And so it begins...Journolist is getting its ducks in a row...
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has leapfrogged to the top tier of Republican presidential candidates largely on the strength of one compelling fact: During more than a decade as governor, his state created more than 1 million jobs, while the nation as a whole lost 1.4 million jobs.
Perry says the "Texas miracle" rests on conservative pillars that he would bring to the White House: minimal regulation and government, low taxes and a determination to limit the reach of Uncle Sam. What he does not say is that much of that job growth has come because of government, not in spite of it.
For example ...
The Texas economy also has benefited from the huge sums spent by the federal government. The state is home to several large military installations as well as NASA, which helped Texas reap more than $227 billion in federal spending in 2009 -- more than double its 2001 total, according to the Census Bureau. Texas is the nation's second-most-populous state, behind California, where the federal government spent almost $346 billion in 2009.
California, you say? California had almost 50% more government spending? So how does California compare to Texas, pray tell?
However....
Analysts call the growth in government employment in Texas a natural consequence of the surging population, which has grown by more than 20 percent in the past decade to 25.1 million. The increase has caused local governments and school systems to hire more teachers, budget analysts, compliance officers and police officers.
Company executives and economic development officials credit Texas's economic successes to what they call a pro-business culture. Texas is a right-to-work state, has relatively low business taxes and has no state income tax. They also applaud Perry for pushing through a series of tort reform measures, which limit medical malpractice lawsuits, impose fees on unsuccessful plaintiffs and make it easier to dismiss cases deemed to lack merit.
Oh sure, but no other state had/has those problems! Do they?
Texas also has abundant land for development and limited land-use restrictions, making development cheaper and easier than in many places.
Fluor, a global firm that designs and builds complex industrial plants, moved its corporate headquarters to the Dallas area from Orange County, Calif., five years ago. Fluor's chief executive said the corporation was eager to take advantage of what Texas had to offer. "Most of the reasons fall into the category of corporate efficiency," he said. "We had very little in the way of clientele and business issues in California. Also, it was very difficult to recruit people to California because the cost of living scared them away."
Ahhh, but it's not all milk and honey ...
Many educators and others say that trade-off is evident in many social indicators. More than a quarter of the state's population lacks health-care coverage. Texas is last in the country when it comes to the number of adults with high school diplomas. It is 44th in the country in school spending per pupil, and its rate of income inequality is the ninth- highest in the country.
I was there when Governor Ann Richards (D) solved that problem with the "Robin Hood" plan. School income redistribution.
The Census Bureau says 9.5 percent of the Texas workforce is paid at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, tying it with Mississippi for the largest share of minimum-wage workers in the country. Many restaurant workers are among those who earn less than the minimum wage.
Cost of living, WaPo. What about the cost of living in Abilene? San Marcos? Lubbock? Longview? All college towns. Sweetwater? Comfort? Texline?
"In Texas, as anywhere else in the nation and in all capitalist societies, you earn what you learn," Fisher, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, wrote in a June op-ed piece in the Dallas Morning News, calling for educational improvements. "Income is directly correlated to educational attainment."
Except for a few PhD cab-drivers.
In Longview, in the oil- and gas-producing heart of East Texas,
"We can't get enough production welders," said Aaron Lowe, a welding engineer at Trinity Rail, a railroad car manufacturer that has been expanding briskly in recent months after shrinking during the downturn.
Don't need a master's degree for that. Unless you want the job to move to China.
The same is true at other employers. Eastman Chemical, which manufactures coatings, adhesives and other products, has seen a huge boom in sales with the drop in natural-gas prices. The two local medical centers also are hiring.
Prices down, sales up? Why didn't somebody tell us that?
Still, education officials worry about the future of a city where only half of the high school graduates go on to higher education. "Every independent school district in Texas is underfunded,"
I'm pretty sure he laid off the top 2% of teachers.
He also said it will hurt in the long run by leaving many of his students unprepared for the evolving job market. "If kids go right to work from high school, they are only going to get pretty much minimum-wage jobs," Wilcox said. "They have to be able to get some training that would make it so they don't have to start at the bottom."
Choices, brother - choices. Some don't want to 'waste' four years in college, some are happy to be welders, and some need to start at the bottom - like me oldest, who was too bored to go to college. Ten years later, he's doing fine, in the computer business.