incarceration is only sometimes, rarely, or never necessary for drug possession cases where the offender is not involved in selling drugs. Only 30 percent believed that incarceration is usually or always necessary in such cases. In regard to disturbing the peace or loitering, 52 percent of respondents said incarceration is never necessary, with an additional 34 percent believing it is only rarely or sometimes necessary. Similarly, only 21 percent of those surveyed believed incarceration is usually or always necessary for public drunkenness.

In another question, more than 55 percent of respondents thought that alternatives to prison reduce costs to state and local governments. They are quite correct, as in Texas the cost of prison (including health care) is $56.10, compared with $1.24 per day for the share of probation costs borne by taxpayers. Those surveyed were surprisingly aware of various alternatives to incarceration, with 94 percent familiar with house arrest, 92 percent familiar with electronic monitoring, and 79 percent familiar with restorative justice.

Some 54 percent of respondents believed that serving time in prison or jail does not reduce the likelihood that a person will commit a crime in the future. Among those surveyed, 45 percent believed that alternatives to incarceration are effective at reducing recidivism compared to 38 percent who thought the same about prison or jail time.

In sum, these results are important because they demonstrate that the public recognizes the benefits of alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders, particularly at a time when local and state budgets are tight and correctional spending has surged in recent years.

- Marc Levin ]]>PublicationFri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDT Cap-and-trade destroys American jobs
What's wrong with ObamaCare: Seven bad ideas for health care reform
What's wrong with ObamaCare: Employer mandates
What's wrong with ObamaCare: Individual mandates
What's wrong with ObamaCare: The "public option"
]]>PublicationThu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDTNew York Times article. The charter school conducted a nationwide search to hire America’s finest teachers and hired eight teachers, including two Ivy League graduates. They will assume responsibilities traditionally covered by other staff members and will work a longer school day and year. The price for their expected success: $125,000 a year.

It is possible that many bright and qualified individuals would leave the private sector to teach with that type of salary. With the average teacher in Texas making about $47,000, this would be quite a raise.

Texas has the largest teacher incentive pay system in the country, and numerous school districts here reward teachers who perform well. Unfortunately, most school districts continue to pay teachers with a salary schedule that rewards seniority over merit, consuming enormous amounts of resources and restricting the their ability to offer more competitive wages to attract the best and brightest.

Michelle Rhee, chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools, has been wrestling with the teachers’ union for months to implement a contract that would allow her to pay up to $131,000 for senior teachers while giving her more leeway in reassigning and firing teachers. No agreement has yet been reached. Stay tuned.

Why don’t school districts across the country select teachers more carefully, expect them to perform, and pay them accordingly? Maintaining the status quo is much easier than rethinking teacher compensation and trying something new. Hopefully, this “experiment” in New York City will lead to higher student achievement – and encourage more schools to pay well for proven results.

- Paige Perez ]]>PublicationThu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDT The American welfare state
ObamaCare: "Rooted in false claims and little evidence"
A better alternative to ObamaCare
Rationing health care in Oregon
The declining quality of American education
]]>PublicationTue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDT Part of these savings some from closing unnecessary TYC facilities. The 2010-2011 budget calls for the West Texas and Victory Field TYC units to be closed in 2011. Both are remotely located away from the urban areas from which most youth come.

Not only does this shifting of resources save money, research has indicated that all but the highest-risk youth are less likely to recidivate if they are kept in the community. More than 55 percent of offenders leaving TYC are rearrested within one year. In contrast, Ohio implemented a policy called RECLAIM that redirected youth from state lockups to community-based programs – these youths had a 22 percent recidivism rate.

The further downsizing of TYC continues a trend. The Texas Youth Commission held some 5,646 youth in 2000 and 4,800 youth in 2006. That declined to 3,448 in 2007 and 2,054 in April 2009. These declines are largely attributable to SB 103, passed in 2007, that prohibited misdemeanants from being placed at TYC and reduced the maximum age of TYC residents to 19 from 21. Some counties also reduced their utilization of TYC due to concerns about the abuses.

Another positive development in the 2009 session is the passage of HB 3689, the sunset bill for TYC and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission (TJPC). One of the most important provisions requires each juvenile probation department to use a risk assessment instrument. This will enable the departments to better determine what treatment approach is most appropriate. Some adult probation departments use the results of the instrument to allocate staff, accounting for the fact that a probation officer with a higher-risk caseload may need more time per offender.

In sum, a smaller TYC and community programs that are better targeted to the individual offender will improve Texas’ juvenile justice system and enhance public safety.

- Marc Levin ]]>PublicationMon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDTfederal government’s deficit spending, Rich Lowry wrote, “The same way overzealous Republicans once argued that tax cuts paid for themselves, Obama Democrats argue that deficit spending pays for itself.”

Lowry’s statement is problematic on several levels.

For one, it essentially equates tax cutting and deficit spending, abandoning the moral high ground in an attempt to come across as reasoned. Even more importantly, it misrepresents the facts. In truth, tax cuts have paid for themselves time and time again: the Harding/Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush tax cuts all accomplished this.

As noted in the Foundation’s Thinking Economically lesson on the Laffer Curve, “In the four years prior to the 1965 (Kennedy) tax rate cuts, federal government income tax revenue, adjusted for inflation, had increased at an average annual rate of 2.1%, while total government income tax revenue (federal plus state and local) had increased 2.6% per year. In the four years following the tax cut, these two measures of revenue growth rose to 8.6% and 9.0%, respectively. Government income tax revenue not only increased in the years following the tax cut, it increased at a much faster rate.”

People claim the early Reagan income tax cuts didn’t pay for themselves. But they compare tax revenues between 1981 and 1982 when the tax cuts didn’t take full effect until July 1983. Look at the revenue before and after the cuts had been fully implemented, and they worked. The problem with the Reagan tax cuts is that they weren’t implemented fast enough. Just as predicted, people deferred income until after the tax cuts were fully implemented, delaying the growth in tax revenues. Tax cuts generally won’t increase revenue overnight, but they will increase revenue once the economy has a chance to respond.

The one tax where cuts (or increases) affect revenues almost immediately is the capital gains tax. “Following the 1981 capital gains cut from 28% to 20%, nominal capital gains tax revenues leapt from $12.5 billion in 1980 to $18.7 billion by 1983—a 50% increase.” After the rate went back up in the late 1980s, capital gains revenue collapsed. And, once again, “in 1996, the year before the tax rate cut (back to 20%) and the last year with the 28% rate, taxes paid on assets sold totaled $66.4 billion. A year later, tax receipts jumped to $79.3 billion, and they jumped again to $89.1 billion in 1998. … Seldom in economics does real life so closely conform to theory as this capital gains example does to the Laffer Curve. Lower tax rates change people’s economic behavior and stimulate economic growth, which can create more, not less, tax revenue.”

Tax cuts won’t always increase the incentives for people to earn or recognize more income. But we are a long way from a tax rate low enough for that to be the case.

- Bill Peacock]]>PublicationMon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDTeducation in America.

Despite our government’s education reform efforts, the study shows American students have not improved in math, science, and reading in four decades. Alternatively, our international competitors have consistently improved test scores in each of these areas.

Another alarming statistic finds that the longer American children are in school, the further behind international students they fall. Of course, this fact speaks volumes about the quality of K-12 education in the U.S.; however, it also has major negative ramifications for institutions of higher education.

It seems that just when students are beginning their higher education is when they are the furthest behind internationally.

Because U.S. students aren’t where they need to be, other nations are taking advantage of our educational shortcomings. In fact, “In 1995, America was tied for first in college graduation rates; by 2006, this ranking had dropped to 14th.”

While one does not need a college degree to be a productive member of society, the statistics make clear that education reform efforts, both in K-12 and higher education, are generally headed in the wrong direction.

Reforms over the last 40 years such as increasing education spending are not yielding the anticipated results. In fact, the McKinsey study finds that “school spending in the U.S. is among the least cost-effective in the world.” True reformers should start looking at where the money goes and not just focus on spending more.

- Elizabeth Young ]]>PublicationFri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDT The rush to ObamaCare
The future of health care
The cost of federal regulations
Gas prices high enough?
Monopolizing bad performance
]]>PublicationFri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 MDT The "value" of university research
Texas Legislature increases education options for Texas students
Capping and taxing American prosperity
"Soak the rich" economics leaves Maryland all wet
]]>PublicationFri, 29 May 2009 00:00:00 MDT Yet another reason for government transparency
Taxpayer funded "demonstration projects"
Taxes; Those able to pay, are able to leave
Californians demand responsible spending, then their government asks for a bailout
]]>PublicationWed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 MDT HB 1423 by Rep. Ryan Guillen and Sen. Florence Shapiro allows junior colleges and community colleges in Texas to open a charter school. The colleges would still have to go through a rigorous application process at the Texas Education Agency and with the State Board of Education to be approved.

Many Texas community colleges already collaborate with charter schools across the state. For example, Houston ISD and Houston Community College collaborate with two early college high schools and at an academy for international studies, while Texas State Technical College in Waco collaborates with the Rapoport Academy. See the full list on page 7 of our research on charter schools.

Senior universities already have the ability to open charter schools in Texas. Currently, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Houston, Stephen F. Austin State University, and Texas Southern University either operate or collaborate with a charter school.

Charter schools run by senior universities are exempt from the state cap on charters of 215. This bill also exempts junior colleges and community colleges from the cap.

Charter schools are helping more than 110,000 Texas students. With this new opportunity for community colleges, imagine how many more Texas children can be helped.

- Brooke Terry ]]>PublicationTue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 MDT Funny how true those words still are.

Bungling what could have been a defining moment of fiscal conservatism this session, the Texas Senate instead allowed the Texas Department of Transportation sunset bill House Bill 300 to sail through with revised local option transportation tax and fee language attached.

The bill, as is currently written, allows local governments to impose any combination of three new taxes and fees while requiring virtually no measurable performance objectives.

Oh, and never mind that the state still has yet to end diversions, or that most local governments spend significantly more than the growth in population plus inflation, or that some communities still have unused sales tax capacity that could go to pay for transportation – these “facts” seemed irrelevant compared to government boosting its bottom line.

Though discouraging, the Senate’s decision is not the final say.

HB 300’s next stop – if it advances at all – is a House/Senate conference committee, where five members from each chamber will duke it out over the differences between the two versions. If common sense prevails, taxpayers may pull out a win just yet and force government to live within its means. If not, refer back to quote above.

- James Quintero ]]>PublicationTue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 MDTHB 51, which would give more state dollars to fund university research. As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been any notable opposition except from Sen. Dan Patrick, who remarked during floor debate that research might actually harm student learning and for the legislature to keep this in mind during future debate of the issue.

Still, no legislator has asked the question: What benefit does university research (largely taxpayer funded) provide society? The answer: very little if any. Sure, there is good research, but the majority of it isn’t being produced at our state’s public universities.

Only 13% of all research occurs at universities – 87% is privately funded. It seems the government doesn’t need to fund research at all. The free market has proven that it supports private investment in worthwhile research, whereas the taxpayer funded research at our state’s universities yields poor results and shifts professor focus away from teaching.

Recent research by TPPF Senior Research Fellow Rick O’Donnell expands on the issue of university research, and the facts he lays out make a good argument against any more taxpayer investment in it.

Texas universities have invested an estimated $9 billion on scientific research in the last 10 years. The rate of return on these taxpayer research investments was just $8.3 million a year, or 0.09 percent. By any standard, that’s a poor rate of return.

Beyond being a bad investment, the emphasis on research at our universities harms student learning. In fact, the average college professor only spends 21% of his time performing teaching relating activities. The rest is spent on administrative duties and research. Imagine how much the quality of education could improve if professors spent more time focusing on educating students.

Let’s change the incentives at our public universities. Don’t increase funding for research; enact policies that will shift professors’ focus back to their original mission – educating university customers.

- Elizabeth Young ]]>PublicationFri, 22 May 2009 00:00:00 MDT Improving transparency in higher education
81st Texas legislature's list of achievements?
Federal carbon caps hurt Texans
Gas tax pending 125% increase
CHIP extension, an entitlement?]]>PublicationThu, 21 May 2009 00:00:00 MDTEnglish Ministers of Parliament (MPs) have been claiming personal expenses with public dollars. Here are a few of my not-so-favorites:

* £30,000.00 (or $46,995.00) over three years for MP Sir Peter Viggers’ gardening expenses which include a duck house for his pond. Due to this find by the Telegraph UK, he will be retiring his seat in the next election.

* £100.00 ($156.55) for MP Sarah McCarthy-Fry’s hair straighteners.

* £2,200.00 ($3,446.30) for MP Douglas Hogg’s moat cleaning bill at his country home. He has agreed to repay this expense to the taxpayers.

In fact, there are several MPs who have turned in receipts and are shown to accept to repay an expense. However, no interest is said to have been collected, and who is to say that if the abuse wasn’t discovered that money would have come back at all?

Due to the fact that a private entity, the Telegraph UK, has decided to take it upon itself to investigate the expense accounts of Members of Parliament, light is finally being shown into the dark crevasses of English government so that a new culture of open, public government is to include meticulously following the money.

The British controversy only adds more fodder to the transparency cannon as governed people begin to wake up and demand to see how the officials they elect are spending the money they allocate them to spend.

- Mike Joyce ]]>PublicationTue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 MDTPresident Barack Obama, “why, sir, why?”

In addition to the anecdotal stories of past success and the perilous future these children face, there now is statistical evidence from a U.S. Department of Education study that confirms the ardent enthusiasm Mercedes and her mother have for the scholarship:

• Reading achievement increased by 3.7 months of learning and math achievement was no worse for those who used scholarships.
• Parents of students offered scholarships were more likely to report that their child’s school was safer and had an orderly school climate.

Similar success has been documented in scholarship programs across the country like the Horizon school choice program.

The answer to Mrs. Campbell’s question seems to be that although the government has failed miserably for decades with public schools, it will sacrifice what definitively works for her child for the unproven contingent hope that it may find a way to fix the public schools. To this sort of hope in the unseen that doesn’t put these kids first, we must answer as USA Today did in its editorial this morning: Mercedes deserves better.

- John Kim ]]>PublicationTue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 MDT Specifically, one anticipated amendment that failed to make it as a stand-alone bill (HB 2170) could remove discretion from the Jail Standards Commission regarding staffing ratios and make state law the 1:48 staffing ratio currently used by the commission. This would prevent the commission from granting variances where a larger ratio is compatible with safety. Modernized designs could potentially reduce the number of deputies needed to maintain a safe jail, an approach that would be precluded by this amendment. Because the amendment would require that the county budget be sufficient for a 1:48 ratio, it would invite costly litigation.

This amendment would also require that ratios be calculated for each floor of the jail, as opposed to throughout the jail. This could force many counties to increase the number of jailers. Harris County already pays $30 million in overtime to meet current staffing requirements.

Other failed proposals could be attached as amendments at great cost to taxpayers. For example, HB 1714 would have prevented county officials from contracting with private facilities, even though they are often the most efficient option and the local jail may be full. HB 3247 would preclude counties from contracting with private facilities that lack a collective bargaining agreement. At best, this would raise labor costs; at worst, if an agreement couldn’t be reached, the county would be forced either to find a more expensive way to deal with the inmates or to release dangerous inmates.

These potential amendments are solutions in search of a problem. Texas county jails, including privately operated county jails, are by definition costly to taxpayers, but they can become even more so with unnecessary legislative micromanagement.

- Marc Levin]]>PublicationFri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 MDT The flood of federal funds
Transparency needed in Texas higher education
Ending the property tax
Americans fail at civics
The California catastrophe]]>Publication