The latest economy news from The Texas Tribune.
The executive director of the progressive Center for Public Policy Priorities and the director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, debate the best way to dig out of Texas' multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall. Full Story
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While the right and left don't agree on much, both sides stipulate that the state's budget mess is a multibillion-dollar problem. In the debut of our new video series, the executive director of the progressive Center for Public Policy Priorities, former state district judge Scott McCown, and the director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, former state Rep. Talmadge Heflin, debate the best way to dig us out of the hole — and how we got into it in the first place. Full Story
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Ramshaw and the Houston Chronicle's Terri Langford on incidents of abuse and mistreatment at residential treatment centers, M. Smith on the state Republican Party platform and 10th Amendment embracers, Galbraith on a pipeline project raising crude concerns and the most important word in water law, Ramsey on former officeholders who are now lobbyists and the possibility of a speaker's race, Grissom on a fight over solar power in Marfa, Hamilton and Aguilar on the TxDOT audit, Philpott on budget cuts affecting school districts and my conversation with Dallas County D.A. Craig Watkins: The best of our best from June 7-11, 2010. Full Story
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Lawmakers have said it before, and today they said it again: Sweeping top-down change is needed within the Texas Department of Transportation. Full Story
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Citing budget cuts and a decline is revenue, the USCIS is proposing fee increases for more than two dozen immigration-related documents. Full Story
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The state's tax on corporations could end up half a billion dollars shy of Comptroller Susan Combs' predictions, officials with her office say. Full Story
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Fresh off of asking for five percent cuts from state agencies and actually approving $1.2 billion of what was proposed, the state's top three leaders are asking for ten percent cuts in the amounts the agencies will be seeking next time the Legislature meets. Full Story
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A majority of Texans believe the state is on the right track, while a plurality thinks the country is on the wrong track, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. Full Story
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A new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that 57 percent of Texans favor legalizing casino gambling as a means to draw down the coming budget shortfall, but only 21 percent support higher taxes. Full Story
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More than two-thirds of Texans say their confidence in the state's public schools ranges from shaky to nonexistent, according to the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. A majority of Texans believe that crime, low academic standards, lack of parental involvement and not enough funding are "major" problems that public schools face — but two-thirds say "too much religion in the schools" is not a problem. Full Story
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Coming soon to a large pink state capitol building in this very state: A day-long seminar on slot machines and casinos and all that, especially as it pertains to the state budget. Full Story
The latest employment numbers show that more Texans than ever before have jobs, but the state is still struggling with its highest unemployment rate since 1987. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports on the good and bad news in the latest stats. Full Story
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The number of Texans working was up in April, but so was the number of people looking for work. Full Story
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The economic slump is still being felt around Texas and the country, but industries and data are reporting positive signs. KUT’s Mose Buchele reports on what to make of potential green shoots. Full Story
The state won't need new taxes or expanded legal gambling to cover a budget shortfall next session, but higher fees and more budget cuts are a possibility, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said at this morning's TribLive interview in Austin. Full Story
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Texas lawmakers have been fishing for ideas on how to fill a looming budget deficit when they return to Austin in 2011. Based on new projections out today, they’re gonna need a bigger boat. Full Story
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The insurance plan for state employees will have a $140.4 million shortfall next year — and that's the least of its problems. The projected shortfall for the two years after that is $880 million, and it will take another $476 million to replenish the legally required contingency fund. The Employee Retirement System and state leaders are surprisingly mellow about the red ink, saying growth in the cost of health benefits has actually stabilized at around 9 percent. But steady and large increases in costs threaten to erode the program, leaving policymakers to consider cuts in benefits, to negotiate lower prices or to find vast amounts of new money. Full Story
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The Speaker doesn't have anyone studying gambling in advance of the next legislative session, and a leading Democrat says legislators ought to get together on their own to consider the issue. Full Story
If history is any guide, the Legislature will turn to accounting illusions to mask large portions of a budget shortfall of at least $11 billion. Trouble is, such trickery is a bet on the economy roaring back to life — and that's no sure thing. Full Story
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E. Smith interviews Gov. Rick Perry for the Trib and Newsweek, Philpott dissects the state's budget mess in a weeklong series, Hamilton looks at whether Bill White is or was a trial lawyer, M. Smith finds experts all over the state anxiously watching a court case over who owns the water under our feet, Aguilar reports on the battle between Fort Stockton and Clayton Williams Jr. over water in West Texas, Ramshaw finds a population too disabled to get on by itself but not disabled enough to get state help and Miller spends a day with a young man and his mother coping with that situation, Ramsey peeks in on software that lets the government know whether its e-mail messages are getting read and who's reading what, a highway commissioner reveals just how big a hole Texas has in its road budget, Grissom does the math on the state's border cameras and learns they cost Texans about $153,800 per arrest, and E. Smith interviews Karen Hughes on the difference between corporate and political P.R. — and whether there's such a thing as "Obama Derangement Syndrome." The best of our best from April 19 to April 23, 2010. Full Story
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