Columns

Knox notes

Body
Please notify the News-Courier about your upcoming events. Emailed submissions to vcarter@hicks-co.com are preferred.

Capital Highlights

Body
Border security,tax relief and raises top list For theTexas House and Senate,there is not much daylight between each chamber’s priorities in this year’s legislative session. Leaders say the focus will be on property tax relief, border security and employee raises. Preliminary budgets from both chambers were released last week, the Austin American-Statesman reported, with a record $288.7 billion budget for the next two years. The money in the budget is made up of $93.7 billion in federal funds, $130.1 billion in state general revenue funds, and $64.9 billion in other funds. The tussle likely comes when lawmakers start spending a whopping $32.7 billion budget surplus sitting in the state’s coffers from the previous biennium.

To thine own self be true

Body
HANABA MUNN WELCH Warning: If songwriting is of zero interest to you, skip to the end for an all-purpose moral. At that point, you’ll have to backtrack if the mention of a purple mountain piques your curiosity.

Tony Packo’s and the Mud Hens

Body
If you’re of the age to remember TV shows from the 1970’s, M*A*S*H was one of the most watched shows. Ru n n i n g from 1972 to 1983, the show was based on a novel by Richard Hooker about three Army doctors.

Capital Highlights

Body
Speaker open to resort- style casinos in state House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, told The Dallas Morning News and other media outlets that he is open to bringing resort-style casinos to Texas. But don’t expect to find slot machines in 7-Eleven stores if casino gambling is legalized.

Traveling Man

Body
Received a nice email from Kathy Bowen about her brush with a celebrity, so here’s the sixth column on this topic with Kathy’s story first. Kathy writes: “You are not the only Mundayite to have had a chance to meet a famous person.

Worried about inflation? Consider these moves

Body
As you know, inflation was big news throughout 2022. But will it continue in 2023? And looking even further ahead, how should you account for inflation in your long-term plans? In regard to the first question, many experts predict that inflation will cool off this year, though there are no guarantees.

Capital Highlights

Body
Post Dispatch Winter storm called ‘once in a generation’ An arctic storm that swept through the state bringing low temperatures and high winds also affected roughly two-thirds of the country’s population, according to the National Weather Service, bringing the coldest Christmas in decades to parts of the countr y. The Dallas Morning News reported around 190 million people across the United States were under some type of winter weather advisory starting last Thursday.