Archive

Priority one for state lawmakers meeting in Austin next week is to plug a $25 billion budget shortfall. Just how big is that? Well, if you shut down all the prisons, laid off every state trooper, eliminated every service except public education, higher education and health care, you still wouldn't cut $25 billion.

Governor Rick Perry and others have suggested Texas drop out of Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low income children, elderly and the disabled. It's Texas's fastest growing expense.

BJ Austin reports that even without future cuts, disabled Texans who qualify for Medicaid services can't get them.

Dallas, TX – This year many farmers were unable to plant their rice crops near Dallas' Friendship City of Sendai, Japan. The tsunami in March flooded the fields, leaving them too salty for production. Through our Letters from Sendai project KERA heard from 24-year old Gen Shoji, a university student and director of a group that supports sustainable farming.

Dallas, TX – If you lose a job with health insurance, the government requires employers to offer you the chance to keep those benefits for 18 months. It's called COBRA. But COBRA premiums can be expensive so the Obama Economic Recovery Plan created a more affordable COBRA benefit for laid off employees. In our Monday KERA economy segment, Alexis Yancey reports on how it may help struggling families.

Dallas, TX – A half-million people have benefited from the Obama Administration's program to help struggling homeowners since it began last march. But to qualify you have to have income. So what do you do if you're unemployed? In KERA's Monday economy segment, Alexis Yancey reports on an option for those with little or no income. It's called forbearance.

Dallas, TX – A special lab in Denver will test water samples collected Tuesday at Lake Lavon. Biologists want to know if invasive zebra mussels have spread to the lake and beyond. KERA's Shelley Kofler says the economic consequences could be huge for the entire Trinity basin.