The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.
How dependent is Texas on federal dollars?
Not very – according to a recent report from the finance website WalletHub.
Analyst Jill Gonzalez says to figure out how dependent all 50 states are on federal funds, they looked at three main factors.
“One is the return on taxes paid to the feds, so for every dollar you give in federal taxes, how much are you getting back. We also looked at the share of federal jobs – obviously, those supported directed by the federal government. And finally, federal funding as a share of your state revenue, so how much of your state revenue depends on getting money directly from the feds,” Gonzalez says.
Texas came in at number 35 out of all 50 states on the list.
“Texans do not get a lot of money back from the federal government than what they pay,” Gonzalez says. “So for every dollar a Texan forks over this time of year they only get about 57 cents back on the dollar. That’s one of the lowest numbers in the country. There are some states like North Dakota, like Alabama that get more than twice their investment given back to them so two-dollars-and-up for many states in the nation.”
Gonzalez adds that only two percent of jobs in Texas are tied directly to the federal government.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro was in Del Rio over the weekend for a “bilingual, binational, bipartisan” rally.
“Yo soy Joaquin Castro…de San Antonio, Tejas.,” Castro said.
The San Antonio Democrat joined fellow congressman Will Hurd for a demonstration Saturday against President Donald Trump’s plans for a border wall along the U.S. Mexico Border.
Speaking to a crowd of about 150 people from the border towns of Del Rio and Ciudad Acuna, Castro said that when he thinks of the relationship between the two countries, he thinks of people who left Mexico to settle in the U.S.
People like his grandmother.
“My grandmother came from a small town called San Pedro. My grandmother came when she was six years old with her younger sister who was four. My grandmother’s name was Victoria and her sister was Trinidad. They came during the time of the Mexican Revolution because both of their parents died around that time,” he said.
The Texas Tribune reports Rep. Hurd said building a wall would not secure communities.
The Republican’s district stretches from San Antonio to West Texas.
Hurd added that as the member of Congress with the longest stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in his district, he’s been trying to bring other representatives to the border.
In north Texas, early Sunday morning, federal immigration officials detained 26 people who had reported for community service at the Tarrant County Jail.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents suspected some of the people in this group were undocumented.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports the people who were detained had been convicted of high-level misdemeanors and low-level felonies.
