Originally published on Substack. 

How old were you on September 11, 2001? I was 19 years old.

I was a student at San Jacinto College in the Houston area, still playing drums in a rock band called Sindrome and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life.

Then everything changed.

Like millions of Americans, I watched the images coming out of New York almost unable to comprehend what I was seeing. A plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then another. The Pentagon was hit. Another plane went down in Pennsylvania.

America was under attack.

Twenty-five years later, those words still hit me.

But what I remember isn’t only what was happening thousands of miles away. I remember what it felt like at home in Houston.

Could Houston Be Next?

We lived near one of the largest concentrations of refineries and chemical plants in the world.

I remember being scared that the Houston Ship Channel or the chemical plants around Pasadena could be attacked next.

That fear wasn’t completely irrational. Plants along the Ship Channel immediately tightened security⁠. Facilities in Pasadena, Deer Park, La Porte, and elsewhere went on heightened alert. Some sent nonessential workers home.
Nobody knew what was coming next.

I remember people rushing to gas stations. People were buying supplies. Rumors were everywhere. Everyone was trying to figure out whether another attack was coming and where it might happen.

It was wild.

For someone who was 19, it was also the first time I really understood how quickly the world you take for granted can change.

What I Remember Most

Nearly 3,000 innocent people were murdered⁠ that morning. But when I think back on September 11, I also remember what happened afterward.

Americans came together.

People lined up to give blood. First responders ran toward buildings while everyone else was running away. Churches filled. Flags appeared everywhere. Strangers helped strangers.

We prayed.

For a little while, many of the things that normally divided us seemed much smaller. That has stayed with me.
I wish it didn’t take tragedy for us to remember how much we have in common.

Twenty-Five Years Later

Today, I’m 44. I’m no longer that 19-year-old college kid playing drums around Houston.

I’m a husband. A father of three. An economist. And my children are growing up in a country where September 11 is something they learn about in history.

That realization gets me.

They didn’t experience the confusion of that morning. They didn’t watch the towers fall live on television wondering what was happening. They didn’t feel the uncertainty of wondering whether Houston, Washington, Los Angeles, or somewhere else might be next.

And I’m thankful for that. I pray they never experience anything like it. But I want them to understand it.

I want them to know about the 2,977 people who were killed⁠, the firefighters and police officers who climbed those stairs, the passengers of Flight 93 who fought back, and the Americans who answered the call to serve afterward.

This year, on the 25th anniversary, we once again honor those lives and sacrifices. I also want them to understand what we learned about freedom. It is precious. It can be threatened. And it is worth defending.

Never Forget

Twenty-five years is a long time. Yet I can still picture that 19-year-old version of myself trying to understand what was happening.

I remember the fear. But I also remember the courage. I remember the uncertainty. But I also remember the faith. I remember an America that was wounded but refused to be defeated.

So today I’ll do what Americans promised to do 25 years ago. I’ll remember.

I’ll pray for the families who never got their loved ones back. I’ll thank God for the first responders who ran toward danger. I’ll pray for those who have defended our country since. And I’ll pray that my children, and their children, never have to experience a day like September 11, 2001.

But I hope they always understand why we remember it. Freedom is precious. Life is precious. Our country is worth it.

Never forget. 🇺🇸
​
Until next time, God bless you, and let people prosper.

Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, but can America build the energy and infrastructure needed to remain the global leader?

Adam Thierer, Resident Senior Fellow for Technology and Innovation at the R Street Institute, returns to the Let People Prosper Show to discuss data centers, energy, AI and jobs, competition with China, online age verification, free speech, and the future of technology policy.

We examine why data-center moratoriums and other restrictions could weaken investment and innovation, whether fears of an AI-driven jobs apocalypse are justified, and how policymakers can address legitimate harms without replacing permissionless innovation with government control.

We also discuss the stakes of the U.S.-China AI competition. America’s advantage is not central planning. It is a system that allows entrepreneurs, workers, investors, and innovators to experiment and compete.

The goal should be to address real harms while preserving the freedom and infrastructure necessary for innovation and human flourishing.

Watch or listen to the full episode and find more of my work at VanceGinn.com and VanceGinn.Substack.com.

Originally published at Kansas Policy Institute. 

Kansas went from leading the nation in economic growth to growing at less than half the national rate in just two quarters. That should get every Kansas policymaker’s attention.

Kansas real GDP surged 6.5 percent at an annual rate in the third quarter of 2025, the fastest growth in the country and well above the 4.4 percent U.S. rate. By the first quarter of 2026, however, Kansas real GDP growth had slowed to just 1.0 percent, compared with 2.1 percent nationally.

There’s good news in the latest Kansas economy. But these swings are a reminder that one great quarter, especially one heavily influenced by agriculture, isn’t the same thing as sustained economic growth. And sustained growth is what Kansas needs to compete for workers, families, businesses, and investment.

Kansas did outperform some neighbors in the first quarter. Colorado grew 1.4 percent, while real GDP declined 0.9 percent in Nebraska and 0.1 percent in Iowa.

Income is where Kansas really stood out. Kansas personal income increased an impressive 7.7 percent annualized in the first quarter, more than twice the 3.4 percent national rate. Kansas matched Iowa’s 7.7 percent growth, though Nebraska did even better at 8.8 percent.

That’s good news for Kansans. But we want those income gains accompanied by stronger production, productivity, and job creation so they can continue. And jobs are where I’d be most concerned.

The latest BLS numbers show Kansas had about 1.47 million nonfarm jobs in July, up just 0.4 percent from a year earlier. Construction was a bright spot at 5.0 percent growth, but the overall job market isn’t expanding quickly.

The unemployment rate was a solid 3.8 percent. But Kansas’ labor force declined from roughly 1.58 million in February to 1.56 million in July. So, yes, celebrate low unemployment. But Kansas needs more people working, starting businesses, and moving here.

That becomes even clearer when we look beyond our immediate neighbors. Kansas has roughly 3 million people, putting it in the same general class as Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Nevada, and Utah. Some of those states have done a much better job attracting people and capital.

Kansas ranks only 30th in economic outlook in the latest Rich States, Poor States rankings. That’s not terrible, but Kansas shouldn’t settle for the middle of the pack.

So what should policymakers do?

I wouldn’t respond with more subsidies, targeted tax breaks, or other flawed government attempts to pick the next winning industry. Those policies favor some businesses at everyone else’s expense.

I’d start with spending.

The Responsible Kansas Budget shows state-funded spending increased from $7.2 billion in FY2005 to $22.3 billion in FY2026. Had spending followed population growth plus inflation, it would have been about $12.6 billion. That benchmark matters because population growth plus inflation roughly reflects growth in the average taxpayer’s ability to fund government. Government shouldn’t consistently grow faster than the people paying for it.

Reduce and restrain spending, then use surpluses to permanently lower income-tax rates toward zero. Reduce property taxes, regulatory, occupational-licensing, and housing barriers. Expand education freedom so children can develop the skills needed for tomorrow’s economy.

Kansas doesn’t need government to create prosperity. It needs government to provide the conditions for Kansans to create it.

Kansas has the workers, businesses, agriculture, manufacturing, energy, and communities to compete with anyone. Give Kansans more freedom to work, invest, build, and innovate, and let people prosper.

Originally published on Substack.

Americans too often go to sleep worried about how they can afford housing, health care, insurance, college, electricity, and water.
​
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deserves credit for making affordability a priority. But too much of his new Affordability Agenda⁠ reads more like campaign messaging than a coherent economic strategy.

Abbott promises the average homeowner roughly $3,000 in annual property-tax savings, property-tax cuts of up to 50%, lower insurance and health costs, cheaper college, more affordable housing, and lower electricity bills.

Those are appealing promises. The harder question is how to deliver them. My policy guides⁠ point toward a consistent answer: restrain government spending, lower tax rates, remove barriers to supply, protect property rights, and let prices, profits, losses, and competition coordinate economic activity.

Empower Texas Taxpayers
​
This should be Abbott’s strongest plank. Texas property-tax levies reached about $89.4 billion in 2025, up from $48.8 billion in 2014. Texas Policy Research⁠ calculates that levies increased more than 83% over that period and about 378% since 1998. If they had merely followed population growth and inflation, 2025 levies would have been about $58 billion, roughly $31.5 billion less.

That is why Abbott’s push for tighter spending limits and stronger voter approval of tax increases is so important. Taxes ultimately fund spending. But bigger homestead exemptions and appraisal caps are weaker. Exemptions help selected homeowners while leaving renters, businesses, and others outside the benefit. Appraisal caps distort values and create unequal treatment among similar properties.
​
The best bang for the buck is tax-rate compression. Based on recent analysis provided by Chairman Bettencourt in a Senate hearing on local government, Texas Policy Research notes that about $38 billion of the current $51 billion property-tax relief commitment goes to school M&O rate compression, compared with about $13 billion for exemptions. Compression lowers the rate across taxable property and benefits homeowners, renters, and businesses alike.

Texas should keep restraining spending and use excess general revenue, largely generated by sales taxes from faster economic growth, to buy down school district M&O rates until they reach zero. The Texas Education Agency’s final 2026 rates⁠ show that compression is already an established mechanism, with a statewide maximum compressed rate of $0.6254 per $100 of taxable value. Local governments should do the same with their own excess revenue. That is the only scalable path to property-tax elimination.

But exemptions and appraisal caps are inferior substitutes. My Property Tax Reform Guide⁠ explains why surplus-driven rate compression paired with spending restraint is the best route.

Lower Healthcare Costs

Abbott has interesting ideas about leaner insurance choices, but copay caps are not cost reductions. They shift costs. The Empower Patients⁠ framework starts from the opposite direction: reconnect patients and doctors through transparent prices, direct care, patient-controlled dollars, telehealth, and greater provider competition. National health spending already reached $5.7 trillion in 2025, or about $16,000 per person. More third-party management is not the cure.

Lower Insurance Costs

Rewarding safer drivers through actuarially sound premiums makes sense. Taxpayer-supported roof subsidies are harder wrong. If stronger roofs reduce expected losses, insurers can reward homeowners voluntarily through lower premiums. Government does not need to subsidize every economically useful investment.

Lower College Costs

Three-year bachelor’s degrees are promising because they reduce time and unnecessary credits. But subsidized summer tuition can simply move more costs from students to taxpayers. A better strategy is more institutional competition, transferable credits, alternative credentials, and pressure on state universities to lower the actual cost of providing education.

Lower Housing Costs

Here Abbott is much closer to the mark. Third-party inspections, faster approvals, pre-approved designs, and fewer local mandates expand supply. My housing work makes the economics straightforward: government often makes housing expensive by restricting what can be built. Austin offers a useful example. Heavy apartment construction increased supply, and rents subsequently fell. Texas should go further on zoning, minimum lot sizes, permitting delays, and fees. Do not subsidize scarcity. Remove it.

Lower Energy Costs

Opening Austin and San Antonio municipal electricity monopolies to retail competition is excellent. Now apply that principle more broadly. My energy policy work⁠ emphasizes abundance and competition. Texas should encourage private investment and competition in electricity and water rather than expanding government-controlled utilities and districts.

AI and Data Centers

Abbott’s tougher posture toward data centers worries me more. In Lubbock, he said data centers should not locate in rural communities that do not want them. Protect property rights. Make data centers pay identifiable infrastructure costs. End subsidies. Expand energy and water supply. But political permission should not replace markets. That principle runs through my technology policy guide⁠: decentralized decisions and profit-and-loss signals usually allocate capital better than politicians.

The Real Affordability Agenda

Abbott correctly identifies what Texans feel. But identifying expensive things and promising government will make them cheaper is not enough. Texas needs less affordability theater and more economic freedom. Spend less. Compress property-tax rates. Remove mandates. Build housing. Expand energy and water. Privatize where possible. Protect property rights. Let people compete.

Government cannot sustainably manage Texas into affordability. It can stop making Texas so expensive.

​Happy Labor Day! Today we recognize and honor the contributions of American workers. But it’s also worth remembering why work itself matters. Work helps us provide for ourselves and our families. But it’s about more than a paycheck. Work provides dignity, purpose, opportunity, and the satisfaction of creating something valuable.

Public policy can either make that work more rewarding or make it harder for Americans to get ahead. In today’s episode of This Week’s Economy, we’ll look beyond the headline unemployment rate to examine what workers are really experiencing, how Washington’s $40 trillion debt and Federal Reserve policy affect prosperity, and why debates over data centers, social media, and even the “common good” ultimately come back to a fundamental question: Are we giving people more freedom to prosper or are we putting government in their way? 

Originally published on Substack. 

​Louisiana has spent too many years watching people, jobs, and investment leave for faster-growing states. That is why the latest numbers matter.

The new Summer 2026 Louisiana Economic Report⁠ finds that real GDP grew at a 2.9% annualized rate from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026, sixth-best among the states. Personal income grew at a 6.3% annualized rate.

That is real progress.
​
Better Policy, Better Incentives

Louisiana’s recent improvement did not happen in a policy vacuum.

Over the last two years, lawmakers moved the state in a more competitive direction. They flattened the personal income tax to a lower single rate, eliminated the corporate franchise tax, reduced occupational licensing barriers, expanded education freedom through the LA GATOR program, and advanced regulatory and legal reforms.

Those policies matter because incentives matter.

Lower and flatter income taxes increase the reward for work, entrepreneurship, and investment. Eliminating the franchise tax reduces the penalty on business capital. Occupational licensing reform makes it easier for people to enter professions and earn a living. Education freedom gives families more control while improving the long-run potential of Louisiana’s workforce.

The latest growth does not prove that every reform caused every new job. Energy markets, national growth, investment projects, and other forces matter too.

But policy changes incentives, and incentives change behavior.

Louisiana spent years making it too easy for workers, businesses, and capital to choose somewhere else. These reforms begin reversing that equation.

Momentum Is Not Victory

The gains are encouraging, but Louisiana still has work to do.

The state ranked 44th in net interstate migration from 2018 to 2023, losing more than 110,000 residents and roughly $3.6 billion in income over that period, according to the Pelican report⁠. Louisiana also remains below its 2020 population base. But things have been improving recently!

That is why the next reforms matter so much.

First, lawmakers should enact a meaningful government growth limit. Spending restraint is what makes future tax relief sustainable. If government keeps growing faster than taxpayers’ ability to fund it, today’s tax cuts eventually become tomorrow’s tax hikes.

Second, fully fund LA GATOR. Families should have real education options, not promises that exist only on paper.
Third, Louisiana must protect its recent investment wins from overregulation, lawsuit abuse, and lawfare. Capital is mobile. Businesses that announce projects today can change course tomorrow if costs and uncertainty rise.

As Pelican Institute CEO Daniel Erspamer recently noted in The Advocate⁠, the comeback is promising but incomplete.

Bottom Line

Louisiana’s economy is showing what can happen when policy starts moving toward lower taxes, fewer barriers, more choice, and stronger competition.

Growth accelerated. Personal income rose. Payroll employment increased. Construction and manufacturing strengthened.

That is a great start.

Now Louisiana must make it sustainable: restrain spending, keep cutting taxes, fully fund school choice, reduce regulation and lawsuit abuse, and keep the state open to investment.

The goal is not one good quarter. The goal is a Louisiana where people want to stay, work, invest, raise families, and build businesses for decades. State competition is real. Louisiana is finally competing again. Now it needs to keep going.
​

What does it really mean to prosper?

In this special episode of the Let People Prosper Show, I’m joined by my wife, Emily Ginn, a licensed Master Social Worker, certified life coach, entrepreneur, and host of the IVF This podcast.

Emily and I discuss our personal journey through infertility and IVF, how that experience helped shape our family, and why she turned what she learned into a business helping other women navigate infertility.

We also explore entrepreneurship, raising three children while pursuing meaningful work, what policymakers should understand about IVF and patient choice, and why prosperity is about much more than income or economic growth.

Ultimately, human flourishing is about family, purpose, relationships, service, opportunity, and having the freedom to build a meaningful life.

Learn more about Emily and IVF This Coaching at IVFThisCoaching.com.

Subscribe for more conversations about economics, public policy, freedom, family, and human flourishing. Get show notes and more about my work at Ginn Economic Consulting at vanceginn..com.

Originally published at the Pelican Institute. 

Why this report matters
Louisiana’s comeback is real. Finishing it is the harder part.

The numbers in our Summer 2026 Louisiana Economic Report all point the same direction — and they point there for a reason.

Louisiana’s economy grew faster than the nation and faster than every neighboring state last quarter. Personal income growth led the region. Employers added roughly 16,700 jobs over the year. And for the second year running, more people call Louisiana home.

None of that happened by accident. It follows a run of deliberate policy choices: education freedom through LA GATOR, tax reform that flattened the income tax brackets and ended the corporate franchise tax, One Door to Work, changes to occupational licensing, the REINS Act, and legal reforms aimed at the nation’s highest auto insurance rates.

But the same report shows the work that remains. Louisiana still ranks 44th in net interstate migration, having lost more than 110,000 residents and $3.6 billion in income between 2018 and 2023. The state remains about 39,700 residents below its 2020 base. Unemployment sits just above the national rate.

Writing in The Advocate, Pelican Institute CEO Daniel Erspamer argued that too many reforms stopped short of their promise: LA GATOR funding stalled despite tens of thousands of families qualifying, no permanent path to phasing out the income tax, no limit on government growth, and a legal climate that still deters investment.

Momentum is not permanence. The data below shows what reform has already delivered — and where Louisiana still has ground to make up.

Why do we keep trying to manage scarcity instead of creating abundance?

In TWE 179, I explain how prices, profits, losses, entrepreneurship, and competition help free people turn scarcity into opportunity.

We explore Julian Simon's famous wager, housing shortages, energy and AI, healthcare, and why economic growth means prosperity isn't a fixed pie.

Markets aren't perfect. But lasting affordability comes from producing more, not simply controlling prices.

Scarcity is natural. Abundance is created.

Get show notes at vanceginn.substack.com.