With only a few days left of the ongoing 88th Legislative Session, state lawmakers have presented a Conference Committee Report for House Bill 1 that represents perhaps the largest increase in spending in Texas history; it is certainly the biggest…

Taxpayers have a lot to be thankful for what seems to be a compromise between the House and Senate with the latest version of Senate Bill 3. As passed by the House, this bill includes $12 billion for a 15-cent…

On Thursday, the Texas House of Representatives considered House Bill 5 (HB 5), or what was dubbed the “Texas Jobs and Security Act” by both the legislation’s author, Republican State Rep. Todd Hunter (Corpus Christi), and Texas House Speaker Dade…

Executive Summary A lot of people know about Texas’ $32.7 billion budget surplus. What most don’t know is that the Texas Legislature has $78.4 billion more in state funds to spend this year than it spent in 2021 and that…

The 88th Legislative Session is now halfway complete, and legislation seeking to provide property tax relief is starting to move through the legislative process. Both chambers have provided some compression of school district maintenance and operations (M&O) property taxes, which…

Texans for Fiscal Responsibility (TFR) recently published a new report revealing the abysmal numbers related to property tax levies released by the Texas comptroller’s office. The major takeaway? The Texas Legislature continues to trumpet their “historic tax reform” package from…

On Monday, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick announced his legislative priorities for the ongoing 88th Legislative Session. Generally speaking, low bill numbers are reserved by leadership in both legislative chambers to reflect their prioritized legislation. As such, Patrick has indicated…

Today, the Federal Open Market Committee released the minutes from their most recent meeting. The most significant news was that they hiked the interest rate by 25 basis points to give us a total federal rate of 4.5% (up from…

Recently, the House and Senate released their versions of the appropriation bill. House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1 respectively lay out the biennial budget for the 2024-2025 biennium. Texans for Fiscal Responsibility has already highlighted that $15 billion in…

What is Festivus? Finding its origins in the hit ’90s sitcom Seinfeld from an episode entitled “The Strike”, the character George Costanza’s family celebrates a holiday called Festivus as an alternative to Christmas, and a tongue-in-cheek protest to the commercialism surrounding…

With the 88th Legislative Session set to begin in January, we are increasingly asked by taxpayers and lawmakers alike what winning looks like to Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. That is what we are going to discuss in this article. As…

On Monday, lawmakers in both the Texas House of Representatives and Texas Senate began the process of prefiling legislation ahead of the upcoming 88th Legislative Session, and hundreds of bills have already been filed. 2023 will be a contentious year…

Recently, Truth in Accounting released its 2022 Financial State of the States Report analyzing the financial health of all 50 states in the United States. They have released this annual report for the past 13 years. According to the report,…

For all of Texas’ economic successes, the ever-increasing property tax burden on Texas taxpayers casts a long and dark shadow. In 2021, the Tax Foundation reported that Texas had the sixth most burdensome property tax in the United States. Just…

Last Friday, Texas taxpayers had a chance to watch the one and only debate between former U.S. Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D) and incumbent Governor Greg Abbott (R) before the November general election. The two addressed several issues important to Texans,…