Texas Public Policy Foundation releases “Keeping Texas Competitive 2013” agenda
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Kristen Indriago
October 17, 2012 (512) 472-2700
Legislative recommendations provide roadmap to keep Texas at forefront of prosperity, job creation, and economic growth
AUSTIN – Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation unveiled “Keeping Texas Competitive 2013,” a series of recommendations to the 83rd Texas Legislature that will keep Texas at the forefront of prosperity, job creation, and economic growth.
TexasBudgetSource.com – adds comprehensive pension calculator
New feature allows users to estimate pensions for 900,000 state and local government employees
AUSTIN – TexasBudgetSource.com has launched the Texas Pension Calculator, which allows TBS website visitors to view the salaries and estimated pension obligations for approximately 900,000 state and local government employees in Texas.
“Texas Budget Source’s pension calculator and public employee salary database allow the citizens and taxpayers of Texas to gain a more clear understanding of where and how their tax dollars are spent,” said Talmadge Heflin, director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “The calculator projects the financial demands of current employees after retirement and enables the user to estimate annual pension costs of public workers in Texas.” Continue reading →
Statement on use of the Economic Stabilization Fund in the FY 2011 state budget
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“We are disappointed to learn that Texas will likely resort to using its rainy day fund this early in the legislative session. Legislators in both the House and Senate should heed Speaker Straus’ commitment to continue looking for budget savings that will reduce any draw on the rainy day fund.
Putting Politifact’s “truth-o-meter” to the test
David Guenthner
On Monday, Talmadge Heflin issued a statement in response to the Comptroller’s biennial revenue estimate. Later in the day, Heflin wrote a “Speaking Freely” post on “the myth of the $27 billion shortfall,” which contained a thorough refutation of the dollar figure cited in some media accounts.
This morning, a project called Politifact – which in Texas operates under the umbrella of the Austin American-Statesman – applied its “truth-o-meter” to the closing statement of Heflin’s blog post, in which he concluded that claims of a $27 billion budget shortfall “are flat-out false.”
Somehow, Politifact concluded that Heflin’s statement was “false”. For real?
Virtually all of Politifact’s judgment depends on a single viewpoint – that of the organization that issued the $27 billion estimate. Politifact’s analysis of Heflin’s comments was told in a highly simplified fashion that neglected to mention key facts. The core of the article consists of 422 words defending the $27 billion methodology. Heflin’s defense of his original statement and response to the $27 billion clarification is combined into a single paragraph at the end. Continue reading →
Statement on the Comptroller’s Revenue Estimate
There is a substantial amount of flawed information showing up in traditional media accounts, driven largely by erroneous articles last week on Business Insider and in Paul Krugman’s New York Times column. Already today, we are seeing many media outlets splashing the liberal spin of a “$27 billion budget shortfall” in Texas. That figure is nonsense. Please find below two items from Talmadge Heflin, Director of TPPF’s Center for Fiscal Policy and former chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee. The first is his statement on the release of the revenue estimate. The second is a blog post specifically refuting the myth of the $27 billion budget shortfall.
David Guenthner –
Texas Public Policy Foundation
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Talmadge Heflin
Statement by The Honorable Talmadge Heflin, Director of the Center for Fiscal Policy and former Chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee:
“Now that the Comptroller has released her estimate of state revenues for the next two years, it is imperative that the Texas Legislature produce a budget that balances within existing revenue.
“This session’s budget writers must recognize that just as Texans’ family budgets have shrunk, so now must the state’s. Now is the wrong time to increase the burden of state government on those family budgets. Legislators must set careful priorities to ensure that taxpayers’ limited resources are spent in the most effective and responsible manner. Continue reading →
