Posted on 09/10/2014 5:24:53 AM PDT by thackney
James Lebas, former chief revenue estimator for the Texas Comptroller’s office, made news recently when he told the state’s House Committee on Energy Resources that, working with the Comptroller’s office, he had determined that output from the oil and natural gas industry now accounts for fully one-third of the entire Texas economy. Given that the Texas economy would rank 12th among all nations on earth, that’s an amazing amount of economic activity for one industry to provide.
Yet, it should not surprise anyone who has really been paying attention to the phenomenal boom the industry has undergone in Texas since 2010. As Lebas, who now works as a tax and fiscal consultant in Austin, told me when I spoke with him last week, “It’s best to recognize you are in a golden age while you’re in it.”
Or, as he told the Energy Resources Committee, “When people look back at this in 20 years, this will be seen as part of the golden age. We have reached new highs, it is paying handsome dividends to the state and the state is doing very well. We’ve gone from one million barrels a day to three million, and the day may come when we eclipse the all-time record set in 1972.”
The story of this Golden Age gets even better when one looks at where a ‘Nation of Texas’ would rank when it comes to oil and gas production: Texas would rank as the 8th largest oil producing nation and the 3rd largest natural gas producing nation on earth. Granted, Texas is a big ‘ol state, but still, that kind of natural resource production is pretty amazing from any perspective.
The most recent Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that, while the nation’s economy continued to struggle over the last year...
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Thanks for posting. It will be interesting to see what the Texas legislature does with the $7 billion surplus next year. Tax cuts???
Let’s build roads - big ones. Maybe start by making I-35 about 8 or 10 lanes, each way, all the way to OKC. Then, do the same with I-30/20/10 from Texarkana to El Paso. Make’em both 80mph all the way. Maybe set the two inside lanes at 85mph. Let’er rip.....
That will probably disappear to the big cities that have accepted hundreds of illegal children under their ultra liberal leadership. Remember, one of the No.1 goals of the dem party is to change the color of Texas to blue. If they cannot crater our economy they will burden us with illegals to take care of.
One thing to arise soon is that so many here do not speak enough English to get by, when something catastrophic happens the illegals who do not assimilate will rise up and be just like the country’s they fled. They are now demanding services and drive like they are from south of Texas or California....slow in the fast lanes!
Will Texas Lawmakers Spend Enough?
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/story/26486126/will-texas-lawmakers-spend-enough
Sep 09, 2014
sponsors in 126 counties received just under 30,000 of the 37,477 children caught from January through July, according to recent data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Harris County, Tex., received the most
Stop building toll roads is a good start.
from the article you linked: “Half and likely more is headed straight to public education.”
but education should be getting cheaper as more of it becomes available off the internet.
Local Texas taxing entities have a third of a TRILLION dollars of debt, the greatest part being from school bonds. The educrats are like a relentless monster always wanting to gobble up more.
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