19. Correcting Government Failures: Reduce Spending
In this newsletter, update on the electricity issue in TX, latest on the $1.9T DC sham, importance of inclusive institutions for prosperity, benefits of spending restraint & tax relief, seen v. unseen
Hello Friend,
Welcome back for another post in the Let People Prosper newsletter. I hope that you’ve had a prosperous week! My family and I have truly been blessed.
It’s continued to be a busy time in the Austin area as the political storm after the power outages in Texas continues to roll on. Members of ERCOT’s board have resigned recently and the Public Utility Commission’s chair stepped down today. As I noted in my previous newsletter, there is much more that we will learn from the week of Snowmageddon in Texas. The many hours of hearings by the Texas Legislature already shed some light on the historic weather event, grid mismanagement, and poor policies propping up unreliable sources of energy (wind/solar) over reliable sources of energy (natural gas, nuclear, coal) that I highlighted previously.
The following is a good chart by my colleague Jason Isaac who runs TPPF’s Life:Powered campaign. It highlights the huge difference in energy capacity since 2012 as federal production tax credits and Chapter 313 deals made it cheaper (on the backs of taxpayers) to produce wind and solar plants over thermal plants. This sort of redistribution of resources to pick winners and losers in the marketplace should end to level the playing field for an all-of-the-above energy production strategy.
If you haven’t read the great work by my colleagues at TPPF on this issue, I highly recommend you read them here at The Cannon Online, which is our new commentary website. I’m not going to hash out what I noted in my previous post again, but I do hope that cooler heads prevail and that instead of adding more government regulations and taxes that the Legislature will consider the government failures and correct them before trying to solve these failures with more government, which this solution will make the problem worse. And that shouldn’t happen given that we may never know the number of deaths from this event and there will be many families strapped for cash from high electricity prices and home repairs and many businesses that fail. Here’s one cost estimate so far: “Across the winter event, Karnei stated the ERCOT wholesale market incurred $55 billion in costs over the week-long period — equal to four years of costs normally.”
There’s a lot more to be said on this issue, but I’m going to leave it here for now so we can get into other current events.
TEXAS ECONOMIC AND FISCAL SITUATION
Check out this podcast by the fantastic Austin Institute that I was on recently to discuss the Texas budget and TPPF’s work on the Opportunity Project.
I was also on TPPF’s podcast recently talking about the importance of a Conservative Texas Budget and the Foundation’s Responsible Recovery Agenda.
Don’t miss my testimony provided before the Texas House Committee on Appropriations - Subcommittee on Article II where I discussed ways to improve the lives of Texans.
I also testified recently before the Texas House Committee on Ways & Means where I noted how Texas could recover fast by opening and following TPPF’s Responsible Recovery Agenda.
I enjoyed talking about the Texas economy and what Texas needs to do to strengthen the Texas Model to Keep Texas Texan at a recent event by the East Texas Coalition.
Here’s my latest take on the Texas economic and fiscal situation.
How should the Texas Legislature use the Rainy Day Fund?
Check out this piece on The Cannon Online by Texas Rep. Matt Schaefer on the bad government spending problem in DC.
U.S. ECONOMIC AND FISCAL SITUATION
Here’s my recent commentary on the latest $1.9T disaster.
There’s more nonsense going around about raising the minimum wage: make it stop!
There’s also this about setting minimum wages by private companies.
Here’s the latest on the U.S. economic and fiscal situation.
OPEN TEXAS (AND AMERICA)
Summary of COVID-19 Situation in Texas: TX DSHS Data Here
As of Mar. 1, only 2 of 22 Trauma Service Areas (TSA) are on the Governor’s list for elevated restrictions as a business operating capacity is cut from 75% to 50%, which is a substantial improvement over the last month with now just 4% of Texans living in these more restricted TSAs (El Paso and Laredo areas).
COVID-19 cases, fatalities, and case-fatality rate are all improving and hospital beds available remain around normal for the last year. Improvements in the case-fatality rate could be from better therapeutics, younger and healthier population infected, better utilization of hospital resources, and Gov. Abbott’s more targeted policy approach.
Based on these data and others below, there remain valid reasons to open Texas and continue concentrating resources where they’re needed most without blanket policies and restrictions that hurt lives & livelihoods.
Texas Gov. Abbott’s Metric Overview
Per Gov Abbott’s metric of COVID-19 hospitalizations as a share of total hospital capacity for seven consecutive days, TSAs below 15% can have most business restrictions lifted to 75% operating capacity (up from 50%), keep state mask mandate (been in effect since July 2), and bars (and others) open to 50% capacity with county judge’s approval
4% of Texans are at 50% capacity + other restrictions while 96% of Texans are at 75% capacity + other restrictions, so this has substantially improved
This CV19-to-capacity metric statewide has been declining statewide to 8.5%, which is the lowest since Oct. 30
Hospital Overview Statewide
COVID-19 hospitalizations down 19.6% (to 5,611 hospitalizations—lowest since 10/28) from 7 days ago & down 28.3% from 14 days ago, well below July’s 9,700 avg
Hospital beds available statewide up to 26.1%, above the avg of 23.7% in July and near the avg of 26% since May
Hospital capacity up 0.4% (to 66,308 beds) from 7 days ago and up 0.9% from 14 days ago, level is well above July’s 57,000 avg
There’s a chance that Texas Governor Abbott may soon be announcing a reduction in his restrictions on Texas in response to COVID-19. Praying that’s true!
Closing Thoughts
These are true words that I do my best to focus on every day.
And finally, here’s a quote from the great Frederic Bastiat:
Thanks again for reading! If you haven’t signed up for my newsletter yet, please subscribe here at no charge and share with others. Many blessings to you and yours.
Vance Ginn, Ph.D. | www.vanceginn.com | #LetPeopleProsper