Erika Johnsen:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry‘s cross-country campaign to promote his state’s favorable tax and regulatory conditions and attract businesses and jobs throughout his tenure hasn’t been based on him just talking the talk; Texas can absolutely walk the economic walk, too, asWaPo reports:
Texas experienced stronger job growth than the rest of the nation from 2000 to 2013, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Not only that, a pair of researchers note in a Thursday research publication, but Texas leads the nation in creation of jobs at all pay levels, too.
“Texas has also created more ‘good’ than ‘bad’ jobs,” they write. “Jobs in the top half of the wage distribution experienced disproportionate growth. The two upper wage quartiles were responsible for 55 percent of net new jobs. A similar pie chart cannot be made for the rest of the U.S., which lost jobs in the lower-middle quartile over the period.”
As we noted above, Texas does have a larger share of its population earning the federal minimum wage or less than any state but Idaho, but it helps that things are cheap.
Bam. And what, do we suppose, might be one of the hugely driving factors behind this robuster-than-everyone-else level of equitable job creation? It couldn’t possibly be that Texas has been conscientiously developing their energy reserves — like, for example, the Eagle Ford Shale, could it? While other states — like, say, California — have been quixotically ignoring their own resources in favor of their politically preferred pet projects? Joel Kotkin has yet another great piece out today detailing that very conspicuous phenomenon:
The recent decision by Occidental Petroleum to move its headquarters to Houston from Los Angeles, where it was founded over a half-century ago, confirms the futility and delusion embodied in California’s ultragreen energy policies. By embracing solar and wind as preferred sources of generating power, the state promotes an ever-widening gap between its declining middle- and working-class populations and a smaller, self-satisfied group of environmental campaigners and their corporate backers. …
CA is great to suck off of, whether you are that lobster-eating food stamp surfer/rocker guy or a big electric car company.
Getting a job there is not worth it.
For either of them.
I can tell you that companies are remodeling or completely tearing down good builds and rebuilding in the hopes that companies will take them. This place, Silicon Valley, is basically a friggin’ ghost town. Everyone I talk to says that business is DOWN. I’m pretty sure that the reason is because of the fools we have ‘running’ this joint.
I like Perry
I’m guessing that the obama administration is going to be contacting Texas and tell them to play fair. There aren’t supposed to be any more winners. All states are supposed to be equal.
As long as the Cali’s moving to Texas don’t bring their politics with them and screw up the state like they did in Colorado… Oh, wait. They will.
Liberals are like people who won’t take out the garbage. When the house gets full and starts to stink, they just move to another house and repeat.
@Smorgasbord: And should that call be made to Gov. Perry, I imagine the response will be two words, seven letters… the second word being “off”…
Rick Perry’s record, whatever you think of him personally can’t be topped. Check out his book Fed Up.