I’ve written numerous times on this blog about the “Texas Economic Miracle” and what it means for New Mexico. With Rick Perry’s entrance into the presidential race, the national spotlight is now being shined on the Texas economy in a big way. Liberals like Paul Krugman want nothing more than to cast doubt on the low taxes and limited regulations in Texas and their role in spurring the Texas economy.
As Shikha Dalmia of Reason writes, Texas has indeed done a lot right and there are good reasons for people to flock there. In summary writes Dalmia, “Texas offers proof that people prefer jobs, even low-paying ones, to lavish social benefits — repudiating the liberal tax-and-spend economic model.” After all, unskilled Mexicans who choose to live in Texas (and make up a great deal of the state’s population growth) are not likely to be paid more than minimum wage, but they still prefer Texas to high-tax welfare states like California.
Of course, as Dalmia points out and conservative columnist Tim Carney expands upon, just because Texas is a business friendly place, that doesn’t mean that Rick Perry is hitting all the right notes in terms of economic policies.
So, New Mexico should follow Texas by eliminating its income tax and adopting Right to Work legislation, but that doesn’t mean Gov. Martinez should follow everything that Rick Perry has done in Texas.
Counterpoint
Government Jobs Fuel Much of ‘Texas Miracle’
By MICHAEL A. FLETCHER, The Washington Post, Aug 21,2011
Between December 2007 and last June, private-sector employment in Texas declined by 0.6 percent while public-sector jobs increased by 6.4 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, government employees account for about one-sixth of the workforce in Texas.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/08/21/WP-Govt-Jobs-Fuel-Much-of-Texas-Miracle.aspx#page1
It’s probably safe to say that even those who support Paul Krugman’s agenda would recognize it for what it isl…and for Paul, and those like him, the ends always justify the means.
Even minor falsehoods, when properly placed, tend to lead to magnified distortions in our overall view of the micro and macro-economic pictures, however, major distortions tend to contribute to a much greater likelihood for false conclusions of false perspective. This is what the Krugman’s of the world rely upon in order to advance their false perspective of the shorter term vantage point.
Federal Stimulus provided a major distortion and false perspective of both public and private achievement…or under achievement. However, appearance and effects of Federal Stimulus are strictly non-recurring and temporary in the nature….unless we are to place greater value and belief of the distortion itself. Were Stimulus dollars composed of real money, holding real value? Was quantitative easing 1, 2, and perhaps now 3, the creator of real money, holding real value, or, is its positive market effects strictly limited to shorter term? Let’s just think of it as another tool or mechanism used to distort our view of shorter term realities, while serving to redistribute future long-term balances between the private and public sectors…kick the can down the road, and in the direction of future generations whose greater balance of resources will have been shifted to the control of the public sector…nice set-up Alan G., Hnak P., Ben B…..Pual K. should thank each of you personaly.
With regard to a comparison of Texas, or any other state receiving Federal Stimulus, the only way to get an accurate reflection of true economic results, from then to now, is to remove Stimulus from the equation, or, base our comparisons on pre-stimulus and post-post stimulus data, compared across states.
Just as our comparisons of global market values, let’s say U.S. dollar currency to other currencies, are dependent on the question; “compared to what”, so too must our comparisons of States in era of “Stimulative Distortion” be posed similarly.
If public sector jobs are only made possible by trimming off the fat of the private sector’s activity (taxation–in all of its forms), then the true measure of longer term economic success will depend on the State’s ability to leverage the short-term benefit of stimulus capital in order to expand, grow, or at minimum, maintain, its private sector markets under an evolving system of more efficient public sector regulation, with fewer encumbrances in relation to analsis of their cost benefit relationship….the proper balance to maintain and protect the freedoms and property of the individual, while ensuring the right to pursue their own happiness. As a matter of predisposition, Paul Krugman, and his ilk, would prefer and promote the opposite to this notion, and, they are prepared to use the tools available to them in order to cheat it.