The president's Council of Economic Advisers has just released its first quarterly report to Congress on the impact of the $787 billion stimulus package known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The report is filled with the...
The budget won't be on the House floor until Friday, April 17. But members are warming up their vocal chords today. First, Rep. Norma Chavez, D-El Paso, dissented when the Calendars Committee approved a rule limiting floor amendments on the...
The House's chief budget writer, Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, drew chuckles at a symposium today with a jibe at his own party. The back story: At the session's start, GOP leaders submitted a bare bones budget. It was a few billion,...
As Senate debate of the budget finally began in the past hour, several Democrats questioned whether the GOP-controlled Senate has violated the intent of the federal stimulus bill. Sens. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso (right), and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, asked if...
Texas Association of Business president Bill Hammond has a two-track message going as fallout continues over Gov. Rick Perry's rejection of federal stimulus money for unemployment insurance last week. The theme song from the old TV show "Bonanza" could be...
A discussion on the House floor today captured an emerging irony of the Legislature's stimulus money discussion: Texas, while currently in the black, faces a long-run "structural deficit" because it cut school property taxes by a good deal in 2006,...
Robert T. Garrett reports: AUSTIN -- Texas should take a half-billion more federal stimulus dollars that it can tap by allowing more jobless workers to qualify, Democrat legislative leaders said today. The Democrats said GOP Gov. Rick Perry should consider...
House Democratic Leader Jim Dunnam says legislative budget writers "appear to be" intent on disarming Gov. Rick Perry when it comes to Texas' use of federal stimulus money. Dunnam, D-Waco, said today that budget packaging is likely to inhibit Perry's...
Guess who's going to Washington? Maybe. Some Texas House members, named by Speaker Joe Straus last week to a newly created Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization Funding, are mulling a possible expedition to the Potomac. The quarry: Answers about...
Texas is looking at a pot of new federal health care dollars -- between $5 billion and $6 billion -- that's as big as the stimulus bill's bonanza for public schools. The General Accounting Office estimates Texas should receive $5.45...
Rail advocates around the country are ecstatic that senators included $8 billion for high-speed rail grants in the stimulus legislation. The question is: where does this money go? Will Texas get any of it for its long-held dream for...
Politico reported late yesterday that Sen. John Cornyn skipped the Senate cloture vote on the stimulus package. Cornyn has been an outspoken opponent of the stimulus legislation, but figured it would pass the procedural hurdle (which requires 60 yes votes,...
In Austin today, Kay Bailey Hutchison offered up her view of the economic stimulus package on the table in Washington: It's too bloated, but if it passes, Texas has to take the money. Of course, the politics of this are...
Newsletter sign-up: Top Headlines
Widgets
Get Breaking News on your cell