Good morning,

Texas is one of the most financially lucrative places to be unemployed in America; I end the week reflecting on why that's incredibly uncharitable. 

Here is the Texas Minute for Friday, January 13, 2023.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

But First... Don't Get Mad; Hire Someone Else

• A lot of conservatives are mad this week about the GOP-dominated Texas House’s insolence and betrayal. Here's the problem: We’re at fault.
      
• As voters, we’ve tolerated too much. As conservatives, we have been too quick at handing out "Reagan Warrior of the Year" participation trophies to everyone with an "R" next to their name.
      
• Until there are consequences for betraying conservative principles and priorities, lawmakers won’t stop.

Texas GOP Denounces Democrat Committee Chairs At Rally

• More than a thousand Republican voters converged on the Capitol yesterday to voice their disgust with GOP lawmakers once again allowing Democrats to hold committee chairmanships. Sydnie Henry has a report from their rally.
      
• “While conservatives in Washington, D.C., recently fought for and won historic reforms that bring accountability and transparency to Congress, state House members in Texas just rolled over and played dead,” said Jill Glover, who chairs the Republican Party of Texas' legislative priorities committee.
     

• Banning Democrat committee chairmanships is one of eight Republican priorities for 2023 that was supported by more than 81 percent of Republican voters. That priority is effectively dead in both the House and Senate. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced last month he would retain Houston Democrat John Whitmire as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice.

      
• “It does bring to mind a little bit of a question: What exactly is the point of fighting for election integrity if elected Republicans are just going to turn around and voluntarily give power back to the Democrats?” asked State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Waxahachie).

📺 Watch Now: The Headline!

• I'm filling in for Brandon Waltens behind The Headline desk. After hearing from Republican U.S. Rep. Keith Self of Collin County about the victories set in motion by the fighting attitude of the 20 patriots in Congress, I chat with State Rep. Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) about the lack of fight in the Texas House.
     

• Watch the show on our website, YouTube, or Rumble!

Texas Association of School Boards Endorses ‘Transgender’ Restroom Policies

• New legal guidelines were distributed this week by a taxpayer-funded lobbying group to Texas' public schools, instructing them to “affirm” gender-confused minors and allow them to use the bathroom of the opposite sex. Katy Drollinger reports the Texas Association of School Boards is also telling teachers to use a student’s “preferred name” and gender at school even if their parents disapprove.

     
• Reminder: TASB is funded by tax dollars through the dues and fees school district and school board members pay with local tax dollars.

Tax-hiking Cartel: Oppressing Texans

• This week's investigation of complaints filed by Texans against their property appraisal districts and the system itself reveal widespread abuse and casual neglect. Robert Montoya concludes the series by looking at what solutions might be at hand.
       
• “We need to look at reforms to make sure the appraisals are done correctly and without bias and with fairness, and with taxpayers having a seat at the table,” said State Rep. Brian Harrison (R–Waxahachie). “But the ultimate responsibility for taxes going up every year is local elected officials who run the taxing jurisdictions.”
      
• “The real problem is too much government spending, whether it be at the local level, and honestly at the state level,” economist Vance Ginn told Texas Scorecard. “What we’ve really got to do is hit the trunk of the tree first, which is too big a government, and start cutting at that, or the problem will just continue to get worse.”
       
• “The solution is to eliminate property taxes altogether,” explained Tim Hardin, president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. “There [are] a number of different, very sane ways to fund government. It could take multiple different forms, and none of them have to involve property taxes.”

San Antonio Petition Would Prohibit Police From Enforcing Abortion Law

• This week, several abortion groups submitted a petition with more than 35,000 signatures to add a question to San Antonio's municipal elections ballot in May that would end the criminalization of abortion crimes – in contradiction to Texas state law. Soli Rice has the full story.

      
• Texas currently prohibits abortion entirely, with the rare exception of cases in which the mother has a life-threatening medical emergency.
     

• The petition would prevent San Antonio police from enforcing the state's abortion law. 

Fallon Files Articles of Impeachment Against DHS Secretary

• Articles of impeachment against U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for high crimes and misdemeanors were filed this week by U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Prosper). Emily Wilkerson has the details.

Friday Reflection: Won’t Work? Then Don’t Eat.

A recent study finds that Texas makes it very lucrative for people not to work. The benefits and handouts available come to the equivalent of earning $74,000… all for not working in the Lone Star State. Are the rest of us suckers?

According to research conducted by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, Texas is in the top 20 states when it comes to paying people not to work. That isn’t a compliment. The committee is headed by some of the brightest guys in free market economics – Steve Forbes, Art Laffer, and Steve Moore.

Their report focuses on the economics of it all. A society simply cannot afford to pay people for not working. Why work retail, trucking, or some other job East Coast elites deride (until they need it!) as a less-than-glamorous gig when – by not working – someone can pull in double the equivalent salary in benefits and handouts?

The report finds two unemployed adults with two children can bring in the salary equivalent of nearly $62,000 in Texas by not working.

Post-COVID, there are estimated to be three million working-age Americans who have simply not returned to work. With numbers like these, why should they? Government has incentivized sloth.

It is a reminder that economics and morality are inseparable. Bad economic policy is always rooted in sketchy morals. Conversely, a well-functioning moral compass sets a path for good economic policy.

In Texas, lucrative welfare schemes are the only tangible and measurable result of Gov. Greg Abbott keeping the Lone Star State under his perpetual COVID emergency. It allows people to draw higher government benefits without any pesky requirements that they actively seek work.

It might feel like “charity” to hand tens of thousands of someone else’s dollars a year to an unemployed person… but it is not. It is theft, coupled with a transfer of wealth.

Government cannot be charitable because government gets its money only at the tip of the sword. Don’t believe that? Try not paying your taxes and see how charitable the revenue officers will be. Government cannot be charitable, because government is brute force.

Charity is what individuals do for each other. It's family members taking care of family members, as Timothy instructs us. And it's the church stepping in where families cannot. In charity, we rightly recognize we must limit charity with charity. Giving $20 to a mentally ill drunkard at the street corner might provide the giver a moment of good feelings, but it only fuels the addiction of the recipient. True charity occurs when one person builds into the life of another, meeting real needs rather than papering them over with someone else’s cash.

Government handouts, in contrast, represent a grotesque form of slavery, creating a dependence that erodes the soul of the recipient while providing another reason for bureaucracies to grow. It is a win-win for the leviathan of big government, at the expense – literally – of everyone.

St. Paul had it right in his second letter to the Thessalonians. He wrote, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”

It is not that Paul wanted people to go hungry, it is that he did not want people living in chains – especially not in the chains of their laziness.

While it cannot provide charity, government can provide incentives. Texas currently incentivizes sloth and laziness; let us instead incentivize industry and effort. Texas should withhold welfare from those who can work but don’t.

To paraphrase St. Paul: We will be amazed at how motivated someone can be by a growling stomach.