Why is Texas so Good and California So Not?
by Jane Jamison on April 1, 2010 at 8:40 AM
“Low-Tax Texas Beats Big Government California”
By Michael Barone from the Washington Examiner.
Texas is the 2nd most populous state in the country, California has the most residents. Both states have grown rapidly in the past 30 years. Both have high Hispanic populations. Why is Texas doing so well and why is California such a mess? Barone sums it up succinctly.
California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.
Those Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million — all originally extracted from taxpayers — into effective TV ads.
Californians have responded by leaving the state. From 2000 to 2009, the Census Bureau estimates, there has been a domestic outflow of 1,509,000 people from California — almost as many as the number of immigrants coming in. Population growth has not been above the national average and, for the first time in history, it appears that California will gain no House seats or electoral votes from the reapportionment following the 2010 census.
Texas is a different story. Texas has low taxes — and no state income taxes — and a much smaller government. Its legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, compared with California’s year-round legislature. Its fiscal condition is sound. Public employee unions are weak or nonexistent.
But Texas seems to be delivering superior services. Its teachers are paid less than California’s. But its test scores — and with a demographically similar school population — are higher. California’s once fabled freeways are crumbling and crowded. Texas has built gleaming new highways in metro Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
In the meantime, Texas’ economy has been booming. Unemployment rates have been below the national average for more than a decade, as companies small and large generate new jobs.
And Americans have been voting for Texas with their feet. From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad. That inflow has continued in 2008-09, in which 143,000 Americans moved into Texas, more than double the number in any other state, at the same time as 98,000 were moving out of California. Texas is on the way to gain four additional House seats and electoral votes in the 2010 reapportionment.
This was not always so. In the two decades after World War II California, with its pleasant weather, was the Golden State, a promised land, for most Americans, while Texas seemed a provincial rural backwater. Many saw postwar California’s expansion of universities, freeways and water systems a model for the nation. Few experts praised Texas’ low-tax, low-services government.
Now it is California’s ruinously expensive and increasingly incompetent government that seems dysfunctional, while Texas’ approach has generated more creativity and opportunity. So it’s not surprising that Texas voters preferred Perry over an opponent who has spent 16 years in Washington. What’s surprising is that Democrats in Washington are still trying to impose policies like those that have ravaged California rather than those that have proved so successful in Texas.
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Right.
Oh wait.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281978%29#Negati...
The funny part is, you would have a point, Texas is doing fantastic right now. But then you decided that Thomas Jefferson wasn't important enough to teach in History class, primarily because he took a dim view of religion in government. And everyone laughed at you again.
Misinfomed about Jefferson
Texas did not take Thomas Jefferson out of the curriculum: http://texasgopvote.com/blog/thomas-jefferson-remains-social-studies-cur...
Wrong
When are the Dems going to get it right????
Its a typical Lib. move
Texas Vs. California
California has an official check point just inside its borders for those entering this West Coast State. The check point checks for contraband, illegal plants, and horse faced women (sorry Maria Shriver this doesn't apply to you - you are a thoroughbred). After leaving the check stand, there's a sign that reads ""Welcome to California - Valet parking ahead" and "don't inhale too deeply - we will tax you". But, that's only the tip of the iceberg.
conservatives and reduced taxes?
Geez, you liberals will even bypass common sense to avoid taking blame where it's uncomfortable. I'll hand it to you, you liberals are pretty good and convincing people that your own faults belong to the other guy. How unfortunate that our nation will be ripped right out from under our feet due to liberal policy and you will still be blaming the conservatives.
News flash, conservatism is shrinking in this nation, and liberalism is increasing and has been a few decades now. So as you see us getting worse and worse, understand that liberalism is getting more and more power as well. So it's not conservatism, it's liberalism and how it's changing our nation towards a less free more government dominated one.
HELP!
I’m a native Californian and it hurts to see what has happened to this state. Prop. 13 passed when I was a kid but I remember the intense discussions my parents, their friends and neighbors had regarding it. It is a good thing because these liberals would raise property taxes every time they needed to. (They have found ways around it anyway with Mello-Roos and other things.) Could you imagine; they would raise the property taxes and good people would be unable to pay them, the state would take their property and most likely use it in some section 8 low-income housing project. We would be a socialist/communist state in this great nation from which many fought and died to stop the spread of communism. In the Sacramento area where I live it is largely conservative but we can not beat the majority of liberals in the Bay Area and LA. It makes me want to just throw-up watching our legislature ruin this state. There is one thing about Texas that I know could save us money here in CA - that is the fast track to execution program. Take for instance this child rapist Garrido. Why is he still alive? Why are we wasting all this money on his trial? If he would have been executed in the first place, as God’s law demands, he would not have done it again. How much is a rope?
Anyway, I like Austin!!
GO TEXAS!
So one tax limiting policy