 Originally published on Substack.
Texas families paid an average of $173.94 per month for electricity last year, among the highest monthly bills in the region, while ERCOT issued repeated conservation requests and came dangerously close to emergency conditions. At the same time, more than 98 groundwater conservation districts across the state manage water through political boards, regulatory allocations, and bureaucratic permitting rather than clear market exchange. That is not a coincidence. Texas does not mainly have a water problem or a power problem. Texas has a control problem. Scarcity is real. It always will be. The question is whether it is managed through prices, property rights, and competition, or through bureaucrats, government entities, and political favoritism. One system creates incentives to conserve, invest, and innovate. The other creates shortages, fragility, and permanent fights over who gets what. Lawmakers should stop confusing government management with a functioning market. ERCOT Is Not a Free Market Success Story Texas likes to talk about being different. On electricity, it is different, but not nearly as free-market as many claim. ERCOT is the centralized operator that manages the flow of electric power for about 90 percent of Texas load. It is not “the market” in any meaningful sense. It is the central gatekeeper of a system built around rules, mandates, political interventions, and constrained price signals. When one entity manages the grid under heavy political oversight, that is not decentralized competition. That is centralized administration dressed up in market language. As ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas recently warned, the system came “incredibly close” to emergency operations that could have ended in rolling blackouts. And the pricing data tells the story. Texas residential electricity rates reached 16.18 cents per kilowatt-hour in March 2026, nearly 30 percent above neighboring Louisiana’s 12.44 cents, and far above Oklahoma’s 9.09 cents. Meanwhile, legislation in recent years could undermine the grid’s ability to meet forecasted demand because lawmakers keep steering investment rather than letting competition and price signals do the work. This is when conservation notices have become routine, which is not a weather quirk. It is a structural symptom. Lawmakers keep trying to subsidize reliability, steer financing, and politically backstop the system instead of letting competition and price signals coordinate supply and demand. That is why Texans keep getting “reforms” without genuine resilience. If lawmakers truly want a stronger power system, they should move toward more real competition in generation, storage, retail options, transmission incentives, and private investment, not more political planning. The answer is not to make the centralized framework even more central. It is to reduce the barriers that prevent genuine market discovery and competitive discipline. Water Systems Are Political Systems First The same problem exists with water, and in many ways it is worse. Texas has more than 98 groundwater conservation districts covering all or part of 144 counties, each operating under its own rules with its own political boards. Decisions about allocation, pricing, infrastructure, and conservation are political long before they are economic. That setup almost guarantees misallocation. Texas water law also contains the Rule of Capture, a principle that gives landowners broad groundwater claims in theory, but those rights are limited in practice by layers of local regulation and institutional conflict. As the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality acknowledges, no single state agency regulates groundwater use statewide. Instead, more than 98 politically created districts each set their own rules, creating a patchwork of legal conflict and political rationing rather than a coherent system of exchange. When the government owns or heavily controls the system, the incentives for long-term stewardship and innovation weaken. Pricing is distorted. Investment decisions become political. And the people making the decisions usually do not bear the full cost of getting them wrong. That is not resource freedom. That is confusion. The Price System Is Not Optional This is where lawmakers need to remember basic economics. Hayek’s knowledge problem is not an ivory-tower concept. It is a practical warning. No central authority knows the correct future price of electricity in every hour across Texas. No board knows the right amount of water to conserve, move, or ration across every county and basin. No agency can process the changing information that millions of people and businesses reveal through market choices. Prices do that. Prices signal scarcity. Prices tell producers when to invest. Prices tell consumers when to conserve. Prices help entrepreneurs discover better technologies and business models. When lawmakers suppress those signals through subsidies, political allocation, and government ownership, they should expect misallocation. As Milton Friedman taught, do not judge policy by its intentions. Judge it by its results. Texas keeps getting the wrong results. Property Rights and Privatization Fix Incentives If lawmakers want lasting improvement, they need to think less like players and more like referees. The answer is stronger property rights and more privatization of these resources. When something is privately owned, someone has a direct incentive to protect it, improve it, and use it efficiently. When something is managed by government, responsibility is diluted and politics fills the vacuum. That is true for water infrastructure. It is true for electricity generation, transmission, and storage. Private owners respond to profit and loss. Government entities respond to politics and pressure. Private firms that fail lose money and market share. Public entities that fail usually ask for more funding and more control. As the Mises Institute explains, the state is the one institution that can compel payment, block competition, and preserve failure indefinitely. In a real market, even a dominant firm faces pressure from innovation and rivals. In politics, failure can survive for decades. Privatizing these systems, or moving much closer to genuine market competition, would not make scarcity disappear. It would do something better. It would make scarcity manageable through real incentives. The Unseen Costs Are the Biggest Ones This is where Bastiat still matters. The seen is the state-backed loan program, the public utility expansion, the district board meeting, or the ribbon-cutting for a politically favored project. The unseen is everything Texas never gets because government crowds it out. You do not see the private water trading platform that was never created because the legal framework discouraged exchange. You do not see the private grid innovations that were never financed because lawmakers decided to steer capital somewhere else. You do not see the smaller competitors who never entered the market because they could not break through the political structure of the system. Those unseen costs are often far larger than the public costs everyone debates, and no budget line ever captures them. The Bottom Line Texas does not need more state management of water and power. It needs less. A centralized grid gatekeeper and government-dominated water systems do not solve scarcity. They politicize it. They weaken price signals. They discourage competition. They protect bad decisions from market correction. If lawmakers want abundance, resilience, and affordability, they should trust the institutions that actually coordinate scarce resources well: private property, market prices, competition, and voluntary exchange. Texas should be leading the country in resource freedom. Too often, it is still acting like scarcity must be managed from the top down. That is backward, and it is costing Texans. Five Takeaways for Policymakers
Closing I’ve spent decades working across more than 20 states and the federal government on property rights reform, energy market policy, and the economic case for limited government. What the data consistently show is that markets, when free to operate, coordinate scarce resources better than any government board ever has. The evidence is not close. Texas has every advantage: energy abundance, economic dynamism, and a constitution that respects property rights. What it lacks is the political will to trust markets to do what politicians cannot. That is the will the 2027 session needs to find. Stay engaged, stay principled, and keep letting people prosper.
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 Originally published on Substack.
How should policy folks read Tuesday’s primaries? Maybe the way families experience government: not as a scoreboard, but as a preview of what comes next. Elections choose candidates. Budgets choose outcomes. If the policy output is higher costs, higher taxes, and more government control, voters will not care who won the primary. They will care that their taxes keep rising. Across Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas, the same governing reality shows up in different forms. Tax relief and economic opportunity depend on one discipline that almost nobody wants to talk about when the cameras are on: spending restraint. Without it, every “conservative” promise becomes temporary and every affordability problem gets worse. Texas is giving lawmakers a clear direction on taxes and spending Republicans are headed to a tight May U.S. Senate runoff between Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Democrats nominated State Rep. James Talarico for Senate after Rep. Jasmine Crockett conceded. For governor, Gov. Greg Abbott won the Republican nomination and Rep. Gina Hinojosa won the Democratic nomination, setting up November. These outcomes are also reflected in the official Texas Secretary of State results. Those races, and others like former State Senator Don Huffines winning the race for Texas Comptroller over Kelly Hancock, State Rep. Brian Harrison winning big over big-government candidates, are important. But the most important signal did not come from a candidate. It came from the Republican primary ballot propositions, which operate like a “voter memo” to lawmakers. In plain terms, Texas GOP primary voters endorsed the idea that eliminating school district property taxes should be pursued through spending reductions. That wording matters because it answers the central fiscal question: Do we want tax relief that is structurally funded, or tax relief that depends on temporary money and political will? The proposition language and broader ballot context are explained well in KUT’s guide to the propositions and the Texas Standard breakdown. This dovetails with Gov. Abbott elevating school district property tax elimination as a priority heading into the 2027 legislative session. The policy test for lawmakers is not whether they can announce “relief.” The test is whether they can make relief permanent. Why is that hard? Because school district maintenance and operations taxes are a major funding stream, roughly 40%+ of total local property taxes in Texas. Replacing them with state dollars immediately or over time without a binding spending limit on state and local government will turn a popular reform into a long-term fiscal trap. There is also a second, equally important reality for Texas policymakers. State property tax relief can be offset locally if cities, counties, and other taxing entities continue expanding spending and debt. That is why the propositions focusing on spending reductions and voter checks are so important. The public instinct is correct. People want government to live within limits and stop backfilling relief with higher local burdens. This is the framework behind my work on Texas fiscal policy: pair surplus-driven property tax compression or buy-down with a strict spending limit at both the state and local levels. Relief without limits is temporary. Limits make relief durable. The broader blueprint is in my writings. North Carolina is a reminder that competitiveness can be lost quickly North Carolina’s primaries produced a high-profile U.S. Senate matchup between Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley. That matters nationally because Senate control shapes whether Washington pursues any serious spending restraint or continues drifting toward higher debt and larger federal reach. But there is also a state-level lesson that policymakers should not miss. North Carolina has been attracting people and investment because it is relatively more competitive than many alternatives. That advantage is fragile. If spending grows faster than the private economy, taxes eventually rise, regulations expand, and affordability deteriorates. Growth becomes a reason for more government instead of an opportunity to lock in pro-growth reform. For families, the lived experience of this drift is not abstract. It is higher housing costs, higher energy costs, and fewer options. For policymakers, the fix is still the same. Control spending growth. Reduce barriers to building and production. Keep tax relief tied to fiscal discipline. Arkansas shows what steady policy looks like Arkansas had a calmer primary, with Sen. Tom Cotton advancing without drama. The bigger lesson is not the headline, it is the pattern. States that keep taxes moving down and spending growth under control tend to build momentum that compounds. Businesses respond to predictability. Families respond to affordability. Voters often reward results when they can feel them. What policymakers should take away This is the through-line across all three states.
Closing and call to action If lawmakers want these primaries to mean something, they should treat them as permission to do the hard part. Put enforceable limits on state and local spending growth. Make tax relief structural, not temporary. In Texas specifically, the Republican primary propositions provided a clear direction: if you want to eliminate school district property taxes, do it by reducing spending growth and locking in discipline before the next budget cycle resets the baseline. For policymakers and staff, I welcome the chance to discuss model language for spending limits, surplus-driven tax relief, and closing the local loophole so relief actually sticks. For media, I am available for interviews and background discussions on what these primary results signal for fiscal policy in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas.  Originally published on Substack. I hope you’ve had a great week! I’m ready for a wonderful weekend with family and multiple soccer games for my boys. Yesterday, I presented at the Amrize leadership conference in Plano, Texas. It was great group. Below are my prepared remarks and you can view my slides here.  Cement is the economy made physical.
When economists debate growth, inflation, or productivity, those debates eventually show up in cement, concrete, and construction materials. If something is wrong with the economy, your industry costs experience it quickly. If policy is broken, your timelines stretch first. If capital is discouraged, your projects get delayed first. That’s why the state of the Texas economy—and especially the Dallas–Fort Worth economy—matters so much to this industry. My calling is simple: to let people prosper in whatever way works best for them. After decades of studying economics, teaching it, advising lawmakers, serving as Chief Economist at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and now president of Ginn Economic Consulting, working with more than 20 organizations across the country, I’ve learned something clearly. The system that lets the most people prosper—across industries, income levels, and generations—is free-market capitalism. Not government planning. Not price controls. Not industrial policy. Free people, free exchange, free enterprise. And few industries could understand this better than the cement industry. Why Texas Works—and Why DFW Leads Texas continues to outperform most of the country because capitalism is allowed to work here more than in most states. Texas has no personal income tax. It continues to gain population while high-tax states lose it. Capital continues flowing here because returns are possible. Construction alone accounts for roughly 5 percent of Texas’s GDP, compared with about 4.5 percent nationally, meaning Texas is still expanding physical capacity while other states restrict it. But a major engine inside Texas is DFW. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Texas is experiencing a historic manufacturing building boom, with more than $289 billion in nonresidential construction contracts announced since mid-2022—much of it concentrated in North Texas. That scale matters. Manufacturing and industrial facilities are not marginal users of cement. They are among the most intensive consumers of concrete, foundations, paving, and structural materials. The Dallas Regional Chamber documents DFW as one of the nation’s top destinations for corporate relocations and industrial expansion, driven by logistics access, workforce depth, and business-cost advantages. DFW is a major contributor to Texas’s $2.8 trillion nominal economy or $2.3 trillion real economy (adjusted for inflation), with durable goods manufacturing playing a central role in regional GDP growth. Cement sits at the center of all of it. You cannot have growth without materials. You cannot have materials without capital. And you cannot have capital without confidence. DFW as a Cement Demand Engine DFW’s economy acts as a massive engine for cement consumption—not just because of its size, but because of how it grows. Industrial Infrastructure Hub DFW leads the nation in industrial construction. That volume of activity directly fuels demand for regional cement producers, including the Midlothian area—often referred to as the “Cement Capital of Texas.” Industrial buildings are concrete-intensive by design: slabs, tilt-wall panels, heavy foundations, and extensive paving. Infrastructure and Transportation Texas infrastructure projects are among the largest concrete consumers in the country. Projects like the Southeast Connector and the I-35 expansion rely heavily on cement and aggregates. Infrastructure investment in Texas is projected to consume millions of tons of cement annually, underscoring how infrastructure demand directly affects cement markets. The Data Center Link DFW has become a top-tier global hub for data center construction, one of the most concrete-intensive building types. Massive campuses developed by firms like Compass Datacenters and Meta require:
These projects concentrate demand in suburbs like Red Oak and Midlothian, creating localized but sustained cement demand. The data center sector is also driving innovation in lower-carbon cement and concrete, as tech firms push for emissions reductions in large-scale construction—creating new market opportunities driven by private demand, not mandates. Capitalism, Supply, and Affordability Affordability is not primarily a demand problem, as people tend to have unlimited desires. It is a supply problem. Prices rise when supply cannot keep up with demand. Supply expands when investment is allowed. Investment happens when returns are predictable. Cement plants are not startups. They require:
Capital does not chase uncertainty nor respond to slogans. Capital responds to predictability. When government interferes with supply—through permitting delays, energy restrictions, or regulatory uncertainty—prices rise. Not because companies want them to, but because supply tightens. You cannot punish supply and expect abundance. Amrize and Free-Market Capitalism in Practice This is where Amrize provides an example of capitalism working as intended. Amrize’s strategy emphasizes American-made cement, long-term capital investment, operational efficiency, and producing close to demand rather than relying on fragile global supply chains. Cement is heavy, energy-intensive, and logistics-dependent. Importing it at scale increases volatility. Domestic production reduces transportation risk, supply shocks, and long-run cost instability. You don’t stabilize prices by controlling them. You stabilize prices by expanding reliable supply. That’s not protectionism. That’s not industrial policy. That’s econ 101. Labor Markets: Capitalism Sending Clear Signals Historically, construction wages in Texas have risen meaningfully, particularly for skilled trades such as cement finishers, equipment operators, and plant workers. That wage growth is not a failure. It is a signal. It tells us:
Labor constraints are not caused by markets. They are caused by policy barriers: occupational licensing that slows entry, training pipelines misaligned with industry needs, housing costs pushing workers farther from job sites, and federal immigration policy disconnected from labor realities. DFW’s construction sector alone recorded an 8 percent job increase in 2023, the fastest growth in the nation—clear evidence of demand outpacing supply. Labor supply is elastic over time—if allowed. When people can train quickly, move freely, and work legally, supply rises and output expands. When the government blocks adjustment, wages rise without productivity gains, pushing costs higher without increasing supply. You cannot regulate your way to productivity. Energy, Materials, and Capital Formation Energy policy is economic policy for the cement industry. Reliable, affordable energy is essential to domestic materials production. When energy becomes less reliable or more expensive, every ton costs more to produce. Producer price data show sustained upward pressure on concrete and related materials, reflecting energy, transportation, and regulatory costs rather than market power. Capital formation requires predictability. Cement plants plan decades ahead. They do not ask for subsidies. They ask for certainty. When policy introduces permitting delays, regulatory ambiguity, or energy instability, investment slows, capacity tightens, and prices rise. That is not greed. That is economics. Government Spending and the Quiet Squeeze Texas has benefited from strong revenues, but state and local government spending has recently grown faster than the average taxpayer’s ability to afford it, as measured by population growth plus inflation. That matters. When government grows faster than this, property taxes rise, fees multiply, compliance expands, and private investment gets crowded out over time. Cement and concrete producers feel this directly through higher property tax burdens, longer approval timelines, and infrastructure funding diluted by political priorities rather than economic need. Capital looks at trajectory, not just current conditions. Federal Policy and the Cost of Interference Many cost pressures are federal. Trillion-dollar deficits push interest rates higher. Higher rates raise financing costs for capital-intensive projects. Long-term investment becomes riskier. Federal housing policy emphasizes subsidies rather than supply. Subsidies increase demand without increasing supply. Subsidies without supply raise prices. Energy policy, transportation policy, and regulatory layering all feed into construction costs that cement producers feel first. Immigration efforts may be warranted, but it creates labor shortages for many businesses. And protectionist trade policies may try to balance trade imbalances, but at the cost of higher prices and uncertain supply chains. Capitalism can absorb shocks. It cannot thrive under constant interference. And we need more capitalism, not socialism. The Pro-Growth Path Forward If we want people to prosper, we need more free-market capitalism, not less. That means restraining government spending. Controlling property taxes by controlling local budgets. Streamlining permitting and zoning. Expanding labor mobility and training pathways. Supporting domestic materials production. Reducing federal distortions that raise costs without expanding supply. These principles are laid out in my guide on Pro-Growth Strategies for Construction Industry Prosperity. This is not ideology. It is evidence. Let People Prosper Capitalism is not perfect. But it is unmatched. It has lifted more people out of poverty than any system in history. It has created more housing, infrastructure, and opportunity than any alternative. Cement proves this every day. You cannot legislate affordability, regulate productivity, nor control prices into abundance. You can only allow it. Texas has benefited because it has mostly allowed capitalism to work. DFW has grown because supply has been allowed to expand. The cement industry succeeds when capital is free to invest. The choice ahead is simple. More capitalism—or more interference. If we choose freedom, people prosper.  Originally published on Substack. According to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, more than 42,000 students applied for Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) on the very first day (Feb 4), setting a new national record for day-one applications in a school choice program. By late the following morning, applications had already climbed past 46,000 students, and the Comptroller noted that the number will continue to grow as applications remain open through mid-March. That level of demand is real. It’s encouraging. And it confirms what parents across Texas have been saying for years: families want more control over how and where their children are educated. But lawmakers should not confuse a record-setting headline with a finished reform. Record Demand, Limited Reach Texas is enormous. With roughly 6.3 million school-age children, even 46,000 applications represent well under 1 percent of students statewide. On day one alone, the application rate was about 0.67 percent. Now compare that with Tennessee’s ESA rollout, where 33,000 students applied on day one in 2025. Tennessee has about 1.1 million school-age children, meaning its day-one application rate was 2.93 percent. Adjusted for school-age population, Tennessee’s demand for school choice was more than four times higher than Texas’, despite Texas grabbing national attention for total numbers.  The takeaway is straightforward: Texas did not “solve” school choice. It revealed just how constrained the current program is relative to demand.
What the Data Actually Show The Comptroller’s release includes important details that deserve careful attention. Of the students who applied on day one:
Nearly three in four applicants were placed into priority categories created by Senate Bill 2 in 2025, including students with disabilities and families with lower or middle incomes. This matters for two reasons. First, it directly undermines the claim that education savings accounts only benefit wealthy families. Parents from across the income spectrum are actively seeking alternatives because the current system is not working for their kids. Second, it highlights the central flaw of the Texas approach: access is rationed. Lawmakers are deciding which families get freedom now and which families are told to wait, even though demand is widespread and immediate. Two Funding Pots, One Structural Problem Texas now operates two parallel education funding systems. One is massive, automatic, and politically protected: the government-school system, funded largely through state appropriations and rising local property taxes. The other is small, capped, and limited: TEFA. As I explained in my earlier piece, “Two Pots, One Problem”, this structure is unsustainable. Sending limited dollars to ESAs while continuing to pump vastly more money into the same monopoly system parents are trying to leave guarantees weak competition and slow change. Today, government schools in Texas ($100 billion) receive roughly 100 times more taxpayer funding each year than the ESA program ($1 billion). A system with that kind of imbalance will not meaningfully respond to competition. It will absorb it. Why Partial Choice Will Eventually Backfire Education savings accounts are not meant to be pilot programs or symbolic gestures. Their purpose is to change incentives across the entire education system. Real competition:
A limited ESA program does none of that at scale. Worse, partial programs create long-term political risk. When tens of thousands of families apply and many are denied access, frustration grows. Over time, that frustration can be misdirected at school choice itself rather than at the artificial caps lawmakers imposed. That is how good reforms stall — or get blamed for failures they did not cause. The Bigger Opportunity for Texas Texas has an opportunity most states do not. By moving toward truly universal education savings accounts, lawmakers could:
None of this happens overnight. But none of it happens at all if Texas locks itself into a permanently limited program. Bottom Line for Lawmakers The TEFA rollout proves one thing beyond doubt: parents are ready. They applied in record numbers. They demonstrated demand across income levels. And they showed that the current program does not come close to meeting the need in a state as large and diverse as Texas. If Texas wants better outcomes, real accountability, and a system built around families instead of institutions, more must be done — especially in a high-growth state like Texas. The record is a starting point. Ending the monopoly must be the goal. Key takeaways for legislators and staff:
The question now is simple: will Texas stop halfway — or finish the job?  Originally published on Substack.
Texas finally crossed a long-awaited threshold in 2025 by passing its first Education Savings Account (ESA) law, set to launch in the 2026–27 school year. For families who have waited years for meaningful school choice, this matters. It opens doors that were previously locked shut by ZIP codes, bureaucracies, and one-size-fits-all systems. But honesty matters too: this law is not truly universal school choice. It is a beginning—not the destination. After spending more than $100 billion a year on a government-run K–12 system that delivers poor and uneven results, Texas has acknowledged what parents already know: families deserve options. Nationally, nearly $900 billion is spent annually on K–12 education, yet student outcomes continue to slide. The latest NAEP results show persistent declines in reading and math proficiency, even after record spending increases documented by EducationData.org. More money isn’t the answer. Structural change is! Let’s dig in during National School Choice Week. What Texas Passed—and What It Didn’t Under SB 2, Texas will create Education Freedom Accounts (often called TEFAs) that allow eligible families to use public education dollars for approved education expenses such as private school tuition, tutoring, online learning, and homeschool materials. That’s real progress. But the program is capped at $1 billion (1% of funding on government schools). This will fund at most 100,000 students—just 1.5% of Texas’ 6.3 million school-aged children—and includes income restrictions that exclude many middle-class families. Meanwhile, students who remain in government schools continue to receive more than $18,000 per year, while most ESA students receive about $10,000 or less. That’s not a level playing field. It’s a dual-funding system that protects the monopoly while rationing opportunity. States that have gone further—like Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, and West Virginia—have shown what’s possible. According to the 2025 EdChoice Friedman Index, only those four states offer truly universal ESAs, where every student is eligible and families have real flexibility. Those states are closer to the North Star. Texas is not—yet. How Families Can Apply (2026–27 School Year) Even with its limitations, families should prepare now. The application process will be administered through the state, with details centralized at EducationFreedom.Texas.gov. Here’s a simple checklist to help families get ready: 1. Confirm Eligibility Students must be Texas residents and meet priority eligibility categories outlined in statute (such as income thresholds or special education status). 2. Gather Key Documents Have digital copies of:
3. Understand Approved Uses Funds may be used for:
A clear family guide is available here. 4. Apply Online When the Window Opens Applications will be submitted through EducationFreedom.Texas.gov and time-stamped. 5. Prepare for a Lottery Because the program is capped, eligible applicants may be entered into a lottery if demand exceeds available slots. Local reporting, including this KSAT overview, will continue to provide updates. Why This Still Isn’t Enough Here’s the uncomfortable truth: limiting ESAs by income and enrollment undermines their effectiveness. When higher-income families are excluded, programs lose political durability, economic scale, and innovation pressure. The current system already subsidizes affluent families—by default—through fully funded government schools. ESAs simply allow that funding to follow the child instead, often at a lower cost to taxpayers. Research consistently shows that school choice works. A review of nearly 190 empirical studies summarized in EdChoice’s 123s of School Choice finds strong academic outcomes, higher parental satisfaction, and net taxpayer savings in 87% of fiscal studies. Competition improves outcomes not just for participants, but for students who remain in district schools. Texas could do even better. A single-pot funding model, where every child receives the same ESA—around $12,000 per student—could cover all 6.3 million Texas students, save taxpayers more than $20 billion annually, and begin lowering school district M&O property tax rates. That’s real reform. Closing Thoughts Texas took a step forward in 2025. Families should use this program. Policymakers should learn from it. And everyone should be honest about what comes next. Education freedom isn’t about tearing down schools—it’s about building a system that finally puts students first. The states leading on universal ESAs are showing the way. Texas can still join them, but only if lawmakers choose competition over protection and families over bureaucracy. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with other families, and leave a comment. More eyes mean more pressure—and more freedom for kids who need it most.  Originally published on Substack.
Today’s work across multiple outlets wasn’t coordinated—but the conclusions were. Whether the topic was Texas fiscal policy, entrepreneurship, credit markets, or healthcare, the same pattern emerged: policymakers keep substituting government intervention for market discipline, and the results are predictable—higher costs, fewer choices, and weaker outcomes. This isn’t a messaging problem. It’s an incentives problem. In the Houston Chronicle, I posed five basic questions to Texas Republicans about whether the state is still practicing limited government—or merely talking about it. After more than 20 years of one-party control, Texas state spending has grown far faster than population growth plus inflation, while property taxes remain among the most burdensome in the country. Limited government is not defined by slogans. It is revealed by budgets. Meanwhile, Texas ranks 3rd best in the nation to start a business, according to national rankings discussed in my interview with News Radio 1200 WOAI. That success is not accidental. It reflects relatively low taxes, fewer regulatory barriers, and flexible labor markets—the institutional foundations of growth emphasized by mainline economists from Adam Smith to James Buchanan. But those advantages are not guaranteed. Rapid growth in state and local government spending directly feeds higher property tax burdens, raising fixed costs for households and small businesses. Economic freedom is not self-executing. When fiscal discipline weakens, growth slows—not always immediately, but inevitably. National policy debates show the same misunderstanding of incentives. In my Fox News column, I addressed President Trump’s, Senator Josh Hawley’s, and Senator Bernie Sanders’ push for credit card interest rate caps, a textbook case of price controls. Decades of evidence—from U.S. usury laws to modern international examples—show that artificial interest caps reduce credit supply, particularly for lower-income and higher-risk borrowers. When prices are capped below market risk, lenders ration credit. Access shrinks. Consumers are pushed toward worse financial options, not better ones. Healthcare policy offers an even clearer warning. In The Daily Signal, I criticized U.S. House Republicans for extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies for three years while leaving intact the Medicaid Intergovernmental Transfer loophole, which allows states like California to draw down excess federal funds through accounting maneuvers rather than improved care. The result is predictable: higher federal spending, distorted incentives, rising premiums, and limited access for patients—especially those on Medicaid. Subsidies mask cost growth instead of disciplining it. Loopholes reward fiscal gamesmanship instead of outcomes. Markets would punish this behavior. Government financing schemes entrench it. Across all four issues, the mistake is the same. When policymakers distrust markets, they replace prices with politics. When they distrust individuals, they substitute choice with control. And when they override incentives, they get less of what they want and more of what they fear. Closing Thoughts Classical liberalism starts with a simple insight: people respond to incentives, and markets aggregate information better than governments ever can. That insight still holds. Prosperity does not come from price controls, subsidies, or centralized decision-making. It comes from liberty, competition, fiscal restraint, and trust in voluntary exchange. When policy ignores those principles, failure is not a surprise—it is the forecast. Review
 Originally published at The Austin American-Statesman.
Austin is one of the country’s most-watched housing markets. This is because it highlights what can happen when a city allows more housing to be built. Yet the national debate over housing affordability has increasingly been hijacked by a convenient scapegoat: claims that AI-powered pricing software is “fixing” rents. This fixation on pricing software avoids the forces actually driving rents upward and, in some parts of the country, downward: supply and demand. If cities want real solutions, leaders should stop blaming data tools for high rents and instead focus on the barriers preventing the construction of housing that people need. Claims that algorithmic pricing tools “set” rents or compel landlords to raise prices have captured headlines, but they don’t hold water — because they ignore basic incentives. Landlords lose money when units sit vacant, regardless of what software they use. Recent settlements involving rent-pricing software have resulted in no findings of wrongdoing or admissions of liability. Federal courts have been clear: Analyzing data to suggest prices is not the same as controlling them. In competitive markets, landlords still bear the cost of pricing above what renters are willing to pay. As the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put it, “Obtaining information from the same source does not reduce the incentive to compete.” Despite the use of 21st-century tools, market fundamentals still determine rent levels. Those fundamentals point to a single, unavoidable truth: America has a massive housing shortage — and no amount of software regulation can change that. Zillow notes that the U.S. housing shortage is 4.7 million units nationwide. When millions more people need homes than there are available, rents rise. If algorithms truly “caused” high rents, we would expect cities that restrict them to be more affordable. Yet those areas are often where rents are rising the most. In New York and San Francisco, rental housing is heavily regulated and data-driven pricing tools face tight restrictions. In both cities, rent growth continues to outpace national trends. New York's median rent is up 18% since the start of 2020, and San Francisco remains one of the most expensive rental markets, despite a ban on rental pricing technology taking effect in October 2024. That’s no coincidence. These cities also share another trait: decades of underbuilding driven by zoning restrictions, lengthy approvals and political resistance to growth. San Francisco adds housing at one of the slowest rates in the U.S., and New York City routinely approves far fewer units than economists say are needed to meet demand. Tight supply, not technology, is the common denominator. Now look at Austin. Some critics have claimed that its rent levels demonstrate the “dangers” of algorithmic pricing, yet the data tell a very different story. Austin has been building at a rate unmatched by almost any other major metro. From 2021 to 2023, the Austin region permitted more new apartments per capita than any other major Texas metro, with 10 new apartments per 1,000 residents. The effect has been undeniable: Austin rents are falling because it is building more housing. There is no mystery to be solved. When supply grows faster than demand, prices fall. When supply is choked off, prices tend to rise. The pricing tools being blamed help property managers understand market conditions by analyzing historical trends and anonymized data. Political temptation to target tech companies distracts from the real levers policymakers control. In many cities, 40% or more of the residential land is locked into single-family zoning, making it illegal to build apartments, townhomes or smaller, more affordable options. Blaming software won’t put a roof over a single family’s head. Reforming zoning laws, reducing minimum lot sizes, streamlining approvals, lowering property taxes, and allowing housing supply to respond to demand will. If leaders are serious about affordability, they must stop chasing politically convenient narratives and start removing the barriers that make housing scarce. The path forward is clear: Allow more homes to be built where people want to live. Until we address government failures behind undersupply, America’s housing affordability problem will persist.  Originally published at The Houston Chronicle.
Republican primary voters overwhelmingly want less government, lower taxes and more freedom. Yet the Texas state government is no longer operating that way. Spending keeps rising, property taxes remain too high, and lawmakers increasingly substitute control for trust. There are no excuses left. Republicans have held a full trifecta in our state since 2003: Governor, Texas House and Texas Senate. When one party governs for more than two decades, it owns the outcomes. Yet the government keeps expanding, taxes remain burdensome, and Austin continues to crowd out families and markets. That is not drift. It is a choice. Yes, Texas’ economy has grown. But that’s not because the state government has shown discipline. Much of that growth is simply because people and businesses are fleeing higher-tax, higher-regulation states like California and New York. Texas has benefited from other states’ policy failures. That advantage is real, but it is not permanent. States that grow government faster than population plus inflation eventually lose their edge. Unfortunately, that’s happening right here in Texas. Over the last two budget cycles, Texas collected more than $50 billion in budget surpluses. That should have been a once-in-a-generation opportunity to permanently reduce the tax burden. School district maintenance and operations (M&O) property taxes — the largest share of most Texans’ property tax bills — could have been dramatically reduced and locked in. Instead, the state increased its budget by 42% in state funds over two budget cycles, double population growth plus inflation. Taxpayers were overcharged. The government grew. Relief fell short. That is not conservative governance. It is a failure of priorities. So what should Republican primary voters ask before choosing candidates for the Legislature, courts and statewide offices? Not who sounds toughest. Not who promises another carve-out. But who actually believes the government has grown too large — and knows how to shrink it. Here are five questions GOP voters should demand clear answers to. 1. Do you believe the Texas government is too big — and what would you cut? Talking about “efficiency” is easy. Naming programs to cut is hard. Any serious candidate should be able to identify agencies, subsidies or mandates that have grown too fast and should be reduced or eliminated. If the answer is “nothing,” that tells voters everything they need to know. 2. Why weren’t surpluses used to permanently lower school property taxes? With tens of billions in surplus revenue, Texas could have locked in far deeper reductions in school M&O property taxes. Voters should ask why that didn’t happen — and whether candidates support using future surpluses to permanently reduce taxes at the state and local levels rather than expand government. 3. Who decides — parents or politicians? This may be the most important question of all. Recent legislative actions — banning cell phones in schools, imposing age verification for social media (which has been blocked in the courts) and expanding state control over family decisions — send a clear signal: Lawmakers increasingly do not trust parents. Conservatives should be honest about that. Strong institutions begin with strong families, not top-down mandates. When the state replaces parental judgment with political judgment, it weakens the very institutions it claims to protect. Republican voters should demand candidates who trust parents more than bureaucrats. 4. Do you support truly universal school choice — or government-selected winners and losers? The school choice program passed last year was not universal. It only covers a limited number of families and only applies to certain schools. Real reform empowers every family, not just those approved by policymakers. Candidates should be forced to say plainly whether they support universal choice or managed choice. 5. How will you empower patients and prepare Texas for less federal money? Healthcare spending keeps growing while access and outcomes disappoint. More government control has not fixed that problem. Texas needs a shift toward empowering patients — more patient choice, fewer mandates and stronger doctor-patient relationships. Just as important, federal healthcare dollars are not guaranteed. Washington’s debt and deficits mean that states will likely face reduced federal support. Republican voters should ask candidates whether they are preparing Texas for that reality — or simply building a system that depends money that may not be there tomorrow. Texas remains strong because of its people, its culture and its institutions, not because of Austin’s budget growth. Stronger institutions come from less government, clearer accountability and trust in families, patients and communities. After more than two decades of one-party control, Republican voters should demand more than slogans. They should demand answers. And they should vote accordingly.  Originally published on Substack. Texas ranks fourth nationally with an overall score of 8.15 in the Economic Freedom of North America report recently published by the Fraser Institute.  The ranking, based on 2023 data, places Texas firmly among the most economically free states in the country.
But the more important signal in the data is not where Texas ranks now. It is how the state has had excessive spending and high property taxes weigh on economic freedom today and in the coming years. Texas’s economic success is visible first in the labor market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Texas had one of the fastest job creation rates in 2023 (and thereafter). Employment growth has consistently exceeded the national average, while unemployment rates have generally remained below the U.S. rate. When marginal tax rates on work are zero and labor markets are flexible, employers expand, and workers respond. The economic output data tell the same story. The Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that Texas’s real GDP growth was a leader in 2023, driven by private-sector expansion. Capital flows toward jurisdictions where expected after-tax returns are higher, and policy risk is lower. Texas has benefited from that reality for decades. The EFNA index explains why. Texas scores well on taxation and labor-market regulation, largely because it imposes no personal income tax and maintains comparatively flexible employment rules. Those institutional features reduce distortions on work, saving, and investment, raising long-run growth potential. Yet the same EFNA data also reveal why Texas’s ranking has flattened rather than improved in recent years. The binding constraint today is not necessarily taxes or labor policy. It is government spending growth at the state and local levels. Since at least the mid-2010s, state and local spending in Texas has grown substantially faster than population growth plus inflation, meaning government now consumes a larger share of personal income than it once did. EFNA measures spending relative to income because this ratio determines how much private activity is crowded out. When the government expands faster than the economy and taxes rise to fund it, economic freedom declines. Property taxes are the primary transmission mechanism. Texas constitutionally bans income taxes, wealth taxes, and state property taxes, but relies heavily on sales taxes to fund state spending and local property taxes to finance local budgets. Property-tax collections have risen faster than household incomes, raising effective tax rates even when statutory rates appear unchanged. From an economic perspective, this is not neutral. Higher property taxes can raise the cost of housing and capital formation, reduce real wages over time, and slow investment, especially in high-tax metropolitan areas. Public-sector employment growth reinforces the trend. BLS data show government employment rising faster than private employment in recent years. EFNA penalizes this pattern because it signals higher future tax burdens or debt service. Economic theory predicts the outcome: slower productivity growth and weaker private-sector dynamism. Directionally, Texas has held its rank while peer states have closed the gap. That is an important distinction. The EFNA report relies on 2023 data, which means recent policy changes about restraint are not yet reflected. What is reflected is the cumulative effect of spending decisions made over the past decade. Rankings move slowly because institutions change slowly. That is a feature, not a flaw. The Fraser Institute’s findings are consistent across time and geography. States with higher economic freedom exhibit higher income levels, stronger labor-force participation, faster job creation, and greater net in-migration. Texas still benefits from those advantages. But the data now show that fiscal drift could erode the margin. The lesson is not ideological. It is arithmetic. Economic freedom helped build the Texas Model. Preserving it now requires discipline. If government spending growth continues to outpace population growth plus inflation, Texas’s comparative advantage will narrow, then disappear. Growth can mask that reality for a while. It cannot undo it. Originally published on Substack. If you want a clear snapshot of what’s contributing to Texas’ affordability crisis, look no further than property tax bills. A recent Houston Chronicle article by EricaGrieder highlighted just how punishing these taxes have become in fast-growing suburbs of Houston.  Cities like Conroe, Pearland, and The Woodlands now rank among the highest in property-tax burdens in the nation when measured as a share of household income.
In Conroe, homeowners pay a median property tax bill of nearly $5,900 on a median household income just over $114,000—5.2% of income. Pearland isn’t far behind near 5%. Even high-income areas like The Woodlands face bills approaching $9,000 a year. This isn’t just a Texas problem, but it is becoming a Texas test. And the verdict is clear: property taxes are harsh, unworkable, and incompatible with prosperity. Why Property Taxes Are So Harmful Property taxes don’t rise automatically because “the market” failed. They rise because local governments choose to spend more, then set the tax rate to collect more taxes that cover spending. Local taxing entities—school districts, cities, counties, and special districts—set tax rates every year. Those rates are applied to the county’s appraised values that tend to rise quickly over time, especially in growing communities. Even when officials claim they’ve “lowered the tax rate,” it is often not enough to offset higher appraisals when spending continues to grow. In other words, appraisals help set the base—but spending decisions determine the bill and the tax rate to get there. That’s why property taxes are uniquely destructive. All taxes are destructive but some more than others. Families can budget for purchases and sales taxes. They can plan their work or leisure around income taxes. But property tax payments are due regardless of income, job loss, or retirement—driven by government budgets, not household choice. Data from SmartAsset confirm this reality nationwide. Their 2025 study shows Texas ranks among the states with the highest effective property-tax burdens, a point echoed by the Tax Foundation. This tax system punishes homeownership. It turns ownership into something closer to renting from the government. The Moral Case Against Property Taxes There’s also a deeper issue here—one that often gets ignored. Property taxes violate the basic principle of property rights. If you must keep paying the government simply to remain in your home, then you don’t truly own it. And for seniors on fixed incomes, young families stretching to buy their first home, or small businesses operating on thin margins, that’s not just inefficient—it’s unjust. These taxes are fueling the affordability crisis created by years of bad policy: excessive spending, loose fiscal rules, and governments that grow faster than the taxpayers’ ability to pay for it. Families didn’t create this problem. Government did. A Responsible Path to Elimination The good news is that eliminating property taxes can be done responsibly—without gimmicks, carve-outs, or distortions like ever-larger homestead exemptions, flawed appraisal caps, or arbitrary age freezes, which have been thrown around by key leaders in Texas. The most realistic path forward currently is likely a surplus buydown strategy, paired with strict spending limits, which Gov. Abbott rightfully made a local spending limit the number one item in his property tax plan. Here’s how it works:
The key is discipline. None of this works without strict limits on spending growth, ideally capped below population growth plus inflation. Spending is the ultimate driver of property taxes—and the ultimate burden of government. What About Other Options? There is a faster, more comprehensive option: redesigning the tax system by broadening the sales-tax base without a VAT while keeping the state-local sales tax rate competitive, potentially eliminating property taxes much sooner than the surplus buy-down approach. The state’s sales tax rate would just cover the school district property taxes and local governments’ sales tax rates would cover their property taxes where possible. My research finds that we could be at a state-local sales tax rate of at most 8.75% with a broader sales tax base from 8.25% today to eliminate school district M&O property taxes. Any additional sales tax revenue collected by local governments at their lower rates from the broader sales tax base and dynamic growth must go to reducing their property taxes through tax rate cuts. This allows lower local property taxes, then local governments can use the surplus buydown approach to eliminate the rest, where possible. Done correctly, dynamic growth effects and spending restraint should lower the overall tax burden and deliver immediate property ownership to all Texans. In my view, this redesign approach is stronger. But politically, the surplus buydown seems the most viable path today—and importantly, it still moves us in the right direction. Either way, the non-negotiable principle remains the same: less spending, not higher taxes. States like Florida are beginning to explore similar pro-growth approaches, recognizing that affordability and competitiveness depend on limiting government’s footprint—not expanding it. The Bottom Line Property taxes are not a law of nature. They are a policy choice. Texas can lead by choosing a better path—one that respects ownership, restores affordability, and lets families keep more of what they earn. Eliminating property taxes won’t solve every problem overnight, but it would remove one of the biggest obstacles standing between Texans and prosperity. The question isn’t whether we can afford to do this. It’s whether we can afford not to. |
Vance Ginn, Ph.D.
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