Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

As members of the U.S.-Mexico Border and Immigration Task Force, they aim to submit a policy report offering “a new paradigm for immigration enforcement” that would “end misguided and fiscally irresponsible programs” such as the border fence initiative.

Today, the non-profit America Saves campaign is announcing a series of new efforts to help individuals improve their financial stability through better savings habits. Due to the catastrophic financial conditions facing most consumers, America Saves is expanding its presence in communities, adding staff, and announcing new partnerships.

The reimbursement for veterans increased from 28.5 cents a mile on Monday. The increase was part of a record $16.3 billion increase in spending approved by Congress this year. President Bush signed the legislation before the elections.

The Teacher Retirement System of Texas has seen about a $25 billion market value drop since Sept. 1 in the nation's widening financial meltdown, making additional benefits next year for retirees appear unlikely.

Despite an expected surplus, the Legislative Budget Board, led by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick, used what they called the lowest economic growth rate ever adopted — 9.1 percent — to limit state spending for the next two years.

A market value drop of about $25 billion in the Teacher Retirement System of Texas since Sept. 1 prompted actuaries Friday to warn against giving retirees any additional benefits next year unless the Legislature pays for them with tax dollars.

As the Midland Republican fights to hang on to the House's top job, his reign as speaker has already allowed him to sway key issues in a way that backers and detractors agree has shaped Texans' lives and the state's future.

Roughly two weeks after Republicans saw their grip on the House slip for the second-straight cycle, and two months before the next legislative session, the man known as “autocratic” Craddick should be — politically speaking — a dead man walking.

Texas has an opportunity to provide comprehensive health care to 500,000 uninsured young Texans at no net cost to Texas taxpayers.

Small businesses have difficulty accessing capital in tough economic times, just like big firms. But unlike Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, AIG, small businesses can't count on government bailouts when times are tough.

For the 2007-2008 academic year, the most recent covered by the survey, median compensation for public-university presidents was $427,400, up 7.6% from $397,349 during the previous academic year. That was about 2.6 percentage points above the inflation rate for the period.

To ease students' financial load, they want politicians to freeze tuition rates and exempt textbooks from state sales tax.

"When millions more Americans are facing unemployment, shortened hours of work or reduced wages, failure to get food stamps to needy families is deepening the harm to them, hurting urban economies and worsening the recession," said Jim Weill, president of the center, which advocates policies to end domestic hunger and poor nutrition.

Across the country...families are confronting the same harsh reality as they watch the stock market and credit crisis erode careful plans to pay for college educations.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) rolled out his own health-care bill days after Obama was elected, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) also expects to be a leading participant in the effort to establish universal health care.

While few Americans are sheltered from the jolt of the recent economic crisis, the nation’s newest veterans, particularly the wounded, are being hit especially hard. The triple-whammy of injury, unemployment and waiting for disability claims to be processed has forced many veterans into foreclosure, or sent them teetering on its edge, according to veterans’ organizations.

Texas and the one-time contractor that operated state call centers are close to a financial pact that will settle their ugly breakup 20 months ago, state social services czar Albert Hawkins said Monday.

As diabetes is rapidly becoming one of the world's most common diseases, its financial cost is mounting, too, to well over $200 billion a year in the U.S. alone.

Researchers studied 169 families...of those families, 55 (33 percent) had a deployed parent, with an average deployment length of 3.9 months. The researchers found that children aged three years and older with a deployed parent had significantly higher scores on measures of externalizing and overall behavior problems than children of the same age without a deployed parent.

According to the attorney general report, Texas is considered a major hub for human trafficking, and nearly 20 percent of all victims in the U.S. travel through the state on Interstate 10.