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Texas Jeff
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Anyone else have the Governor of Maine as one of the first gutsy enough to stand up to a bully? Trump called her out face to face and tried to get her to comply with his Title IX orders regarding transgender participation in sports and she pushed back and said no way, see you in court. Later that day she released a statement: “I have spent my career – as a District Attorney, as Attorney General, and now as Governor – standing up for the rule of law in Maine and America. To me, that is fundamentally what is at stake here: the rule of law in our country. “No President – Republican or Democrat – can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold. “Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it – and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so. “I imagine that the outcome of this politically directed investigation is all but predetermined. My Administration will begin work with the Attorney General to defend the interests of Maine people in the court of law. But do not be misled: this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”
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My prediction if this happens: Congress will pass legislation authorizing a one-time payment to taxpaying Americans as an "advance" on DOGE savings. Everyone will get a check in the mail signed by Donald Trump for $500 or so with a letter saying "here is an advance payment for your portion of the savings, enjoy!!!" And they will claw it back on everyone's tax return so that the overall effect is that everyone nets about $10. A check in the fall presented with much bravado followed by a reduced refund in the spring when no one wants to do the math.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
In Texas, schools have to teach a certain number of instructional minutes, not a certain number of days. So a 5-day week where the kids are there for X minutes is just as good for funding as a 4-day week where the kids are there for the same X minutes. If the school is closed on the 5th day, they don't have to pay for transportation, cafeteria, janitorial service, or as much heating and cooling on that day. The teacher pay is the same. The teachers are there 4 days a week instead of 5 days, but for longer days. Some districts are using the 5th day for teacher planning and training, so the school might be open 5 days a week, but Friday becomes teacher-only day. It's not so bad of an idea for high schools that are already on an A/B schedule. It's probably better for affluent schools with a parent at home to turn Friday into super fun extra-curricular day. It's harder for poorer schools that rely on 5 days a week of other people watching their kids while parents work. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Collectively, a bunch of things that add up. Some I can think of are: * School districts collect money based on their property tax basis. But the state allows them to have revenue based on average daily attendance. The state can control how much is spent on education regardless of the property tax raised by the local district. The state is raising the amount by less than inflation, or in some years not at all, so eventually district budgets get crushed. Cost of living rises faster than teacher salaries rise, so eventually teachers are priced out of the district they serve. * In AISD, they have 100,000 seats available but only about 73,000 students. Demographic projections show that they will be flat over the next 10 years, or slightly down. You don't want to operate at 1 kid 1 seat, but they could at least trim 15,000 seats and have room to spare. They still have to heat and cool and clean the empty spaces, and this costs money. As an example, LBJ in Austin has about 600 students. LASA has about 1600. They are in the same sized buildings and they have similar number of janitors. It costs more per kid to keep LBJ clean than LASA, just because the ratios are higher. The district has not balanced enrollment across the district and they are operating too many schools. The "small school" problem raises costs in other ways. You need more coaches, more band directors, more principals, more money for transportation, more lawn mowing. Schools try to share resources, like having a band director or coach cover two schools, but the person eventually bails when they find a job that doesn't require them to split their attention. * Districts spend more on some items than the state allocates. In AISD, here are a few: + Safety and Security: State allocates $2.5 M, AISD spends $23.3 M -- a $20 M deficit + Transportation: State allocates $5.8 M, AISD spends $38.2 M -- a $32 M deficit + Special Education: State allocates $96.6 M, AISD spends $169.8 M -- $73.2 M deficit * AISD didn't do much to maintain their schools from 1980-2010. They are now digging out of a big maintenance hole. So for the next 25 years or so, maintenance is going to be high. But, they have the bucks to do this, they are limited by the speed of construction. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Off topic, but Austin High and all Austin high schools are getting turf for football/soccer, and lights for the turf field + lights for softball and baseball. That should happen in the next two years. It's not the same as the surrounding schools, but it's something. The Austin High baseball field is a little strange in that it's not actually on the high school campus. It's City of Austin, and there are agreements that allow CoA and AISD to share stuff around the high school. It was frustrating for me as a band parent in Austin ISD to travel to school districts like Seguin for contents, and see their better facilities, and look them up later and see how much they were getting from Robin Hood vs giving. The Robin Hood money mostly goes to teachers, but they are happy to include bond projects over the top for nicer facilities. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
I think we will gradually head to a two-tier school system. Some will take the $10k, add their own $10k, and go to a very nice school with no hard to educate kids. Everyone else that has something in their way, like not being able to come up with the extra $10k or having a disability, will go to what remains of the public system. -
The last time I was car shopping, I got in the Model 3 ready to love it and got out 10 seconds later because it sucked. No turn signal ... you had to push buttons on the steering wheel instead. A giant touchscreen for everything. The interior felt cheap. Perhaps the younger folks enjoy doing everything through a screen and pushing buttons to turn but it was not for me. My wife liked the Mach-E and we almost went down that road. It sucked less than the Tesla. How hard is to make a car with a reasonably nice interior with just a few knobs and dials instead of a giant monitor?
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
It's not just local property values declining. They are also choosing to spend $52 million more this year than originally planned, which is increasing their deficit, because the deficit is the difference between what they spend and what comes in. The deficit honestly doesn't matter that much ... because it is so large. They are lawn darting towards having no money in reserve. They have a board policy that says that they need to keep 20% of spending in reserve each year to help them get through the fall, help them pay teachers before taxes start getting paid in January. They are on track to drop below that amount sometime around the end of this year and spend the entire fund balance by the end of next year. They have to hope for more money from the Leg and/or get serious about significant cuts. They are being very transparent about it. All of the numbers are online. They are having lots of open discussions about it but they are not making enough cuts to balance the budget. -
George Bush replaced Ann Richards as our governor 30 years ago. Since then we have had exactly three governors. Bush used the office to run for president. Perry inherited the office from Bush and then wouldn't leave. When Perry finally left, Abbott got 91% of the primary vote and of course as a Republican he was able to beat Wendy Davis in 2015. It's been ten years since then. Abbott can probably win again if he wants and continue to serve until 2032 or beyond. In the 30 years prior to 1995, Texas had six governors. They used to serve reasonable terms and then bring in some other person. Fresh ideas. Now we have little kings that stay too long.
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
BTW, I am no fan of vouchers ... but I have some thoughts on this. I think exactly what you say will happen, but it will mostly benefit "easy-to-educate" kids ... mostly wealthier kids without disabilities. People think Austin ISD gets about $6160 per kid, which is about the standard allotment. I knew they got more money than that, because of bond expenditures, title 1, and so on, but I was really surprised when their efficiency report revealed that they received $13,802 in revenue per student in the 2022-23 school year. That number is after recapture. In 2023-24, before recapture was paid, they collected over $25,000 per student. The amount of money they spend per student varies widely throughout the district. Easy-to-educate kids get less and hard-to-educate kids get more, which makes sense. In your scenario, the "easy-to-educate" school would see an increase in funding. The "hard-to-educate" school would see a drop. Vouchers are going to attract the "easy-to-educate" kids, who will see an increase in their school funding and have the ability to add to that advantage via additional private tuition. Austin ISD received $2000 more revenue per student in 2022-23 than their peer districts, but paid a lower base salary to teachers, paid less to administrators, and paid the superintendent less than their peer districts. I am a fan of Austin ISD but I don't think they are efficiently using what they have. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Some numbers on what is being proposed, more info at the Texas Tribune: The Texas Senate is planning to spend $1 billion at first on vouchers. Homeschool kids get $2000 each. Non-homeschool kids sign up for $10,000 each, or $11,500 if they are disabled. So, even if the homeschool kids are not included in the $1 billion and no disabled kids sign up, the plan is limited to 100,000 kids. Texas today has about 350,000 kids in private schools. Any student can sign up to get the money, but 80% goes to kids under 500% of the poverty level, which is $156,000 for a family of four. The rest are entered into a lottery if there is any money left. However, the legislative budget board has said that costs will grow in future years. Voucher costs will jump from $1 billion in FY 2027 to almost $3 billion in FY 2028 and $3.7 billion by FY 2030. Of course, those numbers are beyond the current biennium, but it's easy to see how this expense could take off in future years. -
The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread
Texas Jeff replied to Horn Dog's topic in Cloak Room
trump is talking about the US owning Gaza. -
He did not launch it. The FAA published guidelines trying to recruit more people with targeted disabilities in Feb 2013. He kept it going in his first administration. Elon has recently been compiling about the FAA DEI policy. I suspect that Trump had no idea that FAA DEI existed and didn't care that this was going on during his first term. But now Elon has Trump's ear, so we are all talking about it. Some reading: https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/01/15/faa-dei-initiatives/ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/trump-dei-plane-crash-fact-check.html From The NY Times article, on the effectiveness of these efforts: and
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American Airlines flight 5342 (CRJ) collides with Army UH-60 at DCA.
Texas Jeff replied to UnivTex34's topic in Daily Texan
A 200 ft ceiling is pretty crazy. The UT tower is 300 ft high. Can you imagine flying a giant helicopter at night, wearing night vision goggles, less than 200 ft off a river that looks like a dark spot below, with bridges, cables and whatnot possibly in your way? -
My daughter needed a renewal just before Christmas. We made an appointment for the UT office on Nueces as soon as we could -- which was the next morning. Walked in with paperwork filled out. No wait because we had an appointment. Walked out 15 minutes later with an estimated delivery date of mid-February. The new passport arrived Jan 10th. Thanks Biden! BTW they don't take credit cards ... bring your checkbook or a money order if you have to go in. Most adults can renew online and pay via credit card, but not if you are in person.
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This is a problem with Lady Bird Lake aka Town Lake. Lake Travis is controlled by the LCRA. Longhorn Dam impounds Lady Bird Lake and is maintained by the City of Austin. LCRA is who you want to own your dam, if you care about your dam functioning well. Longhorn Dam (at the east end of downtown) has had problems in the past and has gotten stuck open and closed. It probably needs to be replaced. When the dam is stuck open, the lake drains. When it’s stuck closed, the SRV statue takes a swim.
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2026 CFP National Championship Date Announced
Texas Jeff replied to BurntOrange&White's topic in Football
UT starts their long session in 2027 on Jan 11th. So the championship game will be held two weeks into that spring semester. CFP needs to conclude football season before the spring semester starts at most schools or commit to spending the money to fly everyone involved to playoff games. At Texas, Longhorn Band and cheer and the other student orgs get to go to these games, which is a fantastic opportunity for the students ... but they are being bussed to these games, which takes an extra day or two before and after the games. It was hard for the students to do this for the SEC championship during fall finals week, but they did it. It would be difficult for them to be bussed to Atlanta at the end of the fall semester and then miss chunks of the spring semester if Texas was still playing. -
The open was great and my wife and I loved "Bungee Fitness", which I have now discovered is a real thing. I'd be willing to bet that the bungee fitness people have record sign-up's next week.
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I work with a lot of South Asians in tech, and the women among them are carefully reading this part and worrying about their kids. Are their kids, born in the USA, citizens, they ask? These are women who left their home country with an education, came to this country, got an advanced degree, and are helping to make the tech that allows Trump to speak to us with his thumbs. Some got married and had kids here in the US while they were headed down the H1-B path. Now they are asking me for details about the 14th amendment and what it means and how to check on what it means and what it will mean in the future and if their kids are US citizens are not. And I'm like, well hey, we used to have people that owned other people and then we had a war and after that some folks didn't want people that didn't look like them them to be citizens so we wrote this 14th thing and then some folks still came up with corner cases to prevent people born here from being citizens so we had to work that out in the courts and we all thought we were good until MONDAY! I'm not exactly sounding a reassuring tone.
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How exactly would this work?
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I've been thinking about what a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico and what it would do to the auto industry. The price of new and used cars is going to rise, along with the price of parts. New cars will be plentiful, but pricy. If half of the US automotive stuff is made outside the US and half is made inside, it's reasonable to think we may see a 12-13% rise in prices. Today, the average US car costs around $48,000, so we could see average car prices approaching $54,000 by the end of the year because of tariffs.
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They have moved on to coverage of an indoor parade.
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Ah, it's here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815
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I looked, and didn't see it, although maybe this isn't the correct text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text However I am not a lawyer so perhaps it's in there in some way I don't understand.
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