Texas seems to me a model for the rest of the US. Strong economic growth with low taxation

[Pryderi]

all brought about by true bipartisanship and a fairly weak executive role. They're certainly in much better shape than CA or NY - both of whom seem headed for bailouts by the US-

My brother-in-law.

[shraby]

1. You better take another look at Texas.

[angstlessk]

2. well, if breathing is not a priority....go like Texas! n/t

[Manifestor_of_Light]

3. People stop by and bug me for work frequently.

Yard work, painting, anything. The cops don't even bother with arresting the crackheads.

Wallyworld killed the little towns here in Texas (and lots of other places) long ago.

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. ...

:silly:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. CA and NY are in bad shape for different reasons

California's initiative system makes it easy for voters (or well-funded millionaire cranks) to put unfunded mandates into law. They can propose expensive programs and get them put on the books without having to specify how they will be paid for. (Oregon has a similar problem.) However, it takes a 2/3 vote to raise taxes.

New York taxes financial (Wall Street) transactions enough to cover its budget deficit--and then (get this) it refunds the money. :facepalm:

[arbusto_baboso]

7. Yes. Prop 13 screwed Cali. And it's still being spun as something positive.

Most Californians, even Dems, would gladly hump the corpse of Reagan, too.

[Johonny]

48. +1

Lived in California and Texas. California is better place to be rich, in some ways Texas is a better place to be poor. At least we know the poor of California are much more likely to leave California to move to a place like Texas than the rich are. Without fixing its tax structure California will continue to be a tough place to balance a budget and a hard place to fairly tax the wealth generated in it.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Texasgal]

30. Ummm...who's "they"?

:eyes:

[WinkyDink]

8. Excuse me? The state of Bush?

[Skink]

9. It's a good place to live.

Houses are very affordable here.

[kimmerspixelated]

20. Thanks, I thought it was another HateTexas thread!

[cags]

10. Low taxation my ass. They get you one way or another, property taxes in TX are twice that of CA.

And toll roads! CA doesn't have toll roads.

And they reassess your home every year in TX so they can gouge you for more taxes if the value increases. Sometimes people are taxed right out of their homes.

In CA your taxes stay the same as when you bought the home and they only reassess when improvements are made.

Even with double the property taxes we are also required to buy a boatload of school supplies for our kids every year. In CA school supplies were provided by the schools.


When I moved to TX from CA I thought it was great that there was no state tax. But I pay more in property taxes here than I would pay for state tax in CA.


They get you one way or another.

[cags]

14. despite the lower tax lie, I do like it here, the cost of a home is less, and the schools are better

[Dappleganger]

17. Schools are better than what?

FL has a terrible school system in many areas but at least our textbooks don't teach crappy history and pretend 'science.'

[cags]

19. Than CA, my kids had to catch up when they got here. But I can afford a better school district here

[LanternWaste]

32. Specifically which textbooks are you referring to...?

Specifically which textbooks are you referring to...?

Or are you merely inferring the proposed legislation which tends to pop up every eight to ten years and dies its quiet death?

[movonne]

29. Yeah but the schools want to teach crazy stuff...and all them bible

thumpers would drive me crazy...I remember years ago driving though tx and seeing miles and miles of nothing but jack rabbits..and very hot...the best place I saw was kerrville tx and that was on the way out...

[cags]

37. I haven't had that experience with the schools so far, except for one time when

the local gideon group was handing out bibles to the kids on the sidewalks just off school grounds, but they weren't approved by the school, thats why they had to stay off school grounds.

In fact my 6th grade daughter is currently learning about some religious groups in her social studies class. They are learning about islam, christianity and judaism. Some students asked the teacher about what is true and she said that is for them and their families to decide.

And I've actually converted a thumper to some sanity.

My experience with the people here so far has not been what the stereotype suggests. Sure there are thumpers, but there are tons of normal people here too.

There is no graffiti(where I live anyway), and you don't have to drive two hours to find water.

I sold my home in CA for 100,000 more than I paid for the one here. My neighbor in CA had a bullet hole in her house and the kids were never allowed to go the park. Here I live in one of the safest cities in the state.


I am glad I moved

[Texasgal]

39. Oh!But doncha' know that all Texans

are racist, bible beatin'rednecks??

:)

[movonne]

42. Thank you ...nice reply..

[TBF]

54. Sales tax is over 8% -

I order everything I can online from out of state stores so I don't have to pay it.

[End Of The Road]

11. Noooo.

Don't know where he got the idea of "true bipartisanship." Perry, and especially Craddick, wiped that out.

Parts of the state are financially OK, other areas have been devastated, and overall there is a big deficit.

And education? OMG - need I comment?

BUT - the REALLY GOOD thing about Texas government is that the Legislature only meets for six months every two years. It is DAMN hard to pass legislation here. I can only imagine how crazy things would be otherwise.

Love the weather, though, and the Hill Country is gorgeous.

[FreeState]

12. Meg Whitman used the exact same line in her campaign! n/t

[BootinUp]

38. some people apparently bought it. nt

[sadbear]

13. We are facing a $20 billion budget deficit here in Texas

And it's ALL on Perry and the republicans. Democrats have absolutely no power here, so any mention of bipartisanship is simply untrue.

[onestepforward]

16. +1

[Gothmog]

15. $25 Billion deficit

Texas is looking at a @45 billion deficit due to gov goodhair. the next session will be brutal

[budkin]

18. Bullshit... I live here. The education system alone is about the worst in the country

Not to mention a host of other issues. And talk about corruption...

[seabeyond]

22. whereas my kids are getting a kick ass education in all public schools they have been in.

makes me wonder.

[End Of The Road]

23. Yep. And look out for Perry's Commission on Higher Ed.

He's going to try to ruin public universities, too.

[Horse with no Name]

25. I think it depends where you live

We live in a rural area. The district we live in is one of the worst in the state...so the state allows us to choose any other district that will accept transfer students.
The school we drive to is wonderful.
Good student:teacher ratios.
We still have PE, Art and Music.
My granddaughter learned sign language in Pre-k.
She briefly moved to another district in another part of Texas and outscored EVERY other kid on her standardized test.
We are very happy with the school. It is one of the things that keeps us here.

[cags]

28. This is true

[seabeyond]

21. pretty high property taxes that keep going up. low wages. high fed spending. yes

our unemployment is better than other areas. we havent been hit with the housing problem.

[FloriTexan]

33. Don't forget our insurance and electricity rates n/t

[seabeyond]

35. horrible. i dont know how they compare. but fuck the water bill too. nt

[FloriTexan]

46. Yea, THAT one too! How could I forgot that! n/t

[blm]

24. Bush and Texas cronies (Joe Allsbaugh) sent billions of our tax dollars to Texas during his terms.

They weaseled everything they could, especially through FEMA and so-called 'Homeland Security' projects. Funneled to their cronies, of course.

[regnaD kciN]

26. I think you left off...

:sarcasm:

[Naturyl]

27. And economic growth and low taxation are all that matter, right?

Your brother-in-law's definition of success excludes a whole world of failure. I'm guessing it doesn't matter to him.

[ProfessorGAC]

41. Even If It Were. . .

. . .the differences between Texas and 20 other states are statistically insignificant.

So, the economic growth and low taxes thing is mostly a canard.
GAC

[FloriTexan]

31. Please tell BIL to put a sock in it!

I guess he wants to see Perry run for President. Scary scary scary.

[taught_me_patience]

34. Mostly because the Federal government has been sucking the California teat

to the tune of $30B/year. Texas, on the other hand, gets back mostly what it pays in. Suck $30B out of the Texas economy every year and see how well the economy is.

[moondust]

36. "Strong economic growth" is not a policy or a model. n/t

[Arugula Latte]

40. Are you quoting your brother in law and disagreeing?

Because, come on ...

[MilesColtrane]

43. A "right to work" state with regressive taxation, few environmental laws that are...

weakly enforced, low teacher pay, highest number of students who don't graduate high school...?

I could go on and on.

[jmowreader]

44. Question for your brother-in-law

What kind of a depression would Texas be in if the oil industry didn't exist there? Those guys pay a LOT of taxes to the state.

[MilesColtrane]

65. It's not just the oil industry.

It's the coziness of big business and Texas government.

Texas has no state corporate income tax. That's why many huge companies are headquartered here.

ExxonMobil
ConocoPhillips
AT&T
Valero Energy
Dell
Sysco
American Airlines
Kimberly-Clark
J.C. Penney
Continental Airlines
Dr.Pepper/Snapple
FritoLay

etc..etc...

[rucky]

45. Sitting on a shit ton of oil sure helps. n/t

[Rex]

47. Ha ha! Ha ha ahhahahaaha ha ha ha!

GOOD ONE!

[UTUSN]

49. You took the BWAH-ha-HAH!1 right out of my mouth!1 n/t

[Cleita]

50. California is going to be just fine since we have

overwhelmingly elected Democrats all through the State this time and we kicked out the influence of the Texas oil companies right to the curb. I lived in Texas when Ann Richards was Governor. I don't think Texas has been in very good shape since then.

[readmoreoften]

51. Our wages are low. Things look better from the outside. /nt

[w8liftinglady]

52. `lol...pardon me while I toss my cookies...it is Soooo Bipartisan

i ran into a guy at my son's football game who had a Teamsters' jacket on.I hugged him in solidarity...he stated..we gotta have each other's backs.We screamed our guts out during the game.it was cathartic...walked to the lot together...having each other's backs.Welcome to Texas,y'all.

[w8liftinglady]

53. btw-son's game was in Ennis...they lost..wahhh

[Lisa0825]

55. We are near last in almost every measure of social issues/services.

Are you CRAZY???

[BlueGirlRedState]

56. I've lived in California and Texas

In Silicon Valley -- no wide open spaces, all taken up by office parks and apartment complexes. The arts take a back seat to technology. I was a docent at the San Jose History Museum and it was desperate for funds -- no rich high tech companies or executives giving any money to it. In 1993, we spent $260,000 on a fixer-upper that had been a rental for 20 years. The school system in San Jose and the Bay Area kept having to drop art, music, band.

Grew up in Austin. Schools are good. My daughters went to a school recently where more than half the kids qualified for free lunches. But they got a good education with teachers that cared. Now in Waco, in the Midway School District, very good schools.

It sucks to be in such a red state but there are pockets of liberals even here.

BTW, those textbooks that everyone loves to hate. The people who make the books hate the state school board even more than you do. I used to work there - lots of diversity, lots of hard working, passionate people -- from the mail room to the executive editors. Quit hating on the people who make the books, they don't write the TEKS.

I'm sorry Bill White lost, apparently no one listened to all of the major newspapers who endorsed him. But I can't cry over Chet Edwards losing as much as I abhor Bill Flores.

[BlueGirlRedState]

57. I forgot to mention wages suck in Texas

Currently looking for a job after getting laid off. Wages are very low, it sucks to be starting over at 54.

[SocialistLez]

60. Wages suck everywhere in the U.S. except for Wall Street and being a doctor.

[PBass]

58. The budget crisis in Texas is actually worse than California's

according to what I am hearing. (Per capita I guess?)

[SocialistLez]

59. They're also home to the most uninsured kids...among other things. NT

[girl gone mad]

61. Texas is a good place to live, DESPITE our Republican leadership, not because of it.

Our state budget is not healthy. We've got a huge deficit.

More importantly, the operation of a state budget and the federal budget are completely different animals. States must tax to raise money. They have to keep a balanced budget. That isn't true at all of the federal government. In fact, if we ran a balanced budget at the federal level, our economy would shrink by massive amounts. Tell your brother that even Republican politicians understand this concept, since they never actually try to shrink the deficit when they take over congress and/or the WH. They just like to bitch about it while they're out of power, because it plays well with people like your brother who only think of economics in terms of the family finances or operating a small business, where balancing the check book is essential.

[PBass]

62. Either last or close to it, in education as well.

That's not anything to brag on, IMO.

[ibegurpard]

63. I lived in Texas for several years

It's a fucking shithole except for Austin

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

64. Texas is facing a $25 billion budget shorfall.

That doesn't sound like being in good shape to me.