Redstate...
The
Texas record
Posted by Joshua Trevino
Sunday, August 28th
We’re
pleased to bring you this
commentary on the Texas economic record from Bill Peacock, Vice
President for
Research at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Texas
has been the home of the last
two Republican presidents. With Governor Rick Perry now in the fray,
we’re
fixin’ to find out if Texas can make it three in a row.
When
examining what makes Texas the
benchmark conservative state, the best place to start is the size of
its
government. Back in 1987, total state and local expenditures in Texas
were
about 18 percent of private gross domestic product (GDP), versus a
national
average of just over 19 percent. In 2008, Texas was still at about 18
percent,
while the national average had risen to over 22 percent. Spending in
California, our biggest competitor, grew during that period from about
19
percent to more than 25 percent of private GDP.
Stats
about where Texas ranks in taxes
and spending tell the same story. The Tax Foundation says that Texas
ranks 45th
in state and local tax burden. StateHealthFacts.org ranks Texas 47th in
total
state spending. And the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau has
Texas 42nd
in education spending.
Of
course, these figures are used by
liberals to pillory some state officials — including Governor Perry —
as
uncaring. Texas conservatives, though, are quick to point out the
connection
between low spending and taxes and what Texas is providing Americans
that no
other state in the country can match: jobs.
Texas
is the country’s leading job
creator and has been for more than a decade. Between June 2006 and June
2011,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that Texas added 537,500
non-farm jobs —
almost more than 10 times that of the next state, Louisiana.
Additionally,
five Texas cities are in
the top six nationally of newgeography.com’s 2011 Best Cities for Job
Growth.
Ten Texas cities are in the top 20, and only one falls outside the top
half of
the rankings.
At
a time of anemic economic growth
nationally, Texas is keeping Americans employed.
Texas’
job creation performance over
the last decade is truly amazing and would have surely gathered much
more
prominence were it not so inconvenient to the proponents of big
government.
In
fact, our economic record has
become such an inconvenient truth that people try almost anything to
undermine
it. One critic tried this approach: “Take a tech-oriented region like
Greater
Boston or the Bay Area, subtract out a housing collapse and add in an
energy
boom, and I suspect you’ve covered most of the discrepancy in
performance”
between Texas and other states.
Perhaps
it is true that if Texas’
housing and energy markets had collapsed, our economy might look a lot
like
Massachusetts’ or California’s. But they didn’t. And it doesn’t.
Other
critics point to Texas’ 8.2
percent unemployment rate — 26th in the country and slightly higher
than New
York’s — as evidence that Texas is not doing so well. But they overlook
the
fact that Texas’ unemployment rate stands at 8.2 percent after a net
inflow of
1.78 million job seekers and their families in the last 10 years. New
York, on
the other hand, lost 847,000 people during the same period.
Of
course, Texas still has some room
for improvement. As the greenest state in the country when it comes to
wind
energy, we are spending billions of dollars subsidizing renewable
energy. And
though the Texas Legislature balanced its budget this year without new
taxes,
it accomplished some of that with accounting gimmicks that will have to
be paid
for in 2013.
Additionally,
the Obama administration
is doing its best to hamstring the Texas economy through air quality
regulations, endangered species listings, and restrictions on oil and
gas
production.
Despite
its opponents and blemishes,
though, Texas is the one big state that has proven that free-market
policies
work for everybody — not just the rich. And that provides quite a
platform for
Texans moving out into the national stage.
Should
this platform prove to be a
boon for Perry, one of his first acts in office may have to be reining
in his
anti-trust lawyers at the Justice Department, who will be sorely
tempted to
investigate Texas’ recent preeminence in presidential contests. One can
easily
imagine their proposed remedy to dissolve Texas’ monopoly: imposing new
taxes
and spending to take Texas down off of its high economic horse.
Read
it at Redstate
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