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- BG Reads // November 10, 2025
BG Reads // November 10, 2025
A.J. Bingham
November 10, 2025
faustin a
Presented By
www.binghamgp.com
November 10, 2025
✅ Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 Austin city manager releases revised budget after voters reject Prop Q (KXAN)
🟪 Austin budget revisions threaten public safety funding (CBS Austin)
🟪 Austin Council Member Ryan Alter to reimburse taxpayer funds, overhaul City Council office spending (Austin American-Statesman)
🟪 Gov. Greg Abbott launches reelection campaign for fourth term (Texas Tribune)
🟪 Newsom, eyeing 2028, tries to mess with Texas: ‘Don’t poke the bear’ (New York Times)
🟪 Housing director confirms administration ‘working on’ 50-year mortgage after Trump hint (The Hill)
READ ON!
[FIRM NEWS]
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[CITY OF AUSTIN]
🏛️: Mayor Watson lays out post Prop Q city budget time line (Watson Wire)
Friday, November 7th — City Manager releases an updated staff proposed budget. (See released budget below)
Thursday, November 13th at 9AM — Budget presentation and Work Session
Tuesday, November 18th at 9AM - Budget Work Session
Thursday, November 20th at 10AM — Potential budget adoption
Friday, November 21st at 10AM — Special Called Meeting in case it is needed for final passage of the new budget.
Monday, November 24th at 10AM — Special Called Meeting in case it is needed for final passage of the new budget.
🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart
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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
✅ Austin city manager releases revised budget after voters reject Prop Q (KXAN)
The Austin City Council received a new version of the city’s fiscal year 2026 budget from the city manager’s office Friday, days after voters rejected their request to raise property taxes to fund the budget they approved in August.
In a post on the council’s message board Thursday, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said that he’s spoken with City Manager T.C. Broadnax and his staff about the budget.
“Voters told us that city government can’t be all things to all people. We can’t pick up all the expenses, grants, and needs that other levels of government don’t cover, even if they’re for things we think are important,” he wrote. “Voters want us to avoid adding to Austin’s unaffordability. Well, as I’ve said this week–message received.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)
Review the new budget below:
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✅ Austin Council Member Ryan Alter to reimburse taxpayer funds, overhaul City Council office spending (Austin American-Statesman)
Days after an American-Statesman report revealed he had donated thousands of taxpayer dollars to nonprofit and advocacy organizations, Austin Council Member Ryan Alter said he’s taking steps to “rebuild trust” with taxpayers.
In a newsletter to constituents Friday morning, Alter said he would reimburse the city for several expenses identified in the Statesman’s most recent investigation that ethics experts said towed the line.
“Although these items were approved by staff and are consistent with City policy, just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should,” Alter wrote. “Out of my desire to help our community, I made choices that harmed the trust and reputation of city government. I accept responsibility for that — and I’m ready to do the work to rebuild that trust.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Austin budget revisions threaten public safety funding (CBS Austin)
Austin City Council has unveiled revisions to the city's budget following the failure of Proposition Q in the Nov. 4 election, resulting in a $100 million reduction in general fund operations. The revised budget allocates less funding for public safety services, including EMS and Fire, while increasing investments in homeless services.
James Monks, President of the Austin EMS Association, expressed concern over the cuts.
"I think it's a shame that the city constantly asks us to run lean, but then they won't." He warned of potential brownouts and insufficient overtime budgets affecting EMS resources.
Bob Nicks, President of the Austin Fire Association, criticized the policy as "reckless" if it impacts emergency response… 🟪 (READ MORE)
[TEXAS/US NEWS]
✅ Gov. Greg Abbott launches reelection campaign for fourth term (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday launched his campaign for a fourth term as governor, framing his pitch to a crowd of hundreds in Houston as a means to maintain Texas as a “bastion of common sense in a country reeling from far-left, progressive insanity.”
“Texas is not just another state — it’s our home. Our heritage,” Abbott said in his speech. “As Texans, we will defend this state with every fiber of our being. We will protect what we built, finish what we started and lead Texas into its glorious future.”
Both reflecting on his decade as governor and previewing his priorities for a fourth term, Abbott touted a series of conservative achievements in affordability, education, border security and more… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Newsom, eyeing 2028, tries to mess with Texas: ‘Don’t poke the bear’ (New York Times)
Fresh off a resounding victory to gerrymander congressional maps to help Democrats, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California chose to celebrate in the place where the nation’s escalating redistricting fight started: Texas. “We can shape the future here in Texas,” he said on Saturday at a union hall in Houston packed with cheering Democrats. “We can shape the future here all across the South and across the United States of America. You have that power. You do. Not Donald Trump.”
Against the backdrop of an enormous American flag befitting a national campaign event, Mr. Newsom framed the redistricting battle in historic terms. The rally by the California governor, who grinned as shouts of “2028” echoed out, was yet another signal of his hopes to run for president, a possibility he openly acknowledged last month.
Indeed, one of the warm-up speakers, Representative Al Green of Texas, seemed to all but endorse Mr. Newsom for the nation’s highest office. “I’m here today because he is a future president of the United States of America,” Mr. Green said. But for Mr. Newsom, it was also another chapter in an intensifying rivalry between the governors of the country’s two most populous states. He and Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, have for years engaged in schoolyard taunting and showy stunts, with Mr. Abbott sending planes of migrants to Los Angeles in 2023. “Eat your heart out, Greg Abbott,” Mr. Newsom said as he began his speech on Saturday.
The two states have been on a political collision course ever since word leaked in June that President Trump had urged Texas to help Republicans in the midterm elections by taking the rare step of redrawing its congressional maps in the middle of the decade. As the Republican plan firmed up, Mr. Newsom shot back on social media: “Two can play this game.” This past week, he and his state’s voters followed through, approving a ballot measure to redraw California’s congressional district lines to wipe out as many as five Republican seats in the state… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Senators advance tentative deal to end the government shutdown (NBC News)
Senators struck an agreement Sunday, projecting confidence that it will be sufficient to end the lengthy U.S. government shutdown, three sources with direct knowledge of the details told NBC News.
The agreement, reached by a group of Democrats who teamed up with Republicans, cleared the first hurdle on a vote of 60-40 to advance in a late-night Senate vote. If it's approved, it would then need to pass the House and gain President Donald Trump's signature to become law and reopen the government.
Even if it has enough support to clear those hurdles, the process is expected to take days.
The agreement contains a “minibus” — three full-year appropriations bills that will fund certain departments like Agriculture through the end of the fiscal year next fall — and a continuing resolution to fund the rest of the government at existing spending levels through Jan. 30.
It would also fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once known as food stamps, through next September, a major flashpoint in the shutdown… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Housing director confirms administration ‘working on’ 50-year mortgage after Trump hint (The Hill)
Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte on Saturday said the Trump administration is “working on” a plan to introduce 50-year mortgage terms for home buyers.
“Thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on The 50 year Mortgage – a complete game changer,” Pulte wrote in a statement on the social platform X.
It followed a Truth Social post by President Trump earlier in the day where he shared a graphic juxtaposing an image of him next to one of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The administration that oversaw the New Deal established the 30-year mortgage standard to help citizens recover from the Great Depression.
Similarly, Trump campaigned on creating affordability for the younger generation last year, but the president has faced headwinds on the subject more recently as prices rise… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ US airlines’ daily cancellations top 2,000 for first time since shutdown cuts began (Associated Press)
U.S. airlines canceled more than 2,100 flights on Sunday as Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that air traffic across the nation could “slow to a trickle” if the federal government shutdown lingers into the busy Thanksgiving travel holiday season.
The slowdown at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports is now in its third day and beginning to cause more widespread disruptions. The FAA last week ordered flight cuts at the nation’s busiest airports as some air traffic controllers, who have gone unpaid for nearly a month, have stopped showing up for work.
In addition, some 7,000 flight delays were reported on Sunday alone, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks air travel disruptions. More than 1,000 flights were canceled Friday, and more than 1,500 on Saturday.
The FAA reductions started Friday at 4% and will increase to 10% by Nov. 14. They are in effect from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time and will impact all commercial airlines… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ CRISPR gene-editing works to reduce high cholesterol in a new study (NPR)
A single infusion of an experimental gene-editing drug appears safe and effective for cutting cholesterol, possibly for life, according to a small early study released Saturday.
The study, which involved 15 volunteers, found one infusion of a drug that uses the CRISPR gene-editing technique could safely reduce cholesterol, as well as levels of harmful triglycerides, by about half.
"Rather than a lifetime worth of medicine, we have the potential to give people a cure," said Dr. Luke Laffin, a preventative cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who helped conduct the study. "It's very exciting."
The results of the study were presented Saturday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting and published in The New England Journal of Medicine… 🟪 (READ MORE)
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