Truth about Local Government Debt in Texas

Over at City Journal, Steve Malanga has a fantastic primer on local government debt in Texas:

While Texas’s state government debt is relatively modest—just $40 billion, or $1,577 per resident—local government debt is more than four times higher: $192 billion. That’s $7,505 per capita, according to Combs’s report—the second-highest sum in the nation, behind only New York’s municipalities and far ahead of third-place California’s. Over the last decade, moreover, local debt has increased 144 percent, much faster than the rate of population increase plus inflation.

Some of this debt stems from voters’ willingness to spend their prosperity on municipal-finance baubles, bangles, and beads. In Texas, that means huge expenditures by local school districts on athletic facilities. When I attended a legislative conference in Texas last summer, the talk was all about the $60 million high school stadium just opening in Allen, a Dallas suburb of 83,000 residents. The 18,000-seat facility, which boasts a massive, high-definition TV screen, was built with funds from a $119 million bond offering in a state where high school football is a consuming passion.

....

Not surprisingly, debt owed by public school districts constitutes the biggest chunk of the state’s soaring local obligations. Over the last decade, it has increased 155 percent, even as the state’s student population has grown just 21 percent. And the fastest-growing part of Texas school budgets is debt service, which has gone up by 126 percent in ten years, to $5.5 billion. Payments on debt now constitute 10 percent of school spending, up from 7 percent a decade ago.

Debt is also growing rapidly among the state’s 81 retirement systems for local-government workers. Not only are these systems poorly funded; it isn’t even clear how much some owe, since they haven’t disclosed the financial information necessary to verify their financial position, even to state oversight officials. After an extensive survey of municipal pension systems, Combs determined that none of the local plans was fully funded and that only 19 percent had 80 percent of the funds on hand to meet future obligations.

....

Facing this growing debt load, some state officials are urging reform. Combs worries that residents don’t understand how much debt is piling up. She advocates greater transparency and has proposed that ballot initiatives seeking voter approval for new debt include comprehensive information about the obligations that government already owes. She has also pushed for laws limiting government uses of the types of debt that don’t require voter approval. [Emphasis Ours]

 In a separate piece, Malanga details common shenanigans:

As in Cook County, so many different levels of government in Texas can issue debt that taxpayers, bewildered by the complexity of it all, let overlapping districts keep on borrowing. As an example, Combs describes how the residents of a single Houston block must repay debt incurred by the county, the city, the city’s school district, and Houston Community College, among other entities. “I went to dozens of town hall meetings around the state, and when I asked, not a single member of the public knew just how much people in their towns were on the hook for,” she says.

Texas, like New York, amassed all this debt by pushing the limits of the law. Though taxpayers must approve most government borrowing, Texas provides an exception for localities that need to issue debt quickly: a “certificate of obligation,” borrowing that doesn’t require approval unless 5 percent or more of local voters petition to have a say on it (a rare occurrence, since most don’t even know that they have that power). Since 2005, Texas localities have issued nearly $13 billion worth of these certificates, often for dubious ends. In 2010, for instance, Fort Worth borrowed nearly $35 million through certificates of obligation to build a facility for horse shows.

Texas school districts have made use of another controversial financing technique: capital appreciation bonds. Used to finance construction, these bonds defer interest payments, often for decades. The extension saves the borrower from spending on repayment right now, but it burdens a future generation with significantly higher costs. Some capital appreciation bonds wind up costing a municipality ten times what it originally borrowed. From 2007 through 2011 alone, research by the Texas legislature shows, the state’s municipalities and school districts issued 700 of these bonds, raising $2.3 billion—but with a price tag of $23 billion in future interest payments. To build new schools, one fast-growing school district, Leander, has accumulated $773 million in outstanding debt through capital appreciation bonds. [Emphasis Ours]

 Both pieces are worth reading, here and here.

(h/t American Spectator)

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History Lesson: The Texas Water Boondoggle of 1968

The more things change, the more they stay the same:

Politicians and engineers have long come up with grandiose plans for moving water from one place to another....[including]...Texas' biggest water boondoggle to date – the 1968 Water Plan.

They were ambitious:

The 1968 plan involved developing an astounding supply of water- enough to submerge Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia to a depth of one foot (with some left over).  The key features of the plan included a canal that would have tapped the Mississippi River below New Orleans, bringing 12 to 13 million acre - feet (one acre - foot is 325,851gallons of water) hundreds of miles to Texas.

Get this:

Once in Texas, the Mississippi River would enter two cement - lined aqueducts called the Coastal Canal and the Trans-Texas Canal. These canals were to snake 1,200 miles across the northern and southern portions of Texas.

 Making matters better:

The second canal, the Trans-Texas, would have transported the Mississippi River water to northeast Texas, then uphill to Lubbock, with one spur veering off to New Mexico and another to the Trans-Pecos and the El Paso. The water would be pumped uphill more than 4,000 feet from the Mississippi River to Lubbock to meet the irrigation needs of the Texas High Plains....To pump the water to its final destination, the project would have required 7 million kilo-watts of electricity – more than a third of the generating capacity in Texas at the time.

 Also, a giant land grab:

In addition to the canals, 62 new reservoirs, mostly in East Texas, would have been constructed to capture another 4 million acre-feet of water for eventual shipment to Lubbock and the Rio Grande Valley.

 What was the price tag?!?

In 1968 the cost to Texas for the plan was projected by the TWDB to be $3.5 billion, with an additional $5.5 billion to come from the federal government. Some estimated that the project would ultimately have cost close to $14 billion in 1968 dollars.

 And, finally, how did things turn out?!?

For the plan to proceed, an amendment to the Texas Constitution was needed for the state to finance its share of

the project. In the end, the plan was defeated at the ballot box – by only 6,000 votes.  Thus it became the plan that never was, and thankfully so.

 Read the whole thing here; may history repeat itself this November!!!

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Blue Dot Blues: Austin vs. Texas

Blue Dot Blues has a great piece on the symbiotic cultural relationship between Austin and the rest of Texas:

Conservative Texans outside Austin have this reaction to Austin conservatives – “Really?  You must have your work cut out for you.”  And when they see an Austinite with tattoos and piercings and dyed hair, outsiders shake their heads and lament about Austin’s weirdness.  It’s more or less the opposite reaction that liberals outside Texas have.  And you know what, both sides are wrong about Austin, because both sides assume that Austin is politically and culturally radical and “different” from the rest of Texas.  After seven years here, and nearly twenty as a Texan, I think the reality is that Austin couldn’t exist anywhere but Texas.  It is left-leaning and it is less a melting pot than a chunky stew, but it’s essentially Texan, a place where cowboy boots coexist with flip-flops, where country music is as hardcore as rock (and Austin is more of a country music city than Dallas or Houston these days). It is really hard to quantify, what “Texan” is, when trying to explain it to people who haven’t experienced it.

Austin has a reputation, prides itself on, being “weird,” and it’s a reputation earned long before hippies took up residence south of the river.  Consider that the original name was “Waterloo,” a name famous even then for what happened to Napoleon when he reached the original.  Not exactly a warm, welcoming name!  This entire area, stretching into the Hill Country, has attracted people who didn’t “fit in” wherever they came from for nearly two centuries.   And Austin has always been a collegiate town, at least since Reconstruction.  Texas itself is a state for misfits, and Austin as the capital city exemplifies that.  It started out that way and remains so today.  It isn’t any wonder Texas attracts people at the rate of 1000 a day, largely other Americans who are finding they can’t keep swimming in the current elsewhere.

Why is Austin more palatable – “totally different” – to liberals?  I submit that it isn’t so much the politics as the culture, which is something Heather Wilhelm talks about in her article.  Culturally, Austin is quite different than most of the state – more casual, more diverse.  But it’s still Texan in flavor, which is probably why some liberals are completely turned off after they experience it for longer than SXSW. 

 Cahnman's Musings has always found tales of Austin's liberalism, much like Mark Twain's death, to be greatly exaggerated.  Having grown up in New York City, and having lived in and around Los Angeles for five years, we know the left.  The Austin crowd has never cut it.

Having lived in Austin for almost six years, we've always found the culture to be Lone Star drinking hipster slacker douche bags an apolitical form of libertarianism.  The problem is that those libertarian-leaners don't vote.  The local progressive mafia, by contrast, gets their people out.

The government of Austin and Travis County has never reflected the truth of its inhabitants.  City council elections haven't hit 10% turnout in two decades.  There is a good chance that will change next year.

Besides, bastions of progressivism don't defeat school bonds....

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The Psychology of Capital Cities

Weston Hicks has a phenomenal piece (*) at Agendawise.  It's about leveraging political inside baseball to drive policy outcomes, but in that process it also contains one of the best analyses of legislative psychology we've ever read.  Money quote:

Notice that when moral/cultural issues are passing, fiscal discipline is always at its highest ebb. Case in point: the 82^nd Legislature.

Why? Because fiscal restraint is moral restraint. Moral thinking puts people in the proper head space to make good, long term fiscal decisions.

Conversely, selfish thinking makes it easy to spend taxpayer money on fattening government fiefdoms.

This is why the best pro-life session  ever in Texas went with one of the best fiscally disciplined sessions ever.

Rice University’s Mark Jones wrote an article about how the 83^rd legislature was a “purple session in a red state”. With a bonanza of funds, the Rainy Day Fund was raided even more heavily than in the 82^nd Legislature, when funds were scarce, giving big spenders much better leverage to go after the RDF.

In fact, the lobby actively tries to create a sinful, self-serving environment in capitol towns because they know this is the most fertile atmosphere for getting crony legislation passed.
This is also why some of the best, most praiseworthy, and most subversive things conservative legislators can do in capitol towns is bible studies, charity activities, and making their families visible often to remind other legislators of their own familial vows.

In truth, there is a battle for atmosphere in capitol towns that the lobby knows about and fights, and that conservatives need to understand and engage with more.

It's human nature; creating "a sinful, self-serving environment" leads people to spend money.  Keeping people focused on service, by contrast, begets far better financial stewardship.  This is true in Austin, and it's even truer in Washington.

On that note, we'd like to invite readers to this prayer event at the Texas State Capitol tomorrow.

Cahnman's Musings strongly recommends you read the whole piece here.

* -- In the piece, Hicks refers to Indiana Governor Mike Pence, but former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was the one who made the 'truce' comment. [UPDATE: Hicks corrected the original piece]

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Texas Democrats Strange Definition of Women's Health

One of the great frustrations of the ongoing abortion debate in Texas is the callousness with which Democrats throw around the terms like 'women's health':

Senator Wendy Davis (D - Trial Lawyers Ft. Worth):

Senate leaders “chose to push through their red meat, partisan political agendas, sacrificing women’s options and endangering their health in the process.”

Senator Kirk Watson (D - Austin):

Many Texans are “afraid, genuinely afraid, of how this Legislature treats women,” state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said before the final vote on SB 5. He said the bill would create obstacles to safe, legal abortion services and “creates a back room process to negate women’s constitutional rights over their own bodies.”

 Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D - Austin):

Governor Perry's war on women's health advances, and as I told this reporter, it's not another “oops” moment, but another of many “ugh” moments so typical of Rick Perry’s wrongheadedness.

Cahnman's Musings finds getting your insides scraped out by some abortionist to be a strange definition of 'women's health.'

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/06/19/4949916/texas-senate-passes-tougher-abortion.html#storylink=cpy

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Texas GOP History: When John Cornyn Replaced Phil Gramm

Cahnman's Musings just had an epiphany about when the GOP descended from the (relatively) principles-based party of the 1980's and 90's to the rudderless mess it is today.  We think it came during the midterm election of 2002.  In Texas, that was the year John Cornyn replaced Phil Gramm.

(Author's note: 2002 was also the year Bob Dole's wife replaced Reaganite Jesse Helms in North Carolina.)

First elected to the United States Senate in 1984 (following three colorful (party switching) terms in the U.S. House), Phil Gramm was a key Congressional Lieutenant for President Reagan.  Over his quarter century career, Phil Gramm helped launch and maintain the quarter century Reagan boom.  In 2002, he retired from public service.

John Cornyn, by contrast, was a close confidant of Karl Rove.  Rove helped launch Cornyn's career in the 1990's.  Over his decade in Congress, John Cornyn's record speaks for itself.

The mess in today's Republican party has many origins, but replacing a principled Reganite like Phil Gramm with a Rovian jellyfish like John Cornyn explains a lot.

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FEMA's Politicized Decisionmaking Blesses Texas (in Disguise)

"²⁰ But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive."
Genesis 50:20

It's official; the federal government has told West, TX to pound sand:



This is disgraceful, but not surprising.  Given his track record, it's predictable that FEMA under Barack Obama would do something like this.  But there's a bigger lesson.

Texans should take this incident as a parable about Washington.

Federal 'assistance', under either party, is a trap.  Money from Washington ALWAYS comes with strings.  Avoiding those strings is more important than whatever pittance might eventually get through the bureaucracy.

FEMA's decision allows West to rebuild without interference from Washington.  Instead of bureaucrats, our churches and civic organizations will take the lead.  Instead of conforming to some arbitrary standard set 1500 miles away, we can do it right.

Obviously, it sucks that Washington gets to keep our money.  But so what?!?  Does anyone actually think they're going to get anything back once the money goes down the Washington D.C. rathole?!?  This is a great debate point, but it doesn't help rebuild West.  Groveling at the feet of Washington D.C. can only make the problem worse.

Step aside Washington; the private sector will rebuild West, TX.

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Author's Note: Personally, we think the $10 million West needs to rebuild its roads would be an appropriate use of the rainy day fund.

Author's Note II: West says they need $90 million total; I'd bet if we band together and keep the government out of things, we can do it for a fraction of that.

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Can Obama's Organizing Army Take Texas?!?

New information on Battleground Texas from the American Prospect

• Why Democrats should be extremely cautious:

 Republicans have continued to gain congressional and legislative seats over the past decade, even as Texas’s Latino population has swelled....Bird and Brown cite Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada as models for turning out Latinos. But none of those states has more than 516,000 Latino citizens total—which is fewer than the number of Latino citizens in Houston’s Harris County alone.

•  Then, we get into nuts and bolts:

The initial focus will be to create a massive network of Democratic organizers and volunteers across the state....A full-scale plan for “getting that started” won’t be rolled out until this summer. But Jeremy Bird offers a few more details. In the next couple of election cycles, Battleground Texas will target “battleground zones”—races that organizers believe could either be winnable or could help Democrats build infrastructure by training new candidates and registering voters. A battleground zone could be a city council race with a promising young Latino candidate in Waco or a state House race in a heavily minority district in Houston. The idea is to seize every viable opportunity to build new Democratic networks around the state, creating new voters along the way.

•  Recent examples of when this sort of thing has worked(*):

The leaders of Battleground Texas say there’s reason for optimism—partly because there is some recent history of grassroots politics working in Texas. During the 2010 midterm elections, Austin Democratic Party Chair Andy Brown selected 21 largely black and Latino precincts where turnout had traditionally been low and pledged to run the type of hardcore turnout campaigns usually reserved for the wealthier, whiter parts of town. With a paid field staff organizing volunteers, the Travis County Democrats knocked on every registered voter’s door in those precincts two or three times and called each one at least twice. The effort paid off: Although 2010 was the worst year in history for Texas Democrats, 18 percent more ballots were cast in Travis County and the number of straight-ticket Democratic voters went up 54 percent. “There was nothing fancy about it,” Brown says. “It was a really well-run field program.”

A similar strategy has also worked wonders in Dallas. In 2006, Democrats in Texas’s oldest Republican stronghold bucked convention by spending as much on phone-banking and door-to-door campaigning as on media ads and mailers. The results were stunning: Democrats swept all 47 local offices, including 40 judgeships that had previously belonged to Republicans.

 (Author's Note: We were lived in Travis County during the 2010 election and it was not clean.)

• The Bottom Line for both parties:

If Democrats can galvanize Houston’s nonvoters, they will [Author's Note: could] be well on their way to turning Texas blue. But all those years of ignoring minorities will make it a formidable task. 

 The whole article is worth a read, but it doesn't change anything.  Conservatives across the state of Texas need to build up from the local level.  And we've already had some successes.

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Update (6/11/2013): Agendawise calls this a bluff.

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Could Katrina Pierson challenge Senator John Cornyn?!?

Twenty minutes ago, in response to this article about John Cornyn's potential support of the U.S. Senate amnesty bill, Cahnman's Musings joked with Katrina Pierson about running against John Cornyn in next year's U.S. Senate primary; upon further reflection, this could work.

John Cornyn desperately needs a primary challenge, we just need a candidate.  Katrina Pierson is a warrior for liberty who would begin this race with instant credibility.  Cahnman's Musings encourages her to give this race serious consideration.

#PiersonPosse.

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Update: Cahnman's Musings was just accused of using a provocative headline to start a rumor, we have two responses:

a) Duh
b) Sometimes a baseless rumor in June becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy in September. 

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How Vladimir Putin Played Idiot Texas Secessionists Like a Fiddle

These people allowed themselves to be used in a Kremlin propaganda video; how stupid could you be?!?



Highlights:

• They make some decent points about money, but this isn't the solution.
• Author's Note: THIS is.

• These people are a bunch of civil war re-enacter dipshits.

• Ignore the Fed -- That's actually not a bad idea.

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VETO SB 346: An Open Letter to Governor Rick Perry

Dear Mr. Governor,

As the national IRS scandal grows, the Texas Legislature has sent an equally disturbing bill to you.

SB 346 is a threat to political free association in the state of Texas, as the Wall St. Journal details:

The bill requires that all social-welfare and nonprofit groups that spend more than $25,000 a year on politics report the details of their spending. The groups, which file under sections 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) of the tax code, would also have to disclose their donors, providing a new opportunity for advocacy groups to intimidate businesses and others from participating in elections.

This poorly-written, wide-ranging, bill is certain to produce unintended consequences no one will like.

 ConservativeHQ has more:

Even if you are not based in Texas, if you donate to or lead an organization that publishes and distributes a non-partisan voter guide on state races or a newsletter on what is happening on your issues in State Houses around the country -- that includes coverage of Texas politics -- you could very well find yourself subject to this law....Even if they live in another state, anyone who supports an organization that helped Tea Party backed Senator Ted Cruz or that might report on the goings-on in the Texas legislature on issues such as the right to life, home schooling or traditional marriage might suddenly find their name and how much they gave to a 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 in another state disclosed in filings to the State of Texas and published in newspapers across the country. 

 Cahnman's Musings respectfully requests you VETO SB 346.

Sincerely,
Adam Cahn
Austin, TX
May, 23 2013

P.S. Readers can contact Governor Perry via. Telephone or Twitter:

Telephone: (512) 463-2000
Twitter: @GovernorPerry

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Open Letter from Conservatives to the #TXLEGE

To triage this ongoing disaster of a legislative session, fourteen conservative groups have released the following open letter to individual members of the Texas Legislature:

May 10, 2013

Honorable Members of the Texas Legislature: 

The Lone Star State has become a model of economic growth through careful adherence to

thoughtful fiscal discipline.However, there are some trying to push the state in the directionof more government, more spending, and more taxes.

We strongly urge the Legislature not to deviate from what has been a highly successful path.

Put simply: the Legislature should neither exceed the state's spending limit—by any amount—nor should dollars be removed from the state's Economic Stabilization Fund (ESF) to pay for ongoing government expenses or new programs.

California stands as an example for us. In the 1980s, California's economy was thriving and tax receipts robust. Over the course of several decades, however, California lawmakers spent everything they had and ran up debt to boot. Today, the lusterless Golden State is no longer thought of as the nation’s economic powerhouse, and its finances are in notoriously poor shape.

Texas must avoid becoming like California.

Ensuring that Texas does not suffer this fate begins with prudent decision-making on the Economic Stabilization Fund. The ESF was established to address shortfalls in the budget arising from economic downturns. By allowing that fund to go untapped in recent years and maintaining a high level of liquidity, the state now enjoys the strongest possible bond rating— a tangible benefit to taxpayers.

Drawing out dollars for expenses that could (and should) otherwise be budgeted from General Revenues not only reduces liquidity and signals irresponsibility, but sets a dangerous precedent.

Similarly, in a time when revenues have increased more than 30 percent, lawmakers voting to exceed the state's spending limit put the Lone Star State on a collision course with future economic turbulence.

With the current administration in Washington doubling down on high taxes, increased debt, and downgraded credit ratings, it is more important than ever that Texas not downgrade itself.

Conservatives recognize that Texas has set a high standard and must continue to follow a

higher path. Legislators should reject calls to raid the ESF, and stand firm against “busting the

cap.”

Signatories:

60 Plus Association

ALEC

Americans for Prosperity—Texas

Americans for Tax Reform

Council for Citizens Against Government Waste

Grassroots America We the People

Institute for Policy Innovation

National Taxpayers Union

Texas Eagle Forum

Texans for Fiscal Responsibility

Texas Legislature’s TEA Party Caucus Advisory Committee

Texas Public Policy Action

Texas Public Policy Foundation

Young Conservatives of Texas

 Cahnman's Musings endorses this letter.

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Obama v. Texas in One Chart

Need we say anything else?!?

(h/t WILLISMS)

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EXCLUSIVE: Colorado Republican Shares Hard Learned Lessons for Texas

(Author's Note: Sean Duffy is in the center of the picture, next to Santorum)

Today, Cahnman's Musings was blessed to speak for 45 minutes with Sean Duffy former deputy Chief of Staff to former Colorado Governor Bill Owens.  Almost a decade ago, Sean Duffy was a source of ours when we worked with Robert Novak.  During that time, the left was in the early stages of its takeover of Colorado.

Since the election of 2012, as the left has announced its intention to use the Colorado model in Texas, Cahnman's Musings thought back to those conversations we had with Sean Duffy in 2004 many times.  In 2004, there was something happening on the ground in Colorado that we did not understand at the time.  Having been on the front-lines of those battles, Sean Duffy shared his thoughts with Cahnman's Musings:



Highlights: 

Education -- Early in their rise to power, the left demagogued Education.

• In the Early 2000's education in Colorado was a mess.  Amendment 23, passed in 2000, created a mandate in the state constitution that required the state to spend at least inflation PLUS 1% on education.  This chaotic policy environment gave the left an opportunity to operate in Colorado in a way that doesn't exist in Texas today.

• In discussing education: "Moms and Dads like substance....There's ways to deal with this [education] in a substantive way where you can get Moms and Dads to focus."
• Author's Note: In Texas, that means School Choice, School Choice, and School Choice.

• "If we fight over dollars we lose, if we fight over substance we win."
•  Author's Note: I think that's the most important line in the whole interview.

Tactics of the Left

• The left likes to "create chaos and drop a piano on someone's head."

• The left systematically took out key Republicans in the state legislature by demogoguing particular votes and spending multiples of what had previously been spent in state legislative races; they knew who to pick off.
• Author's note: In Texas, my educated guess is that Donna Campbell and Giovanni Capriglione are the two most likely candidates.
• In a hilarious and ironic turn of events, this point might be the silver lining of Joe Straus' leadership. If there's one thing members of the Texas House know how to do, it's raise money and campaign.  No vulnerable Republican in the Texas House will ever lack for money.

• The left has "an extraordinary ground game"
• "The Left loves to go door-to-door."
•  Day in, day out, door-to-door organizing.
• Teachers "literally go door-to-door."
•  "We just don't do that"...."[W]e don't cultivate neighborhoods the way the left does."

•  Ken Salazar 2004:
• Ran as a moderate and was well liked.

•  "The spend a lot of time ripping our guys' heads off and we don't do as well in terms of finding the 1 or 2 message points that really unravels somebody in the public mind."

 Differences with Texas:

• Texas conservatives already have the seven capabilities; we can get a LOT better in how we deploy them, but we're building from a solid foundation.
• "This is the bread and butter of the left; they stand up organizations that do each of those things and they fund them."
• Intellectual Ammunition: Texas Public Policy Foundation.
• Mobilize for elections: Anyone who volunteered for Ted Cruz knows how many people were block-walking in 100 degree heat heading into that LATE JULY runoff!
• Pursuing investigations: Who uncovered CSCOPE?!?
• Strategic Litigation: Does the name Greg Abbott ring a bell?!?

•  Colorado was never the Republican stronghold that Texas is today.
• Bill Owens was the first Republican governor in 25 years.
• Ken Salazar was an incumbent state Attorney General before he was elected to the U.S. Senate; in Texas terms that would be like having Joaquin Castro serve alongside Rick Perry.
• In Texas, by contrast, no Democrat has won statewide office since 1994.

•  Entrepreneurs in the Minority communities.
• Texas conservatives have people like Rafael Cruz.

How you beat the left:

• "You've gotta get into the specifics of where the dollars are going and pound the crap out of them!"

Finally, via e-mail, Sean Duffy shares his thoughts on how conservatives, in general, can improve our messaging:

I just think we do so much better when we use emotion, and strong compelling narrative to back up our points.  Whether in charter schools or school choice, folks are moved by the plight of eager mothers who are fighting to get their kids educated.  We are moved by entrepreneurs who succeed despite humble beginnings.  More and more, it’s the narrative that has to be developed to bolster our policy points…particularly in the new media environment.

 Bottom Line: Texas conservatives must always remain vigilant, but we're a LOT better prepared for this fight than the left thinks we are.

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Texas U.S. Senate 2014: Draft Rafael Cruz

John Cornyn needs a primary challenge; Rafael Cruz is the strongest candidate Texas conservatives can field.

If you were involved with Senator Cruz's campaign last year, you probably met his father.  If so, you know why he's the strongest candidate.  If you've never met him, just understand that Rafael Cruz is the man who taught Senator Cruz to cherish freedom.

In 1957, Rafael Cruz was an 18 year old in Batista's Cuba.  After being arrested and brutally tortured, Rafael Cruz fled to Texas with with $100 pinned to his underwear.  Unable to speak English, he took a job washing dishes at the University of Texas for fifty cents an hour.  From UT, Rafael Cruz founded a successful data processing company for the energy industry.  He is also a Baptist pastor!

As he lived the American dream, Rafael Cruz outgrew the fantasies of his Castro-supporting youth.  As he explained:

"The people are allowed to buy a pound of meat per month," he said.  "If you violate the rules, you get thrown in a prison cell for years."  He told us of a friend from Cuba who visited Texas and went to dinner at a restaurant.  "When he saw the size of the steak on his plate, he broke down crying," Rafael said.  "'This would feed my family for a month.'"

 Texans deserve that kind of representation in the United States Senate.

When something works well, you keep doing it.  The lessons taught in the Cruz household three decades ago have blessed Texas.  Texas voters should leverage those lessons for maximum return.

John Cornyn is a nice guy.  That's the problem.  Nice guys like John Cornyn, who lack the internal fortitude to defeat this President (or any potential 2016 successor), are why the Republican party keeps finishing last.  John Cornyn voted for TARP.  John Cornyn voted for the 2011 Debt Ceiling deal.  John Cornyn voted for the Fiscal Cliff.  Senators never improve in third terms.

The best way to replace John Cornyn is to draft Rafael Cruz; it's that simple.

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Empower Texans: Obligation to Cut

A battle is brewing this Thursday over Texas' state budget; Empower Texans has the details:

Will taxpayers actually see some gumption from Republicans during Thursday’s debate on the state budget? Several GOP freshmen have pre-filed amendments seeking to cut wasteful government spending in favor of addressing the state’s major unfunded teacher pension liability. How the rest of the GOP caucus votes will be telling.

Several Republican House freshmen have pre-filed amendments to SB 1 – the state’s budget up for debate on Thursday – that would shift wasteful government spending to the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) in order to address the pension fund’s estimated $27 Billion unfunded liability.

....

While unfunded pension liabilities are a serious problem for state and local governments that require systematic reforms – the state cannot ignore the growing liabilities of the TRS – the fifth largest public pension in the U.S. as of last September. Cutting wasteful government in order to fulfill the state’s current obligation is responsible budgeting.

The action will take place on Thursday evening of this week; if you have a few moments, please tune in throughout the night and let your legislators know how you feel.

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Forbes: Can Austin become the Dubai of the United States?!?

Forbes has a great article on how the Tenth Amendment might still save the United States; after illustrating how Washington has usurped the functions of local and state jurisdictions over the past century, the author asks:

Can American cities ever hope to be the platform where the future plays out again? This will never be our fate as long as all eyes turn to Washington. America is not one big city. Local initiative by people who own the local economy is the only solution. Individuals are much better at detecting market opportunity than government. In fact, America’s greatest strength has been its capacity to reinvent our economy by allowing entrepreneurs to disturb incumbent industries and in the course of this process make cities themselves more competitive.

Happily, because America still has states that are ready to turn a blind eye towards Washington there is hope that some American cities will be global players in the future. In the face of the chronic slow growth/near recession conditions that Washington appears powerless to solve, Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Florida and Tennessee have encouraged local economies by making policy much more conducive to business. The cities in these states, with their concentration of talent and workers, are certain to benefit. When states eliminate income taxes, lower regulatory burdens, and municipalities manage themselves along fiscally conservative principals, businesses intent on growing will come and, importantly, so will the innovators and entrepreneurs who will make the next generation of businesses.

If any American cities are likely to be included on a list of world beating places in fifty years it is likely that Austin will be first among them. Perhaps because they are Texans, its elite has never seen Washington as the place where the future can be seen or certainly not made. Austin is a hotbed of innovation and business creation. Fueled by a great university and benefiting from a culture that is happy to show anyone how to get things done, its growth over the last two decades has been remarkable. Its governor taunts California on the radio! But, beware, Austin, until Washington sees that our economy is composed by people working in it, close to it, and owning it, all of which happens in cities just like yours, don’t expect anyone will mistake you for Dubai in fifty years.

 Living in Austin, I'll offer a few thoughts:

• The University of Texas' reputation is greatly exaggerated.

• Many local elites in Austin LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE what Washington is selling.

• At the end of the day, localities and states that reduce their exposure to Washington will emerge from the coming global economic cluster[REDACTED] stronger relative to those who refuse to see the obvious.  Thus, any city in Texas qualifies.  Any effort to protect Austin from Washington will come from average citizens, NOT the local elite.

I hope this helps.

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ACTION ALERT: HB 1057 -- Keep Planned Parenthood out of Sex Education

Via Texas Values:

Today, two important bills will have hearings in the Public Education Committee of the Texas House. The Texas Parental Control Accountability Act, HB 1057 authored by Rep. Leach, would ban abortion providers and any entity or individual affiliated with an abortion provider from providing sex education instruction or materials in Texas public schools. Public schools should not be another avenue for abortion providers like Planned Parenthood to recruit and push their agenda on children. The Senate version, SB 521 authored by Sen. Paxton, has already passed the Education Committee in the Senate.

....

Action Alert: Please contact the members of the Texas House Committee on Public Education and express your support for...[this]...commonsense bills – HB 1057

Texas House Committee on Public Education
Chair, Rep. Jimmy Don Aycock (R)
Phone: 512-463-0684 | Email: jimmie.aycock@house.state.tx.us

This is the type of low profile bill where a small group of citizens can have an outsized impact; please take 2 minutes to call, Facebook, and Tweet this information.

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Common Core, Texas, and Federal Blood Money

"The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower is servant to the lender." Proverbs 22:7 

With Common Core blowing up in the news, let's remember why Texas still has a fighting chance to resist: in 2009/10, we didn't need the money.

Back in 2009, Texas had a budget surplus.  We were one of the few states that didn't have to beg Washington.  What a blessing that was in hindsight.

Texas didn't need the money.

Federal money ALWAYS comes with strings attached.  Sometimes, it takes years for those strings to emerge, but they always do.  A strong balance sheet has enabled Texas to practice financial abstinence.

TEXAS.  DIDN'T.  NEED.  THE.  MONEY.

A strong balance sheet allows states to resist all sorts of crap.  Common Core in Texas is just the latest example.  Abstinence begets freedom, a worthwhile reward for prudent financial stewardship.

Because Texas doesn't need Washington's blood money.

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CSCOPE Data Collection (Common Core as well)

Glenn Beck has a chilling report on how CSCOPE and Common Core are collecting oodles of infomation about your children:



Highlights:

• Began with the Stimulus in 2009.
• $5 billion for 'finance incentive grants'

• Race to the Top
• Thinly concealed bribery for the states.
• Money from Washington ALWAYS comes with strings attached.
• In this case the strings included improving collection and use of data.

• All the usual suspects of bad guys are involved.
• GE
• Microsoft
• Apollo Alliance/Tides Foundation

Highlights:

• G.E. gave $18 million to Common Core

• Microsoft wants to run the operation.

• Student monitoring from Kindergarten to age 20.

• Act local and statewide.

Highlights:

• Evaluating how to place you for careers at really young ages.

• Personal Note: To me, this whole enterprise reminds me of Brave New World.
• Predictive Testing -- Neuropsychological testing performed by Kindergarten teachers

Highlights:

• Bug the crap out of your local and state legislators 

• Educate the Public

• Protect your medical records at all cost!!!

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