Government Spending

A Republican State Senator is Pushing For an Increase in the Texas' Gas Tax

Texas' 20-cent-per-gallon gas tax hasn't changed since 1991. That's despite the erosion of the tax's purchasing power -- the Wall Street Journal estimates that the gas tax buys half as much concrete, steel, and other materials as they did 20 years ago -- and a glaring need -- the state comptroller's ... More >>

New Report Details the Incredible Stupidity of Texas' Rejection of Medicaid Expansion

In July, Governor Rick Perry sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explaining why the state of Texas would not be taking part in the federal government's plans to expand Medicaid. Such an expansion would "enlarge a broken system that is already financially unsustain ... More >>

Fiscal Cliff Would Slow Texas' Economy by 1.2 Percent, White House Predicts

Earlier this month, state legislators met in Austin to learn what damage Texas might sustain if the country careens off the fiscal cliff, which is now frighteningly near. The short answer is, quite a bit. As the Austin American-Statesman reported, state agencies stand to lose as much as $1.1 billio ... More >>

Texas Will "Immediately" Defund Planned Parenthood After Court Refuses to Hear its Plea

That faint popping sound you heard last night was Governor Rick Perry uncorking a nice bottle of bubbly, after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday refused a request by Planned Parenthood to rehear the case over its ban from the new Texas Women's Health Program (TWHP). Texas, it appears ... More >>

Feds Say ATI's For-Profit Colleges Created Fake Jobs, Companies to Rip Off Students and the Government

ATI Career Training Center is the type of school you see advertised on daytime TV. It prepares its graduates for "rewarding careers" in "fields such as health care, personal fitness and wellness, business technology, information technology, automotive repair, air conditioning and refrigeration repai ... More >>

Bipartisan Super PAC Targets Rep. Ralph Hall of Rockwall in Republican Primary

Super PAC Campaign for Primary Accountability, a bipartisan political organization that claims to have its barrels loaded for both parties, just fired its opening fusillade. It aims to oust two long-serving congressmen in what would otherwise be shoe-in primaries. The targets: One El Paso Democrat a ... More >>

The Dallas Morning News is Just Shocked the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Cost So Much

​The Dallas Morning News has a big shocker headline -- a World-War-II-typeface, breathless, this-just-in, oh-my-God headline -- on the front of today's newspaper: "True Cost of Dallas' Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge: $182 million." The News tells us: "The new Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge will cost far ... More >>

Whistle-Blowers Claim City Misused Housing Money

Federal dough meant for affordable housing went to downtown.

The End of Family Planning in Texas

They say they defunded Planned Parenthood. But lawmakers' attack on family planning will cost Texas money, reduce access to healthcare and result in even more abortions.

Why the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wants That $15 Million Back from the City

Via.​No doubt you recall: A couple of weeks ago we discovered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants the city to pay back $15 million in federal funds doled out for the Dallas Floodway Extension project. Problem is, we don't have it -- at least, not all of it. Rebecca Rasor, director of the Trinit ... More >>

As Council Prepares to Review Proposed Budget, a Reminder to Look Ahead Sooner Than Later

​At 9 this morning, City Manager will present to Mayor Mike Rawlings and the city council the FY2011-12 budget first shown to media Thursday afternoon; watch Suhm's presentation here, during or after. And: The entire 571-budget is available here for those interested in taking longer, harder looks ... More >>

Union Station-to-Oak Cliff Streetcar Line Gets an Additional $3 Million From the Feds

Current Photo By Alex Scott/Historic Photo ©Dallas Historical Society​In February 2010, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced that the downtown Dallas streetcar project, then expected to run around $58 million, would get a huge hunk of its funding from the feds -- $23 million, to be pr ... More >>

Urban Land Institute: Dallas's "Bold [Roads] Retooling Could Run Short of Fuel for a While."

Click to embiggen a look at LBJ Freeway in the year 2016. Give or take.​That LBJ Freeway overhaul we've been warning you about gets underway today as crews begin the first phase of the HOV-lane shut-down, between Luna Road and Midway Road. But, hey, look at it this way, says Andy Rittler, spokesm ... More >>

Tom Leppert May Forget His Past. We Don't.

​Did anybody else have a serious gag reflex reading our former mayor's what-a-good-boy-am-I essay on the op-ed page of The Dallas Morning News yesterday? Does Tom Leppert just assume people don't remember a single thing about him? Or does he not remember a single thing about himself? His op-e ... More >>

Why Should You Pay for Park Cities Dowagers' Trinity Baubles?

​Check me on this. In an atmosphere of federal, state, county and city funding crises, where we may even see the defunding of federal health care reform, the gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency, an absolute decimation of support for public schools and impoverished children, drastic ... More >>

National Review: Tom Leppert's "Mayoral Past May Hurt Him Still" During Senate Run

Via.Rand Paul and Tom Leppert in February​Since he quit being nonpartisan mayor to run as a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Tom Leppert has certainly made his politics very clear: He's for drilling in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge and a balanced-budget amendment, and against National P ... More >>

Tom Leppert Gets Virtuous.

Tom Leppert Rediscovers His Virginity

​The Gromer Jeffers story in The Dallas Morning News Saturday reporting that Tom Leppert now opposes federal earmark money for the Trinity River project put me in mind of an old newspaper friend. He had struggled mightily with temptation during his younger married years. I should say, he stru ... More >>

Why can't Mexicans keep their cactus-pickin' fingers off other people's plants?

Stick It In Your Earmark Redux, or: Surprise, News Views Ban as a Bad Thing for Trinity

​O.K., I promise not to go on about it, but there's an interesting little two-step today on Page One of Dallas's Only Daily Newspaper. I just wanted to call it to your attention. It's about congressional earmarks and us. For a week or so we have been going on and on about how the Republican ban o ... More >>

Send us Your Earmark: Could Congress Turn off the Tap on Trinity Money?

Kosher Pork? One In a Series of Items About Flushing Money Down the Trinity River.

​Last week Friend of Unfair Park Shaggy predicted that the Tea Party will get over its aversion to congressional earmarks in however long it takes for the Triple R's (Really Really Rich People) to get Dick Armey to convey the new post-election marching orders down to the tri-cornered-hat persons: ... More >>

What Two Sentences in The WSJ Suggest About the Future of the Trinity River Project

U.S. Army Corps of EngineersFrom the Dallas Floodway Extension Project Description, this 1989 photo: "US175 blocked by water backed up into White Rock Creek. Normally, this is a busy traffic artery leading to the central business district."​Wilonsky sent me an interesting Wall Street Journal artic ... More >>

Stick It In Your Earmark, or: You Don't Have to Look Far To See When Good Money Goes Bad

The Trinity Parkway Toll Road, looking south from Hampton Road, from the master plan​Not to be cranky or anything, but it's really irritating to read all this crap about congressional earmarks and realize nobody knows what the hell they're talking about. Stories in both The Dallas Morning News and ... More >>

Amazing But True: City's Not Giving Up On, Um, "Problematic" Bama Pie Project

This is what the Bama Pie building looked like when I drove by it on New Year's Day of this year.​Longtime Friends of Unfair Park probably don't need a recap concerning the tragicomic goings-on at the former Bama Pie Co. building across the street from Fair Park. This blog is littered with stories ... More >>

Yesterday's Cry Was But One of Many Great Days in Randy Neugebauer History

McBloggerRep. Randy Neugebauer and some friend of his​First we didn't know who shouted "Baby Killer!" at Rep. Bart Stupak last night, during the health care debate. Joe Barton knew, but he wasn't talking. Then, we found out: It was Lubbock's own Rep. Randy Neugebauer, which, according to Jim anywa ... More >>

DISD May Still Get to Raze Historic Church, But Not Before Turning Over Financial Records

From left: Michael Amonett of OOCCL, Jason Roberts of Bike Friendly Oak Cliff and attorney John McCall Jr. after today's hearing​Schutze is right -- they ought to trademark it, "The Oak Cliff Way." Now, it's more than likely the  Old Oak Cliff Conservation League won't stop the Dallas Indepen ... More >>

Governor Perry Likes the Stimulus Package Now? What Happened to the Tea Party?

Danny FulgencioPerry fields questions from reporters today in Grand Hall at Union Station.The land of opportunity still exists in America, and it's in Texas. At least, that's what Governor Rick Perry told nearly 200 folks gathered this afternoon at Union Station for the Texas Economic Development Su ... More >>

City Receives Some Clean Cities Stimulus Money, But None For Economic Development

​On Friday, Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm informed Mayor Tom Leppert and the Dallas City Council, via memo, that the city's getting around $3 million in Clean Cities stimulus money to, among other things, "enhance fueling infrastructure, retrofit city vehicles and assist in the provision of traini ... More >>

Is the City of Dallas Really Going Green, Or Just Talking Till It's Blue in the Face?

The city of Dallas has made much of its efforts to "build a greener city" ... which means what, exactly? That, more or less, was the question posed earlier this week during a confab at the downtown Dallas library during a program billed as a dialogue on the "green economy," a catchphrase that's beco ... More >>

Says Rick Perry: I'm "Resisting Further Government Intrusion" and Saying No to $500 Mil in Unemployment Insurance

Just arrived in Austin, only to find in my in-box, oh, 'bout a dozen Friends' links to either Governor Rick Perry's speech down in Houston or the Burnt Orange Report's compendium of reactions to said speech. As you may know by now, the governor is saying no to more than $500 million in unemployment ... More >>

Fantroy, Guilty as Charged

DISD Now $316,000 Lighter

Put Out

If Dallas doesn't give the boys their road, they want the jewelry back

It's Official: We're a "Major Disaster"

Dallas, Detroit -- What's the Dif?

Eddie Bernice Johnson's Trinity Toll Road Comment Still Not News to The News

You, Snooze. We Lose.

Turns Out, We Can Afford to Vote on the Trinity River Toll Road After All. Sorry, Tom Leppert, But You Are Wrong.

No Love Here

Drug Money

Dallas County's innovative DIVERT court program is caught in a budget squeeze

Trashy Dreams

The city hopes its new "eco-park" will mean jobs and business. That may take some luck.

Taken to Task

DPS to oversee state drug forces troubled by abuses

Al Strikes Back

Lipscomb appeal finds a receptive audience in New Orleans

One of their own

Historical preservationists can't believe who's responsible for letting eight historic houses crumble to the brink of demolition

Nasty and negative

Colin Powell's decision reveals distasteful state of American politics

Falling into The Gap

The chasm separating the haves and have-nots is getting wider

Copping out

Dallas turns down federal millions that would put more cops on the street

The new voodoo

Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility--and, yes, there is a Santa Claus

Blah, blah

Hypercritical politics deliver nowhere politicians