The Politics of “Fair Share”: Gina Hinojosa's Undefined Promise

 Gina Hinojosa, governor-elect for Texas, has made a familiar promise:

“On Day One as governor, I’ll freeze residential electricity rates and make corporations finally pay their fair share.”

There it is again. That wonderfully convenient phrase Democrats seem so fond of using: “fair share.”

It sounds reasonable. It sounds righteous. It sounds like somebody is finally going to make the bad guys pay.

But there's one rather important question that never seems to get answered:

Exactly how much is a “fair share”?

Is it 10%? 20%? 50%? Is it a percentage of profits, revenue, or something else entirely? How much are these corporations paying now, and how much does Hinojosa believe they should be paying?

More importantly, what objective standard determines that number?

Hinojosa's campaign argues that corporations driving increased electricity demand, particularly data centers, should bear the associated infrastructure costs rather than passing those expenses along to residential customers.

That's a legitimate policy question, and one worth discussing.

But making a corporation pay for infrastructure required by its operations is not necessarily the same thing as making it pay more taxes. Those are two entirely different propositions, and voters deserve to know which one they're being promised.

Hinojosa also advocates eliminating corporate subsidies. Fine. Which subsidies? How much do they cost? Which would she eliminate, and what would be the economic consequences?

These are not unreasonable questions. They're the questions that ought to be answered before asking Texans to endorse a policy.

Instead, we're handed another political slogan.

And that's what bothers me about so much of the Democratic Party's economic rhetoric. Phrases like “tax the rich,” “make corporations pay,” and “everyone should pay their fair share” are repeated endlessly, frequently without defining the actual financial standard being proposed.

The implication is always the same: somebody else isn't paying enough, and government needs more authority to correct the supposed injustice.

But fairness isn't a number. It's a judgment. And unless politicians explain the criteria behind that judgment, “fair share” means whatever they decide it means at any particular moment.

There's another problem with Hinojosa's promise: freezing electricity rates.

Texas electricity prices are influenced by generation costs, transmission infrastructure, fuel prices, regulatory decisions, and market conditions. A governor cannot simply wave a pen and make those economic realities disappear.

If residential rates are frozen while underlying costs continue rising, somebody must absorb the difference. Who? Electricity providers? Investors? Taxpayers? Other ratepayers?

And what happens to investment in the electrical infrastructure Texas needs?

A rate freeze may sound attractive to voters, but a campaign promise isn't an economic plan.

I oppose Hinojosa's candidacy, and I disagree with much of the Democratic Party's approach to taxation, regulation, and government intervention in the economy. I believe politicians should have to justify taking more money or imposing additional costs rather than simply invoking an undefined notion of fairness.

If Hinojosa believes corporations are not paying enough, she should demonstrate it. Show us the figures. Identify the specific taxes, subsidies, or infrastructure costs involved. Explain what she proposes to change and what those changes would accomplish.

Until then, “fair share” is little more than a politically useful phrase that allows voters to imagine whatever definition of fairness they happen to prefer.

So, Hinojosa, here's my question:

What, precisely, is a corporation's fair share? How much are corporations paying today, how much should they be paying under your administration, and what objective calculation establishes the difference?

Because if you cannot define what constitutes a fair share, you cannot credibly claim that anyone is failing to pay it.

And Texans deserve something considerably more substantial than another Democratic campaign slogan.

Texas Turned Blue

 

Don't California My Texas: The Politics of Turning Texas Blue

When people move to Texas for a better life, why are some so determined to change the very things that made Texas attractive in the first place?

There was a time when being a Texas Democrat meant something quite different from what it means today.

The Democrats of the 1990s were often a distinctly Texas breed. Many were socially moderate, fiscally conservative, and fiercely protective of the state's independence and identity. They understood that Texas was different from California, New York, and the other reliably Democratic states—and many considered those differences worth preserving.

Today's progressive movement to "Turn Texas Blue" represents a very different political philosophy.

Consider that slogan for a moment.

Turn Texas Blue.

What does it actually promise Texans?

Does it promise a lower cost of living? Lower property taxes? Less government interference? More affordable housing? Lower energy prices? Protection of Texas's longstanding absence of a state personal income tax?

No. None of those things is inherent in the slogan.

It promises a change in political control.

And that distinction matters.

The Texas Advantage

For decades, Texas has attracted people and businesses from across the country, particularly from states with higher taxes, more expensive housing, and heavier regulatory burdens.

California is perhaps the most conspicuous example.

Texas offers several advantages that have helped make it attractive to newcomers: no state personal income tax, a comparatively business-friendly regulatory environment, abundant land, a substantial energy industry, and housing that has historically been more affordable than in many coastal metropolitan areas.

Texas is hardly perfect. Property taxes can be substantial, insurance costs are rising, and rapid population growth has placed enormous pressure on infrastructure and housing affordability.

Nevertheless, the state has maintained an economic and political identity that distinguishes it from much of the country.

These differences did not happen by accident. They reflect decades of political decisions about taxation, regulation, economic development, and the proper role of government.

And those decisions have consequences.

Moving to Texas—or Remaking Texas?

People have been moving to Texas for decades, attracted by its relatively affordable cost of living, favorable business environment, absence of a state personal income tax, and opportunities that have become increasingly difficult to find elsewhere.

But there is another kind of newcomer whose apparent motivation is altogether different.

Consider the rallying cry of the movement:

"Turn Texas Blue."

Notice what that slogan doesn't say.

Does it say anything about coming to Texas for a lower cost of living?

Does it say anything about enjoying lower taxes?

Does it express appreciation for living in a state without a personal income tax?

Does it say anything about escaping the high prices and burdensome regulations of other states?

No. Not a word.

And that is precisely the point.

For the activists I'm criticizing, the objective isn't to come to Texas and enjoy the advantages that distinguish it from the states they left. It is to change Texas itself—to remake its political character according to their own ideological preferences.

They aren't content to live in a state that already embraces their preferred political philosophy. They want Texas to embrace it, too.

That is what I find particularly objectionable. It isn't enough for them to live under the policies they favor. They want everyone else to live under those policies as well.

They didn't come to Texas because they wanted what Texas offered. They came because they wanted Texas to become something else.

Restore the Federal Republic

I support the Electoral College—not as an inconvenient relic that must be tolerated, but as a necessary part of our federal system.

However, I do not believe the Electoral College presently functions as it was intended. Today, the Electors are generally treated as little more than ceremonial deliverymen for the statewide popular vote. In most States, they are legally required to vote for a particular candidate and may face removal, penalties or other consequences if they exercise independent judgment.

If that is all Electors are permitted to do, there is little reason to have Electors at all. A computer could perform the same arithmetic.

I would therefore support a Constitutional Amendment eliminating the popular election of the President, prohibiting States from binding their Electors and protecting Electors from punishment or reprisal for the votes they cast.

I would also support repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment, returning the selection of United States Senators to the State legislatures.

These changes would not deprive the People of representation. They would restore the different forms of representation built into our federal republic.

The House Represents the People

The People are represented in Congress by the House of Representatives.

Representatives are elected directly by the voters of congressional districts. Their terms are short so that they remain responsive to public opinion. The House was intended to be the part of the federal government closest to the People.

That remains entirely appropriate.

But the federal government was never designed so that every office would represent the People in precisely the same way. If every branch represents the same constituency, receives its authority through the same mechanism and responds to the same political pressures, then the apparent separation between those branches becomes much less meaningful.

Different institutions were intended to represent different interests.

The Senate Represents the States

The United States is not merely one large nation divided into convenient administrative districts. It is a union of sovereign States, each possessing its own government, laws and constitutional authority.

Those States were originally represented in Congress by the Senate.

Before ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were selected by their State legislatures. This gave the State governments a direct institutional voice within the federal government. Senators were not simply a second set of nationally elected legislators serving longer terms. They were the States’ representatives in Washington.

The Seventeenth Amendment changed that. Senators are now elected directly by the voters, just as Representatives are. The constituencies differ in size and the terms differ in length, but both chambers now derive their authority from essentially the same source.

That destroyed an important part of the constitutional balance.

When Congress considers legislation that expands federal authority at the expense of the States, who within Congress formally represents the State governments? The answer is: no one.

Repealing the Seventeenth Amendment would restore the Senate’s original purpose. The House would continue to represent the People, while the Senate would once again represent the States as political entities.

That is not less representative government. It is representation of both essential components of the federal republic.

The President Represents the United States

The President occupies a different position.

The President is not supposed to be the personal representative of a national majority. He is the chief executive of the United States and represents the United States in its dealings with other nations.

The office is federal—not national in the purely majoritarian sense.

For that reason, the President should be chosen through the States, acting through the Electoral College. The People already possess their direct representation in the House. The States possess—or should possess—their representation in the Senate. The President should derive his authority from the constitutional union of those States.

The modern presidential campaign, however, is conducted as though the United States holds one enormous national election. News organizations total the popular vote across all fifty States, even though that total has no constitutional significance. Candidates claim a “mandate” based upon it. Critics describe a President who wins the Electoral College but not the national popular vote as somehow illegitimate.

But there is no national popular election for President. There are separate elections conducted under the laws of the individual States. Adding those results together afterward may be interesting, but it does not create a constitutional election that never occurred.

Rather than continuing this pretense, I would eliminate the presidential popular vote altogether.

Electors Must Be Free to Deliberate

The Electoral College should also be permitted to function as an actual deliberative body.

An Elector should not be a rubber stamp. If an Elector is legally prohibited from exercising judgment, then the title is meaningless. He is not an Elector at all; he is merely a mechanism through which someone else’s vote is transmitted.

The States should select qualified Electors, but once selected, those Electors must be free to evaluate the candidates and cast their votes according to their own judgment. No State should be permitted to dictate their votes, remove them for voting “incorrectly,” impose fines upon them or otherwise punish them.

This independence would provide one final constitutional safeguard between the presidency and a momentary wave of popular passion. It would also allow Electors to respond to extraordinary circumstances arising after their selection but before their votes are cast—such as death, incapacity, criminal revelation or some other event demonstrating that a candidate is manifestly unfit for office.

Of course, independent Electors could exercise poor judgment. So can voters, legislators, judges and Presidents. No constitutional arrangement can eliminate human error.

The purpose of the Constitution is not to guarantee that every decision will be correct. Its purpose is to divide authority, balance competing interests and prevent any single political force from controlling the entire system without restraint.

A Federal Republic, Not a National Plebiscite

The modern impulse is to reduce every question to direct majority rule. Whoever receives the most votes should control everything, and any institution standing in the way is denounced as “undemocratic.”

But the United States was not established as an unrestricted democracy. It was established as a constitutional federal republic.

The distinction matters.

The People, the States and the United States are related, but they are not interchangeable. Each has a legitimate place within the constitutional structure:

• The House of Representatives represents the People.

• The Senate represents the States.

• The President represents the United States and is chosen through the States by the Electoral College.

That is an orderly division of political authority. It prevents the federal government from becoming one undifferentiated mass of officials all elected through essentially the same popular process and all claiming the same mandate.

I do not want to abolish the Electoral College. I want to restore it.

I do not want to deprive the People of their representation. I want the People, the States and the Union itself each to receive the representation appropriate to them.

Such changes should be made openly and lawfully through Constitutional Amendments. The Constitution provides a mechanism for correcting its structure, including the repeal of earlier amendments. We used that mechanism to repeal Prohibition. We can use it to reconsider the Seventeenth Amendment and to restore genuine independence to the Electoral College.

The answer to perceived defects in our constitutional republic is not to discard its federal character in favor of national majority rule.

The answer is to restore the balance that made it a federal republic in the first place.

Nuclear Power and the Road to Fusion

I think nuclear power is one of the most promising energy resources available to us, and I find the renewed interest in it encouraging.

Not simply because of what nuclear power can do for us today, but because of what it might eventually become.

There is a tendency to look at a technology as it exists today and assume that this is more or less what it will always look like. Nuclear power plants are enormous, complicated, and expensive, so we tend to imagine that nuclear power will always require enormous, complicated, and expensive facilities.

But that isn't generally how technology develops.

Consider the transistor.

The first practical transistors were relatively large, individually manufactured devices. Today we manufacture microscopic transistors by the billions on a single chip. That didn't happen simply because someone invented the transistor and then waited seventy years. It happened because transistors were useful.

So we used them.

Because we used them, companies invested in them. Engineers improved them. Manufacturing techniques improved. New materials were developed. Costs came down. Reliability went up. Smaller and more efficient transistors made new products possible, and those new products created still more demand for better transistors.

Obviously, a nuclear reactor is not a transistor. I'm not suggesting that nuclear reactors will follow Moore's Law until we have one sitting next to the lawn mower in the backyard.

The point is what happens when we actually use a technology.

If we continue building and operating nuclear power plants, we need nuclear engineers. We need physicists and materials scientists. We need companies capable of manufacturing specialized components. We need universities teaching nuclear science and engineering. We need research into reactor design, materials, radiation resistance, heat transfer, power conversion, and dozens of other related technologies.

And, perhaps most importantly, we have a reason to spend money on all of those things.

If, instead, we decide that nuclear power is something from which we should retreat, that entire technological infrastructure begins to diminish. Fewer reactors mean less demand for nuclear engineers, fewer companies investing in nuclear technology, less manufacturing experience, less research, and eventually less political justification for spending large amounts of money advancing nuclear science.

That brings us to fusion.

Fission does not somehow become fusion. They are fundamentally different nuclear processes, and practical fusion presents an entirely different collection of scientific and engineering problems.

But I think it would be a mistake to believe that our willingness to pursue one has nothing to do with our willingness to pursue the other.

A society actively using nuclear energy, educating nuclear engineers, developing advanced materials, building reactors, maintaining a nuclear manufacturing industry, and investing in nuclear research is much more likely to have both the resources and the political willingness to pursue fusion seriously.

And once practical fusion is achieved, that shouldn't be regarded as the end of the story.

It will be the beginning.

The first commercially practical fusion reactor will almost certainly not represent the ultimate form of fusion power any more than the first transistor represented the ultimate form of electronics.

Once engineers have something that works, they start asking different questions.

Can we make it cheaper?

Can we make it more reliable?

Can we make it more efficient?

Can we make it easier to manufacture?

And, inevitably, can we make it smaller?

Fusion has an extraordinary amount of potential energy available from a relatively small quantity of fuel. The problem isn't finding enough energy in the nuclear reaction. The problem is all of the machinery currently required to create, contain, sustain, and extract useful power from that reaction.

Those are extraordinarily difficult problems.

But they are problems we can work on.

I don't expect anyone to install a fusion reactor in the basement anytime soon. I don't expect a neighborhood fusion reactor to appear next to the community swimming pool in twenty years.

But what about fifty years?

A hundred?

Could advances in superconductors, materials science, plasma control, power conversion, manufacturing, and reactor design eventually produce fusion systems vastly smaller than the experimental machines we build today?

Could we someday reach the point where a fusion power source capable of supplying an entire neighborhood is contained in something approaching the size of a backyard shed?

I don't know.

Perhaps there are physical or economic limitations that will make that impractical. Perhaps fusion will always make more sense as a large, centralized source of power.

But we will never discover what the mature form of a technology looks like if we abandon the technology before it has a chance to mature.

That is why I think continued development of fission power is important even if fusion ultimately becomes the nuclear energy source we really want.

Fission gives us useful energy today. More importantly for the future, it keeps nuclear science alive as an active technology rather than merely an academic subject. It maintains the engineers, researchers, manufacturers, infrastructure, investment, and public familiarity from which the next generation of nuclear technology can grow.

If we want to know what nuclear power might look like fifty or a hundred years from now, the best way to find out isn't to stop building it.

It's to use it.

Flock Cameras: When Observation Becomes Surveillance

 Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) systems—commonly known by the popular brand name "Flock cameras"—are often presented as little more than high-tech security cameras. That description, however, leaves out the feature that has many Americans concerned.

Think of an ALPR camera as a security camera with a memory. Rather than simply recording video, it identifies every passing vehicle and records information such as the license plate, date, time, location, make, model, color, and often distinguishing characteristics like bumper stickers, roof racks, aftermarket accessories, or visible damage. That information is then stored in a searchable database.

Supporters argue that these systems help solve crimes by giving investigators another tool to locate stolen vehicles or identify suspects. There is no question that ALPR systems have legitimate law enforcement applications.

The constitutional concern is not about targeted investigations. It is about the routine collection and long-term storage of information on millions of innocent Americans who are suspected of no crime.

Imagine that every time you drove down a road, someone wrote down your license plate, described your vehicle, recorded where you were and when you passed, and kept those notes for months or even years. Most people would recognize that as surveillance. ALPR systems simply automate that process on a massive scale.

Some argue that because license plates are visible in public, there is no expectation of privacy. I believe that misses the larger issue. There is a significant difference between a police officer observing a vehicle on a public street at a single moment in time and the government maintaining a permanent database capable of reconstructing a person's movements over weeks, months, or years.

Where you travel can reveal a surprising amount about your life. It may disclose where you worship, which doctors you visit, whether you sought legal counsel, attended a political rally, visited family, or participated in a support group. None of those activities are criminal, yet all become part of a searchable historical record when mass surveillance systems are allowed to operate without meaningful limits.

The Fourth Amendment was adopted to protect citizens from unreasonable government intrusion. Whether ALPR databases ultimately violate that protection is a question courts continue to examine. But I believe the principle is clear: government should not be compiling detailed travel histories of innocent citizens without judicial oversight.

Technology has made mass surveillance easier than ever before. That convenience should not become an excuse to weaken the constitutional safeguards that have protected individual liberty for more than two centuries.

Crime fighting is an important responsibility of government. So is protecting the constitutional rights of the people. We should be able to do both without sacrificing one for the other.

Minimum Wage Was Never Meant to Be the Destination

 For some unknown reason, many on the political left have come to believe that a minimum-wage job is supposed to be a career. It isn't. It never was.

The very phrase minimum wage implies the starting point on the employment ladder, not the top rung. These are entry-level jobs intended for people with little or no marketable experience: students, young adults entering the workforce, people re-entering after an absence, or those changing careers. Their primary value isn't just the paycheck—it's the opportunity to learn.

A first job teaches far more than how to stock shelves or run a cash register. It teaches punctuality, responsibility, customer service, teamwork, problem-solving, and the simple reality that employers pay for value. Those lessons become the foundation for developing skills that are worth more in the marketplace.

The expectation should be straightforward: gain experience, acquire new skills, improve yourself, and then move on to a better-paying position. When you do, you leave that entry-level job open for someone else who is just beginning the same journey.

That's how economic mobility is supposed to work.

Think of the labor market as a plumbing system.

Entry-level workers enter the pipe at one end. They gain experience, learn valuable skills, and gradually move through the system. As they become more productive, they leave entry-level positions for better-paying jobs. Their departure creates openings for the next generation of inexperienced workers to begin the same journey.

The entire system depends on movement.

When that flow slows or stops, the pipeline begins to clog. Entry-level positions become long-term destinations rather than stepping stones. Fewer openings exist for those trying to enter the workforce, and the normal progression from inexperienced worker to skilled employee becomes more difficult.

Like any plumbing system, a blockage doesn't simply affect the obstruction itself—it reduces the efficiency of everything upstream. In the labor market, the result is fewer opportunities for those just entering the workforce, the very people entry-level jobs were created to help.

When we instead insist that every minimum-wage position should provide the income necessary to support a lifelong career, we risk changing the purpose of those jobs entirely. Employers faced with significantly higher labor costs often respond by raising prices, reducing hiring, cutting employee hours, or investing in automation. The people most likely to feel those effects are often the very workers trying to get their foot in the door.

A healthy economy depends on movement. Workers improve their skills and advance. Businesses fill entry-level positions with new employees eager to learn. Experience leads to greater productivity, greater productivity leads to higher wages, and higher wages reflect the greater value those workers now bring to the marketplace. That cycle has helped generations of Americans climb the economic ladder.

The goal should not be to remain at the bottom rung and demand that it be raised to the top. The goal should be to climb.

There is nothing demeaning about beginning at the bottom. Every accomplished craftsman, engineer, manager, entrepreneur, physician, and executive was inexperienced at some point. The purpose of an entry-level job is not to define your future—it is to launch it.

A society that encourages people to advance will always create more opportunity than one that encourages them to remain where they started. The real measure of success is not how comfortable we can make the first rung of the ladder. It is how many people we help climb to the second, the third, and eventually to the top.

Trump's MOU with Iran is a Mistake of Epic Proportions

 This proposed MOU with Iran may be one of the biggest mistakes of Trump's presidency.

I supported Donald Trump every time he was on the ballot, and I continue to support many of his policies. On Iran, however, I believe he is profoundly wrong.

The current Iranian regime should not be rewarded, accommodated, or rehabilitated before it fundamentally changes its behavior. Any reconstruction assistance or normalization of relations should come only after a clear and unconditional abandonment of its hostile policies—not as an incentive in hopes that the regime will suddenly become cooperative.

After World War II, the United States helped rebuild Germany and Japan, but only after their unconditional surrender and complete defeat. We did not provide aid as a bargaining chip to persuade them to behave responsibly. Iran today is nowhere near that point, and there is little evidence that its leadership intends to move in that direction.

Since the 1979 revolution, the Iranian regime has consistently supported militant proxies, sponsored regional instability, and pursued policies openly hostile to both Israel and the United States. Its backing of Hezbollah is only one example. Given that record, any agreement with Tehran should be viewed with extreme skepticism.

The prospect of such a regime acquiring nuclear weapons is unacceptable. Iran's leaders have repeatedly demonstrated hostility toward Israel and the broader West, and their actions have done little to inspire confidence that they can be trusted with capabilities of that magnitude.

This MOU should be rescinded immediately. The United States should pursue a policy that recognizes the nature of the current Iranian regime rather than placing faith in promises that history suggests are unlikely to be kept.