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Old 02-09-2011, 06:57 PM   #41
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Originally Posted by chumdawg View Post
The state is you...and me, and everybody else. You know...of the people, for the people, by the people. One thing that we have decided to do as "the state" is to care for children who cannot care for themselves (or have no one else to adequately care for them). There is perhaps a selfish reason for it, as it in our best long-term interests to have healthy children to populate future generations. Or perhaps it is just humanitarian, at its core.
I think you're confused as to what conversation we're having.

There was an article posted claiming that Texas has a very high percentage of uninsured people, and made the claim that Texas was "stingy on healthcare".

I was questioning (legitimately, I really don't know) how exactly a state (the government agency, not the "we the people") affected the percentage of its residents that have healthcare. Does the state make decisions on who is or isn't eligible for Medicaid? I'm not sure how much of that comes from the Federal side of things vs the State side.
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Old 02-09-2011, 07:27 PM   #42
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I think you're confused as to what conversation we're having.

There was an article posted claiming that Texas has a very high percentage of uninsured people, and made the claim that Texas was "stingy on healthcare".

I was questioning (legitimately, I really don't know) how exactly a state (the government agency, not the "we the people") affected the percentage of its residents that have healthcare. Does the state make decisions on who is or isn't eligible for Medicaid? I'm not sure how much of that comes from the Federal side of things vs the State side.
You threw me for a loop with your last response, when you said "What does the state have to do with it?" I guess you are saying that you meant, why the State of Texas as opposed to the federal government?

I don't know the full answer to your question, but the articles did say that a large bulk of the state's budget goes toward healthcare. From that I guess we can infer that the state is indeed making some decisions about who/how to cover.
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Old 02-09-2011, 07:31 PM   #43
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Yeah, I've just never heard someone essentially blame a state for people not having healthcare coverage. I've always assumed that decisions on who is eligible for government funded healthcare were made at the federal level. So I was struck by the accusation of Texas being "stingy" when it came to healthcare.

And I'm still pretty confident that you need a much, much more detailed analysis of WHY a state has a large percentage of residents without healthcare before you blame the state for it.
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Old 02-10-2011, 02:08 AM   #44
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Yeah, I've just never heard someone essentially blame a state for people not having healthcare coverage. I've always assumed that decisions on who is eligible for government funded healthcare were made at the federal level. So I was struck by the accusation of Texas being "stingy" when it came to healthcare.

And I'm still pretty confident that you need a much, much more detailed analysis of WHY a state has a large percentage of residents without healthcare before you blame the state for it.
Jthig, two words: Medicaid.

I don't know if you're thinking about Medicaid being a form of healthcare coverage or not, and I don't know how much you know about Medicaid--what it is, or how it's funded or how it's administered. From your question, it seems like you might be unfamiliar with it. And to be fair, I don't know how old I was before I even understood what it was--probably sometime in the last 10 years. And even then, it was more about understanding what it was intellectually than having any practical experience with it. So, I try not to assume that anyone really delves into the subject just for the fun of it.

Medicaid is co-funded by both federal and state governments, but administered by the state governments. Individual eligibility is based on assets/income--i.e., it's a program for people without the means to pay for healthcare coverage--and eligibility requirements vary from state to state. Texas has generally had more restrictive eligibility criteria than other states (i.e. "stingier"), covered fewer services, and re-imbursed physicians and hospitals at lower rates. Lower re-imbursement means fewer physicians/hospitals will accept Medicaid patients, which in turn, effectively restricts healthcare access to lower income/lower asset people.

I think I remember reading recently that ~4million people in Texas (out of a population of ~25 million) are covered by Medicaid, and about 2/3 of that population are children. However, about 2/3 of the expenditures for Medicaid are spent on people with disabilites and long-term healthcare for the elderly (i.e. nursing homes). Also remember reading that ~70% of stays for nursing home residents are paid for by Medicaid (one source said 80%, another 67%).

So when Texas legislators talk about reducing expenditures for healthcare in lieu of enacting any tax increases to maintain funding at current levels (or opting out of Medicaid altogether), they are talking about cutting back services to what is already the neediest, most vulnerable segment of the population, in order to keep tax dollars in the pockets of the relatively wealthier. They are also talking about foregoing ~$1.5 in federal contributions for every dollar in state expenditures reductions (kind of a reverse NBA luxury tax, if you will). The cuts will hit deep.

Calling that "stingy" might be considered by some to be a charitable characterization. A demagogue would probably go with something more along the lines of Republican Death Panels.

But yeah, long story short, funding for Medicaid is a state-level decision, and thus healthcare coverage for people (infants, children, elderly) without means is a state-level decision. Beyond that, healthcare coverage isn't an individual choice for children, for people who can't afford it, or indeed not even necessarily for people who become unemployed and lose access to healthcare coverage. And the NEED for healthcare itself (not just insurance) isn't really a CHOICE for anyone. When a person needs healthcare, they need it. Insurance or not.

Some people in Texas seem to think that Texas got off without really suffering the effects of the recession, or at least that's the lie that a politican like Perry will tell. Rightly or wrongly, other people are beginning to wonder if the full effects of the recession won't just be felt later in Texas, and whether the shortsightedness, self-satisfaction and complacency of Texas legislators won't make things a lot worse than they have to be.

I have long had the sense that Texas (far from showing 'em how it's done) is at least 20 years behind the more progressive parts of the country, and that the problems that places like CA, NY and IL were experiencing would just reverberate down in Texas a little later. Time will tell. But that budget deficit didn't just come out of nowhere.

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Old 02-10-2011, 09:11 AM   #45
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Gotcha. Yeah I'm familiar with Medicaid, and I knew it was a state and federal program. I just wasn't aware that each state made their decisions on eligibility.

Thanks for the info.
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Old 02-10-2011, 09:19 AM   #46
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I think I remember reading recently that ~4million people in Texas (out of a population of ~25 million) are covered by Medicaid
4 million out of a population of 25 million?! Wow. That's a huge proportion.

I'm having trouble understanding how giving 17% of the population a suck on the state tit can be considered "stingy".

Amongst the remaining population, probably no more than 50-60% are employed in the private sector, so every working person is essentially picking up 1/3rd of the health care tab for one medicare recipient.

That's gotta run a couple or three grand a year.....

.....yeah, I'm having trouble understanding how dropping a couple grand a year on a complete stranger is "stingy".
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Old 02-10-2011, 02:09 PM   #47
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4 million out of a population of 25 million?! Wow. That's a huge proportion.

I'm having trouble understanding how giving 17% of the population a suck on the state tit can be considered "stingy".

Amongst the remaining population, probably no more than 50-60% are employed in the private sector, so every working person is essentially picking up 1/3rd of the health care tab for one medicare recipient.

That's gotta run a couple or three grand a year.....

.....yeah, I'm having trouble understanding how dropping a couple grand a year on a complete stranger is "stingy".
I think the perception of "stingy" might have something to do with the fact that Texas spends 7.5% of its total budget on Medicaid (49th out of 50 states) compared to a national average of >21%. Or that Texas leads the nation in uninsured residents (25%) compared with the national average of (15%).
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Old 02-10-2011, 02:49 PM   #48
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I think the perception of "stingy" might have something to do with the fact that Texas spends 7.5% of its total budget on Medicaid (49th out of 50 states) compared to a national average of >21%. Or that Texas leads the nation in uninsured residents (25%) compared with the national average of (15%).
Based on 2 very intense minutes of research, Texas spends $16b (not including fed funds) a year on medicaid. Figuring there is no more than 12mm working stiffs in the private sector, which we means we're paying on average about $1,300 a pop to complete strangers....

....but then again, we're also picking up the tab on the $24 b of medicaid spending which comes from the Fed gov, albeit through payments to the federal government instead of the state....

....so that's nearly $4k per person.

Seriously, how much more more would each working person have to give to strangers before we'd no longer be considered "stingy" in your view? Would $8k be enough? $10k? $20k? What would it take?
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Old 02-13-2011, 09:34 PM   #49
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Agree. We need to do more for children.
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Old 03-03-2011, 01:23 AM   #50
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Iowahawk takes a break from satire and shows that Nobel Prizes just ain't what they used to be.

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk...badgers-1.html
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Longhorns 17, Badgers 1

Please pardon this brief departure from my normal folderol, but every so often a member of the chattering class issues a nugget of stupidity so egregious that no amount of mockery will suffice. Particularly when the issuer of said stupidity holds a Nobel Prize.
Case in point: Paul Krugman. The Times' staff economics blowhard recently typed, re the state of education in Texas:
And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.
Similarly, The Economist passes on what appears to be the cut-'n'-paste lefty factoid du jour:
Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:
South Carolina – 50th
North Carolina – 49th
Georgia – 48th
Texas – 47th
Virginia – 44th
If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country.
The point being, I suppose, is that unionized teachers stand as a thin chalk-stained line keeping Wisconsin from descending into the dystopian non-union educational hellscape of Texas. Interesting, if it wasn't complete bullshit.
As a son of Iowa, I'm no stranger to bragging about my home state's ranking on various standardized test. Like Wisconsin we Iowans usually rank near the top of the heap on average ACT/SAT scores. We are usually joined there by Minnesota, Nebraska, and the various Dakotas; Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire...
... beginning to see a pattern? Perhaps because a state's "average ACT/SAT" is, for all intents and purposes, a proxy for the percent of white people who live there. In fact, the lion's share of state-to-state variance in test scores is accounted for by differences in ethnic composition. Minority students - regardless of state residence - tend to score lower than white students on standardized test, and the higher the proportion of minority students in a state the lower its overall test scores tend to be.
Please note: this has nothing to do with innate ability or aptitude. Quite to the contrary, I believe the test gap between minority students and white students can be attributed to differences in socioeconomic status. And poverty. And yes, racism. And yes, family structure. Whatever combination of reasons, the gap exists, and it's mathematical sophistry to compare the combined average test scores in a state like Wisconsin (4% black, 4% Hispanic) with a state like Texas (12% black, 30% Hispanic).
So how to compare educational achievement between two states with such dissimilar populations? In data analysis this is usually done by treating ethnicity as a "covariate." A very simple way to do this is by comparing educational achievement between states within the same ethnic group. In other words, do black students perform better in Wisconsin than Texas? Do Hispanic students perform better in Wisconsin or Texas? White students? If Wisconsin's kids consistently beat their Texas counterparts, after controlling for ethnicity, then there's a strong case that maybe Texas schools ought to become a union shop.
Luckily, there is data to answer this question via the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP is an annual standardized test given to 4th and 8th graders around the country to measure proficiency in math, science, and reading. Participation is fairly universal; if you've had a 4th or 8th grader in the last few years, you're probably familiar with it. Results are compiled on the NAEP website, broken down by grade, state, subject and ethnicity.


So how does brokeass, dumbass, redneck Texas stack up against progressive unionized Wisconsin?
2009 4th Grade Math
White students: Texas 254, Wisconsin 250 (national average 248)
Black students: Texas 231, Wisconsin 217 (national 222)
Hispanic students: Texas 233, Wisconsin 228 (national 227)
2009 8th Grade Math
White students: Texas 301, Wisconsin 294 (national 294)
Black students: Texas 272, Wisconsin 254 (national 260)
Hispanic students: Texas 277, Wisconsin 268 (national 260)
2009 4th Grade Reading
White students: Texas 232, Wisconsin 227 (national 229)
Black students: Texas 213, Wisconsin 192 (national 204)
Hispanic students: Texas 210, Wisconsin 202 (national 204)
2009 8th Grade Reading
White students: Texas 273, Wisconsin 271 (national 271)
Black students: Texas 249, Wisconsin 238 (national 245)
Hispanic students: Texas 251, Wisconsin 250 (national 248)
2009 4th Grade Science
White students: Texas 168, Wisconsin 164 (national 162)
Black students: Texas 139, Wisconsin 121 (national 127)
Hispanic students: Wisconsin 138, Texas 136 (national 130)
2009 8th Grade Science
White students: Texas 167, Wisconsin 165 (national 161)
Black students: Texas 133, Wisconsin 120 (national 125)
Hispanic students: Texas 141, Wisconsin 134 (national 131)


To recap: white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. Further, Texas students exceeded the national average for their ethnic cohort in all 18 comparisons; Wisconsinites were below the national average in 8, above average in 8.
Perhaps the most striking thing in these numbers is the within-state gap between white and minority students. Not only did white Texas students outperform white Wisconsin students, the gap between white students and minority students in Texas was much less than the gap between white and minority students in Wisconsin. In other words, students are better off in Texas schools than in Wisconsin schools - especially minority students.
Conclusion: instead of chanting slogans in Madison, maybe it's time for Wisconsin teachers to take refresher lessons from their non-union counterparts in the Lone Star State.

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Old 03-03-2011, 09:33 AM   #51
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Yeah....the ethnic breakdown probably applies to taxes as well. I bet if we looked at how much whitey pays in taxes at local and state levels we'd find that we're not nearly so outta whack.
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Old 03-05-2011, 12:40 AM   #52
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...."Put your money where your mouth is. Do it for ...The Children."

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February 27, 2011
Leaving Children Behind

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Will 2011 be the year of fiscal austerity? At the federal level, it’s still not clear: Republicans are demanding draconian spending cuts, but we don’t yet know how far they’re willing to go in a showdown with President Obama. At the state and local level, however, there’s no doubt about it: big spending cuts are coming.

And who will bear the brunt of these cuts? America’s children.

Now, politicians — and especially, in my experience, conservative politicians — always claim to be deeply concerned about the nation’s children. Back during the 2000 campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush, touting the “Texas miracle” of dramatically lower dropout rates, declared that he wanted to be the “education president.” Today, advocates of big spending cuts often claim that their greatest concern is the burden of debt our children will face.

In practice, however, when advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.
Consider, as a case in point, what’s happening in Texas, which more and more seems to be where America’s political future happens first.

Texas likes to portray itself as a model of small government, and indeed it is. Taxes are low, at least if you’re in the upper part of the income distribution (taxes on the bottom 40 percent of the population are actually above the national average). Government spending is also low. And to be fair, low taxes may be one reason for the state’s rapid population growth, although low housing prices are surely much more important.

But here’s the thing: While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level.

And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.

But wait — how can graduation rates be so low when Texas had that education miracle back when former President Bush was governor? Well, a couple of years into his presidency the truth about that miracle came out: Texas school administrators achieved low reported dropout rates the old-fashioned way — they, ahem, got the numbers wrong.

It’s not a pretty picture; compassion aside, you have to wonder — and many business people in Texas do — how the state can prosper in the long run with a future work force blighted by childhood poverty, poor health and lack of education.

But things are about to get much worse.

A few months ago another Texas miracle went the way of that education miracle of the 1990s. For months, Gov. Rick Perry had boasted that his “tough conservative decisions” had kept the budget in surplus while allowing the state to weather the recession unscathed. But after Mr. Perry’s re-election, reality intruded — funny how that happens — and the state is now scrambling to close a huge budget gap. (By the way, given the current efforts to blame public-sector unions for state fiscal problems, it’s worth noting that the mess in Texas was achieved with an overwhelmingly nonunion work force.)

So how will that gap be closed? Given the already dire condition of Texas children, you might have expected the state’s leaders to focus the pain elsewhere. In particular, you might have expected high-income Texans, who pay much less in state and local taxes than the national average, to be asked to bear at least some of the burden.

But you’d be wrong. Tax increases have been ruled out of consideration; the gap will be closed solely through spending cuts. Medicaid, a program that is crucial to many of the state’s children, will take the biggest hit, with the Legislature proposing a funding cut of no less than 29 percent, including a reduction in the state’s already low payments to providers — raising fears that doctors will start refusing to see Medicaid patients. And education will also face steep cuts, with school administrators talking about as many as 100,000 layoffs.

The really striking thing about all this isn’t the cruelty — at this point you expect that — but the shortsightedness. What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force?

Anyway, the next time some self-proclaimed deficit hawk tells you how much he worries about the debt we’re leaving our children, remember what’s happening in Texas, a state whose slogan right now might as well be “Lose the future.”

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Old 06-19-2011, 09:46 PM   #53
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Perry is such a sorry loser...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NoUI...layer_embedded
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Old 08-16-2011, 02:58 PM   #54
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Some pretty fine analysis of the Texas economy. Especially the fact based rebuttal of all those who dis our job growth.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/126285/
[quote]A LOOK AT Rick Perry and Texas job numbers. “My advice to anti-Perry advocates is this: Give up talking about Texas jobs. Texas is an incredible outlier among the states when it comes to jobs. Not only are they creating them, they’re creating ones with higher wages.”

Posted at 1:02 pm by Glenn Reynolds *
[quote]
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Old 08-20-2011, 08:44 AM   #55
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...eadership.html
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It's OK to compromise on policy, as long as you don't compromise on your principles. The playbook we’re following here in Ohio is simple: To grow more, you have to tax less, spend less, and regulate less. If we can do it here in Ohio, Washington can - and should - do it also. Together, we can get it done.

On behalf of all the people of the great state of Ohio, thank you for listening."
Ooopss...wrong thread...
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Old 12-03-2012, 08:48 PM   #56
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Default Corruption, conflicts of interest, and corporate cons

Unraveling the threads of Perry's 'Texas miracle'.

Executive Summary: A lot of rubes in Texas thinks Perry is one of their own because he unctuously talks the Jeebus talk, but even as they continue to vote for him he's taking money out of their pockets, out of their communities, and wasting tax dollars on corporate welfare.


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December 2, 2012

Lines Blur as Texas Gives Industries a Bonanza


By LOUISE STORY

DALLAS — The Preston Hollow neighborhood has been home to many of Texas’ rich and powerful — George and Laura Bush, Mark Cuban, T. Boone Pickens, Ross Perot. So it is hardly surprising that a recent political fund-raiser was held there on the back terrace of a 20,000-square-foot home overlooking lush gardens with life-size bronze statues of the host’s daughters.

The guest of honor was Gov. Rick Perry, but the man behind the event was not one of the enclave’s boldface names. He was a tax consultant named G. Brint Ryan.


Mr. Ryan’s specialty is helping clients like ExxonMobil and Neiman Marcus secure state and local tax breaks and other business incentives. It is a good line of work in Texas.


Under Mr. Perry, Texas gives out more of the incentives than any other state, around $19 billion a year, an examination by The New York Times has found. Texas justifies its largess by pointing out that it is home to half of all the private sector jobs created over the last decade nationwide. As the invitation to the fund-raiser boasted: “Texas leads the nation in job creation.”

Yet the raw numbers mask a more complicated reality behind the flood of incentives, the examination shows, and raise questions about who benefits more, the businesses or the people of Texas.

Along with the huge job growth, the state has the third-highest proportion of hourly jobs paying at or below minimum wage.
And despite its low level of unemployment, Texas has the 11th-highest poverty rate among states.


“While economic development is the mantra of most officials, there’s a question of when does economic development end and corporate welfare begin,” said Dale Craymer, the president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, a group supported by business that favors incentives programs.


In a state that markets itself as “wide open for business,” the lines are often blurred between decision makers and beneficiaries, according to interviews with dozens of state and local officials and corporate representatives. The government in many instances is relying on businesses and consultants like Mr. Ryan for suggestions on what incentives to grant and which companies should receive them, as well as on other factors that directly affect public spending and budgets, the interviews show.


Mr. Ryan does not claim to be neutral on where the money should go. “It’s widely known that I represent a lot of taxpayers,” he said in an interview. “I have client relationships with people who hopefully, if they invest in Texas, they’ll receive incentives.”


Granting corporate incentives has become standard operating procedure for state and local governments across the country. The Times investigation found that the governments collectively give incentives worth at least $80 billion a year.

The free flow of tax breaks and subsidies in Texas makes it particularly fertile ground to examine these economic development deals and the fundamental trade-off behind them: the more states give to businesses, the less they have available in the short term to spend on basic services, a calculation made more stark by the recession.

To help balance its budget last year, Texas cut public education spending by $5.4 billion — a significant decrease considering that it already ranked 11th from the bottom among all states in per-pupil financing, according to recent data from the Census Bureau. Yet highly profitable companies like Dow Chemical and Texas Instruments continue to enjoy hefty discounts on their school tax bills through one of the state’s economic development programs.


In the Manor school district, which comprises the town and part of Austin, Samsung has been awarded more than $231 million in incentives from state and local officials. But the recent budget cuts have left the district with crowded classes and fewer programs.


Mr. Perry, who took office at the end of 2000, has been a longtime proponent of lowering taxes. He said in an interview that companies could put the money to better use than the government and would spend it in ways that would create jobs and help Texans.


“Facebook, eBay, Apple — all of those within the last two years have announced major expansions in Texas,” Mr. Perry said. “They’re coming because it is given, it is covenant, in these boardrooms across America, that our tax structure, regulatory climate and legal environment are very positive to those businesses.”


He acknowledged that the state’s job growth was not erasing persistent poverty, saying that “we are going to have people that fall through the cracks.” He said creating jobs was the best way to help Texans, who “don’t want government assistance when they can do it themselves.”


But relying on companies does not always turn out well. When Amazon set up a distribution center outside Dallas, it received incentives from the state. Six years later, when the company got into a tax dispute with the state, it shut the warehouse, which employed as many as 2,000 people during its peak season.


Nationwide, a whole industry of consultants has grown up around state efforts to lure companies with incentives. Companies like Ernst & Young, Deloitte and Automatic Data Processing, a payroll company, have divisions dedicated to helping companies search for the best deals.


Mr. Ryan’s Dallas-based firm, Ryan LLC, operates in 27 states and seven countries and represents numerous Fortune 500 companies. Texas alone is a big source of business for Mr. Ryan, who has won tax refunds of more than $20 million each for ExxonMobil and Raytheon. This year, he sought similar amounts for Verizon, Freescale Semiconductor and several other companies, according to state documents obtained through an open records request.


At the same time, Mr. Ryan has become one of the state’s most generous political donors. He co-founded a political action committee last year that supported Mr. Perry’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination and donated $250,000.

Even as business leaders press local governments to give out more incentives, they warn against requiring too much in return.

In Travis County, which includes Austin, commissioners recently passed new rules for companies that receive tax abatements. One requires paying employees $11 an hour, an amount the county considers to be a living wage.


The rules had been contested by the business community. “The more stipulations you put into an agreement, the more complicated it becomes and the less competitive we become,” Gary Farmer, a local business leader who runs an insurance company, told the county commissioners at a hearing. “We’re concerned about including a living wage into the policy, as we believe that could have a chilling effect on certain companies.”


The Money Starts Flowing

When Mr. Perry became governor in 2000, Texas was not a major player in the incentives game. He quickly got his first taste during a bidding war among states when Boeing was hunting for a new location for its headquarters.

Texas ultimately lost to Illinois, which awarded Boeing $52.5 million in incentives, but the episode was a turning point. “We came back in here after we lost that,” Mr. Perry said, “and we analyzed our economic development efforts, and that’s when we started making some changes.”


Mr. Perry got the money flowing through two new cash funds created to recruit businesses. One, the Texas Enterprise Fund, awarded more than $410 million over eight years, according to the governor’s office, and the recipients said they would create more than 54,000 jobs. The fund requires companies that do not meet their job targets to return incentive money.


The state has also embraced a popular program that establishes enterprise zones where companies can receive refunds on some taxes they pay in exchange for moving there. The exemption has added up to big money for retailers like Walmart. Not coincidentally, the company has opened stores in similar enterprise zones across the country.


Walmart owed some of its other tax savings to Mr. Ryan, who counted the retailer among his earliest clients in the 1990s. Once an accounting firm, Ryan LLC transformed itself in recent years into a powerhouse focused on corporate tax breaks.

Mr. Ryan is a familiar presence at the state comptroller’s office in Austin, which must sign off on many tax breaks. He is known there for his laser focus and forceful negotiating skills. “It’s gloves-off, full-frontal assault,” said a former official, who requested anonymity because of state confidentiality rules.

Mr. Ryan agrees that he is aggressive, saying that “guys like me are all that stand between the government fleecing taxpayers.” He has at times filed lawsuits over tax rules he does not like, including one against the head of the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.


In one of his most lucrative deals, Mr. Ryan in 2006 helped Texas Instruments win tens of millions of dollars in tax refunds, according to the comptroller’s office. Ryan LLC often gets to keep around 30 percent of its clients’ awards, according to former employees.


That same year, Mr. Ryan was a top donor to the campaign of the comptroller at the time, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, personally giving $250,000, according to campaign finance records. Over the course of Ms. Strayhorn’s tenure, Mr. Ryan, his employees and his company’s PAC would donate nearly $3 million, including when the comptroller ran for governor, the records show. He and his employees have made campaign contributions to the current comptroller, Susan Combs, totaling more than $600,000.

Ms. Strayhorn declined to comment, and a representative for Ms. Combs said the donations did not affect her decisions.

Since 2000, Mr. Ryan and his wife, Amanda, have contributed over $4 million to a variety of state officials and political causes, including the governor. Mr. Perry declined to comment on Mr. Ryan, but at a local event in 2010 he called him “the type of visionary that every community wants to have,” according to The Abilene Reporter-News.


Mr. Ryan said that he gave to candidates in many states and that his donations brought extra scrutiny, not favorable treatment.


Others see it differently. “When you give money to a state regulator who you appear before, there are potential conflicts of interest,” said Craig McDonald, the executive director of Texans for Public Justice, a liberal watchdog group. “And Texas law is way too weak in allowing those conflicts to exist.”


Mr. Ryan set his own sights on public office in 2009, running for the Dallas City Council on a platform that pushed cutting public spending. Simultaneously, Mr. Ryan was pursuing state aid for his own company, applying for an enterprise zone designation for his business.


Mr. Ryan lost the race but won the incentive. “In these tough economic times, our city officials must use every tool available to ensure job growth and expand the tax base,” he said of the award in a news release.


Mr. Perry has made corporate recruitment a hallmark of his administration. The governor frequently makes trips to cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco to lure prospective businesses.


During a visit to San Diego in June, he proudly told local officials that about a third of the companies moving to Texas were from California, said Ruben Barrales, the chief executive of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.


“Governor Perry is here quite a bit,” Mr. Barrales said. “He meets with companies. He’s letting people know if they’re interested in further growth, Texas will greet them with open arms. He’s not very shy about it.”


Asked if he had qualms about taking jobs from other states, Mr. Perry said, “Competition is what drives this country.”


A nonprofit group called TexasOne recommends potential businesses to the governor and then pays for his travel and other expenses during the recruiting trips. The group is financed by large corporations like Shell and AT&T, as well as by consultants like Ryan LLC.


The governor’s office allocates the awards, which state records show amount to millions of dollars each year. In the enterprise zone program, 82 of the 222 awards granted from March 2008 to June 2012 went to companies represented by Mr. Ryan’s firm, according to public records provided by the governor’s office. The list included General Motors, Tyson Foods and the German chemical giant BASF.


Until recently, the cash incentives were overseen in Mr. Perry’s office by a top aide, Roberto De Hoyos. In September, Mr. De Hoyos took a new job — at Ryan LLC.


Companies Gain, Schools Lose

Lines of new students show up each August at the public schools in Manor. The town is mostly rural, with fields of hay and cattle in every direction. Some of the students’ families came to double up with relatives or friends, others were pushed outward by Austin’s gentrification.

Downtown Manor consists of a couple of blocks lined with spots like Ramos Cocina and a smoke-filled convenience store. There are few doctors and no real place to buy groceries.


About six miles away, a fabrication plant for the South Korean company Samsung looms over one of Manor’s elementary schools, a symbol of corporate interests juxtaposed with a pillar of public spending. The complex, which makes memory chips for smartphones and other products, includes some of the largest buildings in the area: one covers 1.6 million square feet, or about nine football fields.


Since Mr. Perry took office, companies have seen a drop in their school property taxes because of a special incentives program, as well as an across-the-board cut in the school tax rate. The recession has made the squeeze all the more difficult for schools.


In the Manor district, spending shrank by about $540 per student this year, according to the Equity Center, an advocacy group for Texas schools. The cuts came even as school enrollment has nearly tripled since 2000.


The cracks in financing were on display this summer, as families filled a school cafeteria to register for a prekindergarten program with shortened days. For parents like Tommy and Melissa Sifuentes, the cutback means they have to leave work early or hire a baby sitter. “It’s harder,” said Ms. Sifuentes, who is still grateful that her son will learn socialization skills at school.


About 80 percent of Manor’s students are low-income, according to the E3 Alliance, a nonprofit group in Austin that focuses on education. For about a third of the 8,000 students, English is a second language.


In 2005, Manor’s school board gave Samsung eight years of tax abatements worth $112 million as part of the company’s incentives package for its fabrication plant. Under the special incentives program, known as Chapter 313, school boards approve tax abatements for companies. The state then reimburses the district for the amounts they give up.


In many districts, the awards were granted after little review. Robert Schneider, a member of Austin’s school board, said the district was nonchalant when it gave an abatement to Hewlett-Packard in 2006.


“The board took it as ‘we don’t lose in this deal,’ because we knew we were going to get reimbursed by the state,” Mr. Schneider said. “I can tell you there wasn’t any analysis done that said, ‘Ten, 15 years from now, they will be here and we’ll get such and such out of it.’ ”


School boards statewide have approved abatements worth at least $1.9 billion through the program, according to the comptroller’s office. Although the districts are not paying for the abatements themselves, budget experts point out that the reimbursements come from the state’s general fund, which like most state treasuries is running low.


In Texas, tax revenues for schools took a direct hit when Mr. Perry created a commission in 2005 to evaluate the state’s tax system. The State Supreme Court was questioning districts’ property tax rates and warned of a school shutdown if legislators did not intervene. The tax rates had been criticized for years by businesses and residents, but some districts countered that they could not afford to cut them without additional state financing.


Mr. Perry turned to John Sharp, a Democrat and former comptroller, to lead the commission. At the time, Mr. Sharp worked for Ryan LLC. The commission called for districts to cut school property taxes by around one-third. To make up for some of the lost revenue, it recommended adding a business tax, as well as increasing some sales taxes.


“I did what I thought was the best for the state of Texas,” said Mr. Sharp, adding that his position at Ryan LLC did not affect his decisions. “We saved the state of Texas from complete collapse of the school system, and I’m very proud of that.” Mr. Sharp left Ryan last year to become the chancellor of Texas A&M University.


In 2006, the Legislature largely adopted the commission’s proposals and required the state to give districts billions of dollars to allow time for the business tax to make up the difference.


Some six years later, things have not worked out as planned.


The business tax has not yielded anywhere near what Mr. Sharp’s panel projected, and the state has cut its aid to the districts by $5.4 billion. A spokeswoman for Mr. Perry noted that one of the state’s cash incentive funds was also cut back.


Leslie Whitworth, who oversees the curriculum in Manor, said that the district was doing its best to make do with less, but that “it wears on people, the constant crisis, the constant increases in students and constant pressure on budgets.”


Among other things, the cuts have meant overcrowding across Texas: the number of classrooms over the state’s student limit nearly quadrupled last year.


Some companies recognize the trade-off. Daimler, the German maker of the Mercedes-Benz, accepts incentives in the United States but tries to avoid ones that come out of school budgets, said David Trebing, who manages the company’s relationship with local governments. “We want to make sure they have enough money for their schools,” Mr. Trebing said. “Our workers send their kids there.”


Even members of the Austin Technology Council, which includes Samsung, identified an educated work force as among their biggest concerns for the area, according to a recent survey.


Of the $231 million in incentives Samsung received, it donated $1 million back to Manor for a scholarship fund. The company also mentors district students.


Catherine Morse, Samsung Austin’s general counsel, said the abatements from the Manor school board were crucial because of the company’s expensive machinery. Samsung also received $10.8 million from Mr. Perry’s cash fund, but Ms. Morse said the money had not swung the decision. “It was more like it showed respect,” she said.


Ms. Morse noted that Samsung was still the county’s largest taxpayer and that locating the facility in Texas had been a tough sell inside the company. “It was very unpopular to take jobs out of South Korea,” she said.


Samsung said it had created 2,500 jobs on its payroll and 2,000 more for contract employees. Ms. Morse said that 495 of those on its payroll lived in the Manor school district. The company is currently seeking additional incentives for a $4 billion retooling of its facility, though it is not expected to add many jobs.


Amazon Plays Hardball

Tarik Carlton gathered with other workers in February 2011 to hear the bad news: Amazon was shutting its distribution center in Irving, where he loaded trucks for $12.75 an hour.

Business had been strong, but the online retailer did not want to pay a $269 million tax bill from the state comptroller. A standoff with the state ensued, and Amazon laid off the workers. “They didn’t have our interests in heart, truth be told,” Mr. Carlton said.


Amazon opened the distribution facility in 2005 in Irving, near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and local officials awarded the company tax breaks on its inventory.


Positions at the warehouse included product pickers, dock crews and truck loaders. The employees were typically on the young side, and some had served in the military. The warehouse churned through workers because many could not meet the quota of products they were supposed to move each day, according to Frankie Lloyd, who helped Amazon find temporary workers to fill many of the jobs.


“It’s all about what you can do physically,” Ms. Lloyd said. “Like manufacturing, but without the great pay.”


The distribution business grew as manufacturing moved overseas and online shopping boomed. It is big in the Dallas area because two main train lines run here from Long Beach, Calif., where goods arrive from Asia.


The work is highly physical. One Amazon worker wore a step counter that logged five miles during one shift, according to Mr.
Carlton, who only recently found a new job. He was among 12 former Amazon workers, including two warehouse managers, who agreed to be interviewed.


There was no air-conditioning in the warehouse, and Mr. Carlton and others said the temperature could reach 115 degrees. They said it was difficult to take breaks given the production quotas.
The pay was typically $11 to $15 an hour, Ms. Lloyd said. Amazon gave out small shares of stock and some bonuses, but the amounts were minimal, she said.

Amazon said it had been working to upgrade its warehouses, which it calls fulfillment centers. The company has installed air-conditioning in all its centers over the past year, said Dave Clark, the vice president for global customer fulfillment.


Mr. Clark said workers always received breaks, and sometimes free ice cream when the facilities did not have air-conditioning. He said the quotas were akin to “expectations that go along with every job, mine included.”


“I really do think these jobs get a bad rap,” Mr. Clark said. “They’re great jobs. They’re safe jobs.”

Mr. Carlton said he had no idea the company was being partly subsidized. “If you give them money, I think more should be expected,” he said, adding that Amazon should have been required to hire more people to handle the heavy workload.


John Bonnot, the director of business recruitment for the Irving Chamber of Commerce, said the city did not impose wage or benefit requirements on companies that received incentives. Irving had required that Amazon create only 10 jobs to receive the tax break.


Mr. Bonnot said Amazon “would have nothing but praise” for the original assistance from the state and the city, which outsources its economic development to the local chamber.


Things began to slide downhill in late 2010 when the state comptroller, Ms. Combs, demanded that Amazon pay the $269 million sales tax bill. The retailer had never charged its Texas customers the tax, giving it an advantage over on-the-ground competitors.


The company hired three powerful advocates with ties to the governor, according to state lobbyist disclosure records. One, Luis Saenz, had been the director of Mr. Perry’s political operation. Days after the warehouse closed, Mr. Perry said he disagreed with the comptroller’s decision to demand the taxes.


As it was battling with the comptroller, Amazon began negotiating with the Legislature, which was debating whether online businesses should be required to charge sales tax. The company told lawmakers that it would create up to 6,000 jobs in exchange for delaying sales tax collections, similar to a compromise it had struck in states like South Carolina and Tennessee.


The lawmaker with the most power in the decision was John Otto, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives. Like all Texas legislators, Mr. Otto’s government job is part time. He also works at Ryan LLC — a job that is not disclosed on his legislative Web site.


Mr. Otto drafted legislation that said online retailers like Amazon would not have to charge sales tax as long as it did not have distribution facilities in Texas. By then, the company had already shut the Irving warehouse.


Mr. Otto and Mr. Saenz declined to comment about the legislation. Amazon would not comment on its negotiations with Texas.

In July, Amazon began collecting sales tax from customers in Texas after the comptroller agreed to release the company from most of its $269 million bill. The company has also promised to open new distribution facilities and hire 2,500 workers. Amazon will owe the state a $1 million penalty if it fails to deliver.

The math on the new deal angers former Amazon workers, especially those who are still unemployed. For Texas to give up more than $250 million in tax revenues in exchange for 2,500 jobs amounts to about $100,000 per job. Most distribution workers are paid $20,000 to $30,000 a year. The rest benefits the company’s bottom line, which generally increases executive bonuses and shareholder returns.


King White, a consultant who helps Amazon choose locations, would not comment on the online retailer but said that companies in general had come to view incentives as entitlements. “Everybody thinks they deserve something,” Mr. White said. “ ‘If I’m creating jobs, what’s in it for me?’ ”


The deal on the sales tax did not require Amazon to reopen the Irving facility. That touched off the latest state competition to win over Amazon.


Last month, the city of Schertz beat out neighboring San Antonio for one of Amazon’s warehouses. The company is currently in negotiations with Coppell, outside of Dallas, about an additional center. Like Schertz, Coppell has offered Amazon a deal to keep a part of the sales tax it collects there, among other incentives.


If Amazon accepts, it will be located near Irving and many of its former workers. Sharon Sylvas, 47, had moved from Kansas seven years ago to help Amazon set up the Irving facility. She lives nearby in a one-bedroom apartment with her partner, daughter and two grandchildren.


After Amazon closed, she was out of a job for over a year. With limited options, Ms. Sylvas took a temporary position in October at another company’s distribution center. It is a tougher job than the one at Amazon, and it pays less. For $11 an hour, Ms. Sylvas moves heavy inventory and other items.


She said that if Amazon returned to the area, she would work there again, despite the rigors of warehouse jobs. “It’s real miserable,” Ms. Sylvas said. “But you do it to make a living.”


Both Player and Referee

For the past few months, a commission created by the Texas Legislature has been taking a broad look at the state’s economic development efforts. It will report back in January with recommendations. Four members of the commission are specifically focused on evaluating the state’s cash grants and the school tax abatement programs. This means that companies in Texas have a lot at stake in the panel’s work.

So does at least one of the commissioners: G. Brint Ryan.


He was appointed to the commission by the state’s lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, who has received more than $150,000 in campaign donations from Mr. Ryan.


At a meeting in mid-September, the panel invited business representatives to testify. Among them was Ms. Morse, the general counsel at Samsung Austin, who urged the commission to continue the school property tax program that benefits her company in the Manor district.


During Ms. Morse’s testimony, it went unmentioned that Samsung is a Ryan client. Ryan LLC had helped the company gain designation as an enterprise zone in 2010, enabling it to receive sales tax refunds from the state on many of its purchases, according to documents obtained by The Times under a public records request.


Mr. Ryan said the commission had never asked him whom he represents.


No representatives from Texas schools spoke at the hearing. But Mr. Ryan said in an interview that school financing and poverty could best be addressed by emphasizing economic activity. He noted his own humble beginnings. “Frankly, I never got one single government handout,” he said.


Over the years, of course, Mr. Ryan has profited by helping many companies obtain checks from the government. In at least one instance, he was more eager to get the money than his client was.


The client, a computer chip maker called Advanced Micro Devices, had hired Mr. Ryan’s firm to review its books. But when the firm found what it believed would be a way to save more than $30 million in taxes, the chip maker decided it was not worth pursuing. Ryan LLC responded by suing its client, saying AMD owed it to the firm to seek the money. Ryan LLC would have received a cut of the savings.


AMD declined to comment on the case, which was settled last year. But in a deposition contained in the court filings, a representative of the chip maker described numerous e-mails and phone calls by Mr. Ryan, who was trying to persuade the company to file for the refunds.


“It’s continuing evidence that they’ve placed their interest above our own and continued to press this issue,” the representative said. The company said Ryan LLC’s behavior “bordered on harassment.”


At one point, Mr. Ryan wrote to the chip maker’s chief financial officer. “At stake is tens of millions of dollars in tax recovery and future tax savings on an issue I have WON for other fabs in Texas,” he said, referring to fabrication facilities.


The company’s choice not to seek the tax break, Mr. Ryan said in a deposition, was an “irrational and unreasonable decision.”


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Old 12-16-2012, 10:59 AM   #57
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Somehow the above is supposed to convince me that more government is better. From the nytimes no less.

Maybe we should be more worried about big gulps.
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Old 01-17-2013, 04:14 PM   #58
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Originally Posted by dude1394 View Post
Interesting interview. With California and the liberal management just about bankrupt, the story of how a couple of states have not succumbed to liberal economic policies will be compelling.
And you know, before Texas, Mexico taught us how to do it by pumping all the oil out as fast as possible and deplete long term wells to push the economy up in the short term. Another thing that really helps Texas is having cheap labor, another lesson learned from Mexico!

The governor should offer subsidized wages for a couple years to lure auto companies in and let them know they can hire hard working Americans for eight to nine bucks an hour instead of $50 like they have to pay up north. Let's show America how it's done!
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Old 02-13-2013, 12:19 PM   #59
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City journal is a delight. Texas kicking ass and taking names.
http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_1_texas-growth.html

"The Texas Growth Machine
The data show that the Lone Star State’s prosperity is no mirage.
The American economy has had little to cheer about since the 2008 financial meltdown and the resulting recession. Recovery has been feeble, and many states continue to struggle. One bright spot in the general gloom, however, is Texas, which began shining long before 2008. Not only has Texas created jobs at a stunning rate; it has also—pace critics like the New York Times’s Paul Krugman—created lots of good jobs. Indeed, the rest of the nation could turn to the Lone Star State as a model for dynamic growth, as a close look at employment data shows.

The first thing to point out is that Texan job creation has far outpaced the national average. The number of jobs in Texas has grown by a truly impressive 31.5 percent since 1995, compared with just 12 percent nationwide, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data (see Figure One). Texas has also lapped California, an important economic rival and the only state with a larger population. The Texas employment situation after the financial crisis was far less spectacular, of course, with the number of jobs growing just 2.4 percent from 2009 through 2011. But that was still six times the anemic 0.4 percent growth rate of the overall American economy."

Cool...hadn't thought about this, investment in Houston shipping capability?

"All these considerations suggest that Texas is poised for further growth. And a final reason for Texans to be optimistic is that a major expansion of the Panama Canal will be completed in 2014. That could bolster the Lone Star State’s success by rerouting Asian commerce from West Coast ports to Texas alternatives, which are closer to the nation’s major markets.
"
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Old 02-18-2013, 05:30 PM   #60
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Like a good neighbor, State Farm is no longer going to be there.
http://www.dallasnews.com/business/c...ea-offices.ece

"A major business relocation is underway to North Texas, but you probably haven’t heard.
It’s one of the biggest stories in the Dallas-area real estate market and will ultimately involve thousands of workers.
No one at State Farm Insurance is talking about exactly who’s going into the more than 1 million square feet of office space they have rented during the last six months in North Texas.
The company also has leased another 1.5 million square feet of offices in new buildings recently announced for construction in Richardson’s Telecom Corridor.
Just that 1.5 million-square-foot office complex can house as many as 5,000 employees.
So where are they coming from?
Again, State Farm is mum.
“We are continuing to make decisions on the number of employees that will occupy this facility and do not have final numbers at this time,” a State Farm spokesman said when the company first started renting office space last August. “Exactly when this new facility will be open is yet to be determined.”
And when State Farm rented two more big buildings in Irving, the company only said “we are continuing to make decisions on the number of employees that will occupy these facilities and do not have final numbers at this time.”
Real estate agents who are working with State Farm employees moving to Dallas and property brokers who closely watch the deal say that hundreds of the insurance company’s workers from out of state will be shifted to the new Richardson and Irving operations this year.
The new North Texas facilities will become a super regional office for State Farm, which has almost 70,000 workers in total."
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Old 05-15-2013, 10:28 AM   #61
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Texas shows 'em how to do it in more ways than one. Like our school systems performing just as well without all of the NEA members to lower emissions. Amazing what can be accomplished when you don't let politicians do it for you.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.c...green-paragon/

"Yes, you’re reading that graph right. Texas—oil hungry, SUV-driving, fracking-friendly Texas—reduced its carbon emissions more than the usual green suspects of California, Germany, and Europe. The Energy Information Administration released a report yesterday full of emissions data for the fifty states over the first decade of this century. The state with the biggest absolute emissions reductions: Texas.

Not only are total and per capita emissions down deep in the heart of Texas, but its economy is producing more dollars per unit of carbon dioxide emitted (a metric known as the “carbon intensity” of the economy).


Despite the reductions, Texas still has higher carbon emissions than any other state. Greens are seizing on this fact as evidence that the Lone Star State is environmentally derelict, but focusing on the total emissions rather than the sharp downward trend misses the larger point: Texas is finding ways to become more carbon-efficient without gutting its energy industry.


We’ve written at length about the recent economic success story in Texas. More than any other state, Texas has proven that it can produce jobs, maintain budget surpluses, and grow GDP, all while reducing impact on the environment. Green Malthusians fret that economic growth and environmental sustainability cannot coexist. Texas is doing its best to prove them wrong."
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Old 05-23-2013, 12:46 PM   #62
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Interesting interview. With California and the liberal management just about bankrupt, the story of how a couple of states have not succumbed to liberal economic policies will be compelling.
Texas economics had little to do with your "team" talking points post-2008 crash.

1. Having an expanding supply of oil.
2. Growing govt. jobs.
3. Growing millitary presence created economic stability by adding 15,000 secure jobs and an influx of federal money.
4. Cheap land insulated Texas from the housing bubble.

So yeah, play politics for your team, but the reasons are clearly government spending and geological forces.
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Old 05-29-2013, 06:43 PM   #63
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Texas kicking it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...5927/#comments
"Texas is killing it.

It dominated the recession, crushed the recovery, and in a new analysis of jobs recovered since the downturn, its largest city stands apart as the most powerful job engine in the country -- by far.

The ten largest metros have recovered 98 percent of the jobs lost during the recession, on average. But Houston, the first major city to regain all the jobs lost in the downturn, has now added more than two jobs for every one it lost after the crash. That's incredible.



So, how come? There's the abundant land and famously favorable business climate (although let's not dwell on the actual climate). With its proximity to oil and Mexico, Houston is blessed by topography and geography. But the secret sauce of the city's success might be something else: history -- and an ability to learn from past mistakes.

The recession in Texas was relatively mild, partly thanks to mistakes learned by the region's real estate and energy industries, said Patrick Jankowski, an economist and vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. Texas "won" the recession not only because of the jobs it's created, but also because of the jobs it's hoarded -- particularly in energy."
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Old 05-29-2013, 07:39 PM   #64
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But the secret sauce of the city's success might be something else: history -- and an ability to learn from past mistakes.

The recession in Texas was relatively mild, partly thanks to mistakes learned by the region's real estate and energy industries, said Patrick Jankowski, an economist and vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. Texas "won" the recession not only because of the jobs it's created, but also because of the jobs it's hoarded -- particularly in energy."
I particularly like the part about the oil industry learning from the boom-bust cycle that is historically very common in the commodities industries. They had a tendency to create and destroy entire cities with the cycle as business chases ever higher yield, only to crush it themselves.

The real estate stuff, however, is not believable one bit (on the surface), as the national industry surrounding housing (i.e. builders and finance) both fed off the boom like kids at a candy buffet. As I understand, Texas government stopped the r.e. boom with banking limitations, so credit the government there.
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Old 04-28-2014, 11:51 AM   #65
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Welcome to Tejas. We like real industry around here.

http://www.latimes.com/business/auto...#axzz30CSytT5C


Toyota Motor Corp. plans to move large numbers of jobs from its sales and marketing headquarters in Torrance to suburban Dallas, according to a person familiar with the automaker's plans.
The move, creating a new North American headquarters, would put management of Toyota's U.S. business close to where it builds most cars for this market.
North American Chief Executive Jim Lentz is expected to brief employees Monday, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Toyota declined to detail its plans. About 5,300 people work at Toyota's Torrance complex. It is unclear how many workers will be asked to move to Texas. The move is expected to take several years.


http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-toyota -texas-20140428,0,2881400.story#ixzz30CTWasQG
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