JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 22, 2011
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Last week I argued that Texas really has had a pretty impressive economic performance under Rick Perry, but there's just no evidence that his story of why that happened is true:
Perry's right-wing policy cocktail closely resembles conservative governance in other Republican-run states. And yet we don't see a general trend of extraordinary job growth in states with low taxes, pro-business regulation, and so on.
Ross Douthat's column today makes essentially the same argument:
When Perry became governor, taxes were already low, regulations were light, and test scores were on their way up. He didn’t create the zoning rules that keep Texas real estate affordable, or the strict lending requirements that minimized the state’s housing bubble. Over all, the Texas model looks like something he inherited rather than a system he built.
Meanwhile, Dylan Matthews brings the data to bolster the point I made -- that other low-tax states have not enjoyed particularly high growth:
This looks like a pretty solid consensus to me.
3 comments
The main point should be that Texas job growth compared to its growth in population is not exceptional --- and that Texas unemployment has risen significantly to 8.2%. Less than CA, but more than NY or MA.
- drofnats1
August 22, 2011 at 1:16pm
The numbers of children living in poverty & without health insurance in the Lone Star State do not make it look like any sort of economic Eden, either. This sort of information needs to be taken in by the media mouths who just can't quit jabbering about Rick Perry's "impressive economic record". Learn more at: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Report-finds-1-in-4-Texas-children-lives-in-2132691.php
- Haole45
August 22, 2011 at 2:51pm
I agree with drofnats1. Why isn't the issue unemployment? And if there is a large quanity of immigrants and unemployment has either stayed the same or gone up, hasn't he displaced American Workers?
- Nusholtz
August 22, 2011 at 3:02pm