Every eligible child born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, receives a $1,000 seed deposit from the U.S. Treasury to kick-start their account, with contributions from family, friends, and employers helping the fund grow tax-deferred over time. In less than one week, families across the country have invested $125 million in America's newborn children. This is an incredible opportunity to set your child up for financial success, and I recommend taking advantage of the program.
Governor Greg Abbott today announced three Statewide Preceptorship Program (SPP) grants totaling $5.5 million to professional medical societies in Texas. The grants support hands-on training for Texas medical students in family medicine, general internal medicine, and pediatrics, including pediatric subspecialties. The grants help strengthen Texas’ primary care physician workforce, particularly in rural and medically underserved communities.
Both President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have indicated in recent days that they support our UP idea of indexing capital gains tax for inflation for all assets, or at least for residential real estate. This would free up housing and capital and raise up to $100 billion in revenue by incentivizing sales of assets. It looks to be a key feature of any end of summer tax cut. Earlier this week Larry Kudlow made the case in the New York Sun.
The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified after the Civil War to guarantee citizenship for formerly enslaved Americans. It was never intended to reward illegal immigration or create a market where foreign nationals can purchase "birth packages" to secure American citizenship for their children. The Constitution's requirement that individuals be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States has meaning, and Congress has a responsibility to restore its original intent.
On Saturday, I lost more than a friend. It feels as though I've lost a member of my family. I have known Lindsey Graham since I was in my 20s. I will never forget those early days when he first began campaigning for public office. I took him to South Carolina State University, where I had served as Student Government Association president. He sat in the president's box, met so many of the people who shaped my life, including my family and my brother, Kent, who would later become a South Carolina state senator.
Governor Greg Abbott today announced that a Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund (TSIF) grant of $33.6 million has been extended to Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) for expanded capacity and technology investments at their 300mm semiconductor wafer fab in Richardson (RFAB). The project is expected to total $700 million in capital investment. Texas Instruments, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Dallas, is the birthplace of the world’s first commercial silicon transistor in 1954, followed by Jack Kilby’s invention of the integrated circuit in 1958.
Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the (long overdue) lifting of most COVID restrictions in California. After years of delay, Newsom finally ordered 108,000 state workers back to their offices for four days a week starting July 1 of this year. What's even more humorous is the latest spin from the unions that having more state workers actually on the job and working will mean worse traffic congestion for private sector workers who DO show up for work. If you don't believe us, here's the billboard erected in Sacramento.
“Upstream employment” in the oil and natural gas industry refers to jobs that focus on locating and extracting energy resources. Since February, oil and natural gas exploration and production jobs have increased each month. Upstream positions support an additional 232,000 indirect jobs within the supply chain and 421,000 induced jobs due to more income spent across the economy.
Texas Land Commissioner and Veterans Land Board (VLB) Chairwoman Dawn Buckingham, M.D., is calling on all Texans to donate to Texas State Veterans Homes (TSVH) and Texas State Veterans Cemeteries (TSVC). While monetary donations are accepted and can be made through the VLB's new online donations portal, there are multiple non‑monetary ways to give back to the men and women who served our great nation.
I spent years chairing the House Agriculture Committee listening to farmers explain the same frustration in a dozen different ways: they owned the equipment, but they didn't control it. They'd bought the machine outright, sunk their own capital into it, and still had to ask someone else's permission just to open the hood. They needed someone else's permission to fix it and, given the current rules on the books, they often have no choice but to pay a dealership hundreds of miles away. On Wednesday, President Trump delivered.
Governor Greg Abbott today directed the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to launch an immediate and thorough investigation of Mission Regional Medical Center. Reports show the hospital targets foreign nationals with “birth packages in South Texas” to profit from birth tourism that grants U.S. citizenship to children born in the United States. HHSC will also impose administrative sanctions and penalties on Mission Regional Medical Center.
U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action & Federal Rights, and Sen. James Lankford (R-OK,) were joined by six Senators and 35 Congressmen in filing an Amicus Brief urging the Supreme Court to protect the Constitutional Rights of faith-based schools participating in school choice programs.
Credit is one of those foundational conditions. Without it, the rest of the work is harder than it needs to be. So, when I learned about proposed federal legislation to cap credit card interest rates, I started to worry about what it would mean for communities like Spearman and for every small town across rural Texas trying to keep its economy intact. Interest rates are a key part of how the system works.
Following last week’s SCOTUS decision on birthright citizenship, Texas State Rep. Brian Harrison wrote a letter this morning to the Texas Department of State Health Services asking that they use their existing authority to immediately stop issuing birth certificates to non-citizens. "While I am calling for a special session to take legislative action, such as making birth tourism a felony, under current law, you have broad authority right now to determine who is “properly qualified” to receive a certified birth certificate."
A week before the deadline to withdraw from the Maine race, a woman has come forward to accuse Platner of sexually assaulting her in 2021. Platner has said any sex he had was "consensual" and denies her charges. This comes on top of his Nazi tattoo and revelations that he sexted women after he was married and apparently has—or had, according to him—a drinking problem.
The Bridger Aerospace "Super Scoopers" – yes – literally scoop water from nearby lakes and water sources and transport it to the fire line to extinguish wildfires when every minute and second counts. And the planes have spent 36 days working in Texas so far this year, logging more than 80 flight hours and dropping more than 130,000 gallons of water on fires across the Lone Star State. Wildfire season is upon us, and aerospace technology companies are racing to reshape how decisions are made.
Zohran Mamdani has been talking about America being "racist," yet he's expressed more racist sentiment in his first six months in office than any other mayor in the history of New York. His advisors have said on multiple occasions that "whites must be defeated." Imagine if you had — if any other mayor, anywhere, said "blacks must be defeated," or "Asians must be defeated," or "Hispanics must be defeated." That’s about as racist as you can get.
“Texas is where the world builds bigger, and Toyota shows it once more with a $3.6 billion expansion in San Antonio that doubles their factory footprint and creates 2,000 new jobs," said Gov. Greg Abbott earlier today, announcing that Toyota Motor Manufacturing will expand its U.S. production capacity with a second vehicle assembly line in San Antonio – doubling their existing manufacturing footprint with a $3.6 billion investment, that will create 2,000 new jobs.
