TexBytes

Texas legislators should consider investing in the necessary technology to properly serve its wards in its deficient foster care system instead of spending their time in populist pontificating against “Big Tech.”

Loads of new federal dollars for expanded broadband access presents Texas (and other states) an opportunity to make broadband available to every resident. But the state will have to stay laser-focused on reaching unserved communities instead of taking the easier road and creating additional competition for existing broadband customers.

Conservatives say they hate crony capitalism, but a bill that makes it illegal for a new competitor providing a legal product or service to enter a market takes crony capitalism to a whole new level.

Austin hopes to address its affordable housing problem with a $925 million bond issue. 

There is no principled conservative objection to the privately financed Texas Central Rail project, but those trying to kill the project ARE violating several conservative principles.

Restrictions, such as what exists for now in Texas, simply increase health care cost, restrict opportunity and choice for patients, and smack of paternalistic big government.

As broken as education funding in Texas is, school choice is poised to be the carrot legislators need to make substantive changes to the current system.

As yet another example of regulation hampering innovation, telemedicine in Texas is being held back by the Texas Medical Board.

Texas was one of the leaders in imposing the renewable portfolio standard requiring power generators to use a specific amount of wind energy. And thanks to new legislation, the state may be one of the first to repeal that mandate.

There is no sacred principle of “local control” that supersedes the structure of legal authority.