Posted on 01/22/2013 7:53:11 AM PST by Kaslin
Texas is in much better shape than California. Taxes are lower, in part because Texas has no state income tax.
No wonder the Lone Star State is growing faster and creating more jobs.
And the gap will soon get even wider since California voters recently decided to drive away more productive people by raising top tax rates.
But a key challenge for all governments is controlling the size and cost of bureaucracies.
Government employees are probably overpaid in both states, but the situation is worse in California, as I discuss in a recent interview with John Stossel.
But being better than California is not exactly a ringing endorsement of Texas fiscal policy.
A column in today’s Wall Street Journal, written by the state’s Comptroller of Public Accounts, points out some worrisome signs.
As the chief financial officer of the nation’s second-largest state, even I have found it hard to get a handle on how much governments are spending, and how much debt they’re taking on. Every level of government is piling up incredible bills. And they’re coming due, whether we like it or not. Even in low-tax Texas, property taxes have risen three times faster than the inflation rate and four times faster than our population growth since 1992. Our local governments, meanwhile, more than doubled their debt load in the last decade, to more than $7,500 in debt for every man, woman and child in the state. In Houston alone, city-employee pension plans are facing an unfunded liability of $2.4 billion. But too many taxpayers aren’t given the information they need to make informed decisions when they vote debt issues. Recently I spent several months holding about 40 town-hall meetings with Texans across our state. Each time, I asked the attendees if they could tell me how much debt their local governments are carrying. Not a single person in a single town had this information.
In other words, taxpayers need to be eternally vigilant, regardless of where they live. Otherwise the corrupt rectangle of politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and interest groups will figure out hidden ways of using the political process to obtain unearned wealth.
Dan Mitchell Comparing Excessive Bureaucrat Compensation in Texas and California
Yeah, I do, California is a disaster with a bleak and dark and irreversible future, Houston is still wild and woolly and very Texan.
I agree with you about rual CA, but you can’t escape the state taxes and regulations.
Quit feeling like you have to qualify a fact.
Hispanics have always majority voted Democrat since they became a political force of any kind ..except Cubans and now that has turned too with younger Cubans going democrat.
We opened our doors in the 60s with Kennedy immigration bill and amped up minority visas and later opened our frontier borders as well.
We have quadrupled minority population here...at a minimum...and this is the windfall.
I hope folks are happy...I pointed this out here for years over a decade ago and was banned and smeared for my efforts.
White people are like chicken..stupid.
This nation as we know it will not survive...it’s happening quicker than I figured.
and when northern white liberals wake up it will be too late
Texas will love it when they have 40 million people, and a 7-11 greedymart run by Muslims on every corner...
Good luck with that
“Yeah, I do, California is a disaster with a bleak and dark and irreversible future, Houston is still wild and woolly and very Texan.”
If that’s true, why do I read very often here on FR about property crimes involving break ins in Houston? I used to spend a lot of time in Houston selling into the oil patch. It didn’t look to me that it was a lot different than other big cities except that you had to watch driving on the wet streets in the summer from the car A/C condensate! Lots of transients and bums on the streets too! So do I also gather that you have spent time in California to make your assessment?
The title itself suggests that California is even worse than it appears. If “perfect” is to be the benchmark of a good state, and Texas is not perfect, while California isn’t even close to Texas...
Then California is even closer to completely bad.
And of course it is, though things will get even worse. There is now a supermajority of democrats in the state legislature, and an even worse democrat as governor, giving the party of evil a blank check.
The Only Reason Texas isn’t perfect can be summed up in one word: “Austin”
Outside the hellish heat and dripping humidity of Dallas and Houston, they both have considerable more crime per capita than LA.
The best thing Texas has going for it is that our Representatives’ to the state government are allowed to meet once every two years and then for a limited number of days(I believe 120).
Special sessions can be called by the Governor but must have a specific agenda.
Unfortunately our ‘Representatives’ once elected deem themselves lawmakers and that is where the problems start and seldom end...
Texas property taxes are controlled by local not state government. .
“Then we have a coming battle between state workers union greed vs environment idealism. You think they will lose part of their pensions while California is sitting on enough oil to pay for there pensions and fund useless government transportation projects built by union workers?”
Very interesting point! The liberal state worker takes on the liberal environmentalist! There are still more citizens than state workers, and they tend to vote in favor of “environmentalism.” And the oil spills are still to be remembered so I think when you couple this with the fact that CalPers is in the process of going broke, ultimately the state workers loose. At least I hope that’s the case.
A distinction without a difference from the viewpoint of this article. This shows that texans are not reining in government like they should. Local or state.
“Don’t think we’re going to let that happen, though...”
Good, I hope you are successful. Texas isn’t devoid of a lot of the same problems, but you have enough decent folks in your government for reason to prevail. It’s interesting to look at the Texas Congressional Map. All the Marxists are mostly along the Rio Grande. Kinda tells you that Mexican “immigration” has not been good for Texas. Just like it hasn’t been good here in CA.
LOL, that was cute, and yes, I do know a little about California and Texas (and Houston).
See post 39.
From the article's view point, not necessarily most Texans.
This shows that texans are not reining in government like they should. Local or state.
In some areas yes, others no. Should rural Georgia local government be considered the same as the politics in Atlanta?
Texas biggest concern should be its PhonyCon governor Rick Perry....who is pushing that NAFTA Superhighway nonsense again.....which will cost Texas as much as $150-$200 BILLION to build roads to/from Mexico for the Communist Chinese, built by a Spanish company.
This is on top of Perry pushing Illegal Alien Amnesty.....and already signing a bill that gives DREAM ACT Amnesty to Illegal Aliens via In-State College Tuition....another program that will cost BILLIONS
Texas is not California...but there is still too much pandering to Illegal Aliens...as much as California does
California has been republican, but it was never right wing and seriously Christian.
Texas is has been and is, both.
That is why the left could so easily absorb California, and why Texas is so tough in the face of liberalism.
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