Posted on 02/08/2015 4:27:10 PM PST by smoothsailing
FEBRUARY 8, 2015 6:00 PM
Last week, everywhere I went in Washington it seemed as if the country’s cultural and ideological divisions came down to a debate over the state of Texas and whether or not it was “a crazy state” or the “place that is still most like America.”
Congressman Alcee Hastings, a Florida Democrat, started the rumble during a House committee meeting by saying that Texas’s refusal to join Obamacare’s exchanges made it “a crazy state.” He then refused to apologize to Representative Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican who challenged him.
Those became fighting words. Former governor Rick Perry, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, responded during a speech at the American Principles Project: “He is right! We are crazy!” he enthused. “We’re crazy about jobs, we’re crazy about opportunity, we’re crazy about liberty, we’re crazy about the Constitution!” Charles Murray, the libertarian American Enterprise Institute scholar who hails from Iowa, weighed in by saying, “I’ve always thought of Texas as the place that is still most like America,” pointing to the self-reliant, can-do spirit the state still represents. Florida governor Rick Scott also joined in, noting that he has often cited Texas as a tax-cutting role model; then he joked about out-dueling Perry as a jobs generator.
While the recent 50 percent drop in oil prices has taken some of the bluster out of Texas’s bragging, the state’s stats are still beyond impressive. Last month, it created 45,700 new jobs. Most of them were in parts of the diversified economy that aren’t related to energy. Texas continues to see solid job growth in trade and professional services as well as in the hospitality industry.
Indeed, between 2007 and 2014 — the period covering the recession and the slow recovery that followed — Texas created 1.4 million net new jobs. During the same period, the rest of the nation wound up losing 400,000 jobs. The falling nationwide unemployment rate is largely the function of people’s exiting the work force entirely.
Small wonder that in December, Canada’s Fraser Institute ranked Texas first of all the states in its level of economic freedom, as measured by the size of government, taxation, regulation, and the rule of law. Texas Public Policy Foundation Director of Policy Chuck DeVore says the study’s findings show that “Texas’s having America’s highest level of economic freedom is a strong confirmation that prosperity and freedom go hand-in-hand.”
Devore notes that critics of Texas often cite the fact that the jobs Texas creates often are entry-level — about 6 percent of the state’s hourly wage earners earned minimum wage in 2013. But that figure has been consistently dropping and obscures the fact that Texas is much more affordable than many states for those on the bottom of the income ladder.
“California has the third-highest cost of living, while Texas has the second-lowest,” says DeVore, a former California GOP state legislator who relocated to the Lone Star State. “A low-wage worker sees his money go a third further in Texas.”
One could even say that the high-tax, high-cost model of California and other states is a form of class warfare against their poorest residents.
Those at the top of the corporate ladder clearly recognize Texas’s strengths. For each of the past ten years, CEOs polled by Chief Executive magazine have rated Texas first in the nation for economic-development climate and job growth. What is the secret of Texas’s success? Rick Perry isn’t shy about sharing his thoughts. “It’s all about four points,” he told me. “First, don’t spend all the money. Second, keep the taxes low and under control. Then have regulations that are fair and predictable so business owners know what to expect from one quarter to the next. Finally, reform the legal system so that frivolous lawsuits don’t paralyze employers who are trying to create real wealth.”
Richard Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Board, told me that Texas has really benefited from the reform of its once-corrupt legal system. Texas has put curbs on frivolous lawsuits, implemented the first-in-the-nation system under which the loser pays all court costs in many lawsuits, reformed medical-malpractice law, and elected judges who are much more respectful of the rule of law.
Richard Weekley — the co-founder of Texans against Lawsuit Abuse — credits former governor Perry for resisting calls for watered-down reforms that wouldn’t have addressed the core problem. “Perry sent a signal that he wanted real reform and would stand his ground,” Weekley told me. “Soon the medical lobbyists playing footsie with the trial lawyers were gone, and the obstacles to real reform started falling.”
That said, Perry has shown less success in areas where he hasn’t focused his attention or priorities. Far from reducing subsidies to business, he has embraced them as a form of development aid to entice firms to move to Texas or expand if they are already in the state. He’s had mixed results with the subsidies. Greg Abbott, who succeeded him as governor, has reined in Perry’s Texas Enterprise Fund after reports that some of its deal-closing money to relocating firms went to entities that hadn’t applied for the funding or that were not required to directly create jobs.
You don’t have to spend much time in Texas to conclude that its residents think its story should be known nationally and that the country would benefit from having Texans at the top of the federal government. Three of the last nine presidents — Johnson, the elder Bush, and George W. Bush — have come from Texas, and it’s no surprise that the 2016 GOP primary field will have two Texas entrants, Perry and U.S. senator Ted Cruz.
Expect to hear a lot of bragging about Texas over the next few months, along with a lot of trash-talking from liberals that the “Texas miracle” is a mirage. “Well, it’s true you can’t explain miracles,” Perry told me last week in Washington. “But that’s not what we have in Texas. We have economic recovery, and the lessons from ours should be picked up by every other state.” Indeed, the fact that states such as Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland all defied their blue-state habits and elected Republican governors last fall shows that voters are concerned about how far they’re falling behind states like Texas.
— John Fund is national-affairs correspondent for NRO.
Texas is bigger than France. We have humid hot near or on the beach to deserts with fancy rocks to snow.
I live outside of Houston. Humid and hot in the summer (like Florida), and wonderful mild all the other seasons. In free time, I’m a gardener and grow stuff just about year round. Houston has a lot of arts and stuff. Rodeos, boar hunting, bar-be-que cook offs and roasts, etc. Beach at Galveston close by...but not too close, if you know what I mean. We travel through hill country every spring to see the wild flowers. Too liberal in Austin for me. But they have great bars and bands so we put on our boots and go there to drink and dance sometimes. I do art and gov. contract stuff so I have to go to Austin for business sometimes.
Everything is anything but prim and proper with building and such. Like the opposite of New England. If you are a tad snobbish, you won’t like it. It’s a super unique and funny, yet plain or straight culture. Generally, really down to earth, nice people. I lived in all parts of the US and returned to Texas.
The styrofoam cups are a good chuckle:
Tell people about the critters there. My daughter in Texas said look out for the tarantulas. I thought she was kidding until I looked down at one half the size of my shoe while walking in her driveway. She also has to shoo away scorpions off her deck.
I'd be interested in what they would do with the 3.2m Medicare beneficiaries. Deport them to the US?
In a sane USA, Alcee would be in prison.
He and his kin get a perpetual pass due to white guilt by the liberals. And the liberals should feel guilt, as their kin profited mightily off of slavery to which was as old as mankind, which too many died fighting for Southern freedom because of misplaced blame for slavery.
Yup, They’re crazy. Usually in a good way: no state income tax, great economy, good barbeque, nice conservative folks. Sometimes its bad: like their crappy handgun laws. And mad as hatters.
*
That would be ex-federal judge convicted of accepting bribes and subsequently disbarred then turned politician Alcee Hastings.
True in every respect.
I wasn’t born in Texas but I got here as soon as I could.
:)
I live 20 miles north of Austin, and it’s extremely conservative here. Williamson County has a reputation of being tough on criminals. We absolutly love it here. I’m generally in the country, on the edge of Hill Country, and close enough to Houston and Dallas if I need to go there. I would prefer to be even more rural and will be when we retire to a ranch. Oh, and at 65, I got my first gun for my birthday.
Good one! Ha ha!
“For the official record, Texas is a completely insane place, they women are covered in green scales and the men shoot guns and drink beer constantly. We have no public education system, the streets are a mess, and the environment is crumbling.”
Come on now, you know that is not true!
Telling the truth about TExAs is more than enough to get the job done.
In fact, Texas is AWFUL.
Too hot in the summer, day after day of 100+ and you will freeze during the winter cold fronts. It is so cold it knocks out the power plants that provide the heating.
In the early part of dang near ever summer we get these huge thunderstorms that have so much lightening it is like artillery barrages and dump hailstone the size of tennis balls. My truck just got busted up by the latest one here in Dallas back in June. The damage was so widespread it took two and a half weeks just to get to an estimator. I didn’t get into a body shop till October. They were all full.
We got killer bees, anthrax in everything from the vegetable gardens to the deer, tornadoes, floods and gigantic wildfires that burn down entire counties.
There are so many rattlesnakes that Texas doesn’t require a hunting license to just kill`em and I think it is only ten bucks for the massive rattlesnake hunts they have every year. It is still ok to stomp them to death when they come up in your front yard.
The ones going to those snake hunts are something else. Here in Texas it is classified as “recreation.” No joke. No traps allowed, gotta use your hands and a stick.
Also there are coral snakes and 10 kinds of pit vipers, including the copperhead, cottonmouth plus eight rattlesnake species. Piranha in some lakes too. There are World record alligators in the rivers as well. It makes for some interesting fishing trips.
Then there are the feral hogs all over the place. No season. No limit. Standard hunting license and you are good to go after the 300 pounders. Just watch out for the packs of coyotes that run wild day and night.
Fire ants. They call them that for a r-e-a-s-o-n. The little suckers attack in mass, go straight up “vertical surfaces” (you) while biting AND stinging.
Mountain lions are pretty much everywhere, including the suburbs here in Dallas. They had to shoot one in downtown El Paso 2-3 years ago. About five years ago one was spotted in a downtown Dallas parking garage! Damn things will hop your backyard fence and chow down on your dogs in a blink of an eye.
Then there are the Texans themselves. Wow! The only folks I know that call their AR-15’s “pellet guns.” Dallas county has so many people doing concealed carry I don’t even have to anymore. Darned if they are not just everywhere. And some are toting iron that makes a .45 look like a 22.
Right now they are talking about making open carry legal in the entire state. Thats right, strap it on, go for pizza. Dang near anywhere, in town out of town, etc.
Texans take their rifles up in helicopters and kill hogs from the air, Air Assault style! No joke, they lock the doors open, strap in and swoop down on those big `ol hogs!
Then they come back five hours later and hunt for coyotes over the dead hogs using night-vision rifle scopes and infra-red laser illuminators.
Pirates!
Yep!
Down on the southern border you have actual pirates. No joke. Mexican “lake pirates” on the Texas border at Falcon Reservoir and other locations on the Rio Grande!
Texas DPS hunts them with 36 foot gunboats.
The armaments on board include:
+ 5 - static mounted [2 dual & 1 single] FN M240B 7.62×51 mm NATO Light machine guns,
+ 2 - Barrett .50 BMG Sniper Rifles,
+ other assorted 5.56 rifles, 9mm sub machineguns, and grenade launchers.
Everywhere you go the people are almost all Republicans or conservatives OR TEA Party! They actually believe that smaller and smaller government is a good thing. It is difficult to find any correctly CSCOPE educated and enlightened people to talk about global warming, renewable green energy or diversity/inclusiveness!
Any if you want to relax for a year or two and write a book or whatever, forget it! You can’t stay on unemployment for as long as you like because jobs are everywhere. Those drilling and pipeline companies working the shale (dirty) oil boom going on in central Texas are hiring everybody in sight.
Not only all that, they actually allow the operation of huge refineries all over the State and offshore drilling and oil production too! Because the refineries are right there you can’t find gasoline properly priced above $2.20 a gallon ANYWHERE.
They are SO BACKWARDS they have not even passed a State income tax and do not require union labor!
Yea, CSCOPE educated and enlightened people would not like it here. They should not even think about showing up in Texas.
IT JUST AWFUL!
.
Dallas in the summer is brutal! Not for the faint of heart!
While driving through Texas once, a bug hit my windshield, it was so freakin big I could have sworn the car in front of me had thrown a cupcake out the window!
God created Texas to test Man. It’s not a high passing rate.
“Austin is a beautiful city full of amenities and culture,”
When is best to visit Austin as a tourist?
25 reasons you should never visit Texas: http://www.buzzfeed.com/javiermoreno/all-hail-the-mighty-state#.ox54noQ31
27 reasons living in Texas ruins you for life: http://www.buzzfeed.com/javiermoreno/i-wish-i-was-in-texas#.kw2dJR1PD
“Too liberal in Austin for me.”
Well, it’s got to be less liberal than Seattle (where I am now).
You are an artist?
Check out my art page: http://gjgillespieartist.blogspot.com
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