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December 28, 2010
Texas: Looking Better All the Time
Texas creates jobs like a fiend, in part because businesses large and small have no worry of obstacles such as plaintiff-friendly courts, consumer-friendly regulators or oversight-friendly lawmakers. Pro-business isn’t just a mantra; they put it in the water.Oil and gas still play a huge role here, but are increasingly overshadowed by technology, medical and defense jobs. Texas has more Fortune 500 company headquarters than New York.
Not that it’s all barbecue brisket and bodacious blondes in Dallas. The state still has its issues. When you have no income tax, property and sales taxes have to make up the revenue gap, and they’re pretty steep. And try not to be poor down here because the Texas approach to a social safety net can be summed up as “Meh.” Texas spends less per capita on social services than virtually any state.
The income gap here makes Texas look more like Mexico in some ways than the rest of the country, though New York is no stranger to wealth excess contrasted with subsistence living. Texas has led the country in the percentage of people lacking health care, teenage pregnancy rates and drags the bottom on educational attainment. Political discourse here remains whether Democrats are socialists or simply traitors. -- Deep in the heart of taxes - NYPOST.com
Posted by Vanderleun at December 28, 2010 1:40 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
And why would a state that leads in job creation also have a need to lead in social spending? Because they could? That would be California. Not what you call thinking things through. But I hear you can put that shit on a stick and sell it in Austin.
Posted by: james wilson at December 28, 2010 9:48 PM
THe writer misses a big part of the equation:
Texas is a Right-to-work-state - unions don't call the shots here, as in dearbornistan and other places.
Posted by: Cheezburgrrr at December 29, 2010 8:45 AM
Political discourse here remains whether Democrats are socialists or simply traitors.
You're putting me on? There's no way they haven't figured out the answer to that question. Texans don't spend much on social fluff; that's the answer.
Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck at December 29, 2010 4:33 PM
"Texas has led the country in the percentage of people lacking health care, teenage pregnancy rates and drags the bottom in education attainment." What the author of the article fails to include is since Texas passed the 2002 Legislation Act, the medical community is also free to murder their citizens without providing the basic standard of care and not having to be accountable for their murderous actions. Biggest culprits in this situation is Ron Paul and Senator Michael Jackson, both from Galveston County.
Posted by: Cilla Mitchell, Galveston Texas at December 30, 2010 6:14 AM