Posts Tagged ‘Red State’

Red States Produce Jobs, Blue States Produce the Homeless

Friday, March 28th, 2014

Will Franklin has a detailed piece up correlating homelessness with Democratic Party rule.

“It turns out that when it comes to mitigating homelessness, the blue state model is just as deeply flawed as the failed blue state model for job creation and economic growth.”

Substance abuse, broken families, or mental illness– tragedies all– often drive people to homelessness, but long-term unemployment and a general lack of economic vitality play a critical role in pushing people out of their homes (and keeping them out). Indeed, when it comes to reducing homelessness caused by economic hardship, we can chalk up another win for Texas and the red state model.

Snip.

California, with just under 12% of the nation’s population, has 22.43% of the nation’s homeless population, giving it a homelessness quotient of 0.88. Quite high, in other words. Almost double the number of homeless people one would predict, given its population.

Texas, which has roughly 8.2% of the nation’s population, only has 4.85% of the nation’s homeless population (meaning: Texas has a quite low homelessness quotient of -0.41).

Read the whole thing.

Texas Vs. California: Thanksgiving Week Edition

Monday, November 19th, 2012

Another quick update on the respective fates of our nation’s two biggest states:

  • In case you didn’t notice, California Democrats now have a super-majority in the legislature, which means they can raise taxes to their heart’s content. That should only heighten the difference between California’s Blue State model and Texas’ Red State model.
  • California spends far more money on its welfare state that Texas, but has greater income inequality.
  • The election California voters helped accelerate the state’s economic decline.
  • America is becoming California…and California is becoming Greece.
  • The California city of Atwater backs away from bankruptcy after winning concessions from unions.
  • Texas added 36,600 total nonfarm jobs in October, dropping unemployment down to 6.6%.
  • Texas vs. California Roundup: October 2, 2012

    Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

    Time for another Texas vs. California roundup. First up: The man who moved from one to the other:

  • Chuck DeVore examines the differences between California and Texas. Scariest takeaway? “With one-eighth of the nation’s population, California has one-third of America’s welfare recipients.”
  • A review of the book Crazifornia. Pay special attention to the California bridge tester who couldn’t test bridges because he was up on child sex crime charges.
  • More on how California has underestimated their debt obligations. By an order of magnitude.
  • City College of San Francisco is perilously close to bankruptcy, in part because it employs nearly twice as many faculty as similar colleges and pays them better – yet educates no more students on average, says a new financial analysis of the state’s largest public school. The college got into trouble because, unlike other colleges, it failed to make the budget cuts necessary to keep up with reductions in state funding, never set aside money for its growing retirement obligations, and ‘has provided salary increases and generous benefits with no discernible means to pay for them.'” So it’s like the State of California in miniature. Bonus: Its current budge assumes the passage of Proposition 30.
  • And speaking of propositions, Prop 37, requiring the labeling of genetically modified food, will be a windfall for trial lawyers.
  • Atwater is the latest California town having layoffs and considering bankruptcy.
  • The city manager of Stockton explains why the city had to declare bankruptcy. It’s filled with special pleading for vested union interests: “Nor can we leave the CalPERS state pension system. CalPERS should be reformed, but if Stockton didn’t offer an industry-standard pension plan, we simply would not be able to staff an already challenged police department. It is unrealistic for creditors to posit that Stockton reject existing pension obligations.” Attention anyone thinking of buying California bonds: When it comes to paying you or paying union cronies, you’re going to get the short end of the stick, no matter what the law says.
  • What other California cities could declare bankruptcy? How about San Diego and Los Angeles?
  • More signs the Texas economy is outpacing the rest of the nation.
  • Texas bonds are outperforming the rest of the nation.
  • Texas adds more construction jobs than any other state.
  • Texas cuts crime more than the rest of the nation.
  • (Hat tip: Willisms, City Journal, others.)

    Texas vs. California: First Day of Fall Edition

    Friday, September 21st, 2012

    Time for another Texas vs. California round-up of how the Lone Star State is kicking the not-so-Golden State’s ass in just about every measure except signing NBA free-agents.

  • You know how bad California’s debt was? Well, it’s worse than that. A lot worse. Try “at least $167 billion and as much as $335 billion.”
  • California may see more bankruptcies. (Gee, ya think?) And Jerry Brown’s desperate hunt for money is pushing more cities that way.
  • Texas continues to outperform the rest of the nation in export growth.
  • Is Democrat-run California broke because it’s corrupt? “The governor and Democratic leaders are no more serious about reforming pensions than they are about shuttering state parks. The goal they are serious about is raising taxes.”
  • Bankrupt San Bernandino eliminates almost 100 jobs.
  • You know how some claimed California beat Texas in job growth? Yeah, not so much.
  • How bad has it gotten? Minor league hockey team has “Our City Isn’t Bankrupt Night” to taunt rival Stockton.
  • Texas’ tort reforms worked, doubling the number of Texas doctors between 2000 and 2005.
  • Texas vs. California: Dog Days of August Edition

    Monday, August 27th, 2012

    It’s late August, and California’s slide toward insolvency continues apace.

  • How badly underwater is CalPERS? Try $884 billion.
  • Speaking of California unions, here’s how they’re trying to block reform.
  • California’s recovery is much slower than the already slow pace of the rest of the nation.
  • Things have gotten so bad that Moody’s is rexamining the outlook on all California cities.
  • What California should learn from Wisconsin.
  • CalTrans spends $22.5 million on unneeded home repairs, with a hefty side-helping of graft. (Hat tip: Dwight)
  • So what happened to all those Solyndra glass tubes? Can you say modern art?
  • Texas snags it’s lowest bond interest rate ever at 0.225%. That makes sense. Broke ass California getting a 0.43% rating doesn’t.
  • Texas has five of the ten fastest growing counties (including Williamson).
  • California’s “urban forest” offset scam.
  • Texas Vs. California: August 16, 2012

    Thursday, August 16th, 2012

    Looks like California has done such a good dog of screwing the pooch that I may have to start doing these roundups weekly:

  • Although bankrupt, California is about to add another outrageous benefit to its already bloated pension plan.
  • The Road Warrior‘s future as California’s present.
  • Creditor demands that Stockton reduce it’s outrageous pension plans.
  • In deed, CalPERs and state and local governments have combined to screw both taxpayers and bond-holders.
  • Hermosa Beach meter maids make make nearly $100,000 a year.
  • Could Fresno be the next California city to declare bankruptcy?
  • That is, unless the next California city to declare bankruptcy is Los Angeles.
  • Texas vs. California: Summer of Bankruptcy Edition

    Friday, August 10th, 2012

    Time for another look at how Texas’ Red State model stacks up against California’s Blue State model, with a roundup of relevant news from the past few weeks.

  • Here’s a roundup of California’s dysfunction. Lots of tasty tidbits, including this gem: “California has both the highest state deficit in the country and the highest personal income tax.”
  • The Summer California Went Bankrupt.
  • California was counting their Facebook chickens before they hatched.
  • How California’s green energy delusions are impoverishing the entire state.
  • How California drove XCOR to Texas.
  • George Will on California’s high speed rail insanity. “At one point, an estimate of 44 million riders a year—subsequently revised downward, substantially—assumed gasoline costing $40 a gallon.”
  • California can’t even keep run it’s own prisons.
  • Texas tax revenues are up 10%.
  • Texas is going through a craft brewing boom.
  • While commuter rail isn’t cost effective in California, the Long Beach-to-Los Anegles Blue Line is good for one thing: killing people. (Hat Tip: Dwight.)
  • And while California schools are in crises to pay their bloated pensions, Beaumont’s school district actually instituted a tax cut and gave teacher’s a pay raise.
  • Austin Just Passed San Francisco (or California vs. Texas: Round 55)

    Thursday, June 28th, 2012

    Today brings news that Austin just surpassed San Francisco in population to become the 13th largest city in the country. In fact, Texas had six of the top seven fastest growing cities over the past 14 months: Round Rock, Austin, Plano, McKinney, Frisco, and Denton placed 2-7, topped only by a post-Katrina New Orleans. And at only 7,000-odd residents behind Jacksonville and Indianapolis, expect Austin to be the 11th largest city in the country the next time this list is updated.

    And that news gives me a great excuse to to another roundup of Texas vs. California!

  • “Texas has been doing very well. If you draw a triangle whose points are Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, enclosing Austin, you’ve just drawn a map of the economic and jobs engine of North America.”
  • “California may be dreaming, but Texas is working. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from 2000 to 2010, California lost a net of 519,600 jobs while Texas gained 1,093,600 jobs.” Lots of additional statistics here make the case for the measurable superiority of Texas’ Red State model over California’s Blue State model.
  • And they brought their incomes and assets with them. And there are plenty of reasons to move to Texas:

    Lest you think this is some kind of fluke, or that taxes are not the determining factor in this “escape from NY and California,” it isn’t just Texas that is gaining all these fleeing residents. The U.S. Census reported that all of the top 15 states for population growth during the past decade are no tax or low tax states like Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Utah, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. It seems Americans are smarter than politicians give them credit for- they are voting with their feet for lower taxes, pro business attitude, and more economic freedom.

    Because no state in the union has a better economy, let’s look “up close and personal” at the Texas miracle. Texas practices what I proudly call “Wild West Cowboy Capitalism.” And it works!

    Texas has zero state income tax, zero capital gains taxes, and zero death taxes. It is a “right to work” state where employees may choose to join a union, but are never forced to. It is pro business and anti-lawyer (discouraging class action lawsuits and the first state to pass a “Loser Pays” law). Texas is also tight-fisted with welfare and entitlement benefits- unlike New York and California. The result of this limited government attitude is people with high incomes, assets, and ambition are moving into Texas, while those who lack work ethic, and feel entitled to handouts are moving out. Good riddance.

    But the most important attribute of Texas is that its constitution limits the time that politicians can meet. The Texas Legislature is limited to meeting only 4 months every other year. That pretty much explains everything. Texas and my state of Nevada have no state income taxes and the fastest growing populations in America…not in spite of, but because the politicians aren’t allowed to sit in their seats all year long thinking of new ways to re-distribute income, impede business, and destroy jobs.

  • How red tape strangles job creation in California.
  • Tort reform has resulted in a 44% increase in the number of doctor’s in Texas since 2003, or twice the population increase.
  • Texas factory orders up in May.
  • California’s pension crisis continues to fester, and Democrats appear to be unwilling to grapple with the issue. (And here’s more on the pension bomb from Walter Russell Mead.)
  • Gary Farmer, head of the Austin Economic Development Corp. tells California audience exactly how Austin lures business from their state. “The key reason for the state’s success in luring business from other locations is a better political and regulatory climate, he added. Texas has a corporate tax of 1 percent on adjusted gross receipts, while California’s is 8.84 percent of income. Texas has no personal income tax while California’s is 9.3 percent.”
  • Finally, speaking of California transplants, In-and-Out Burger is headed to Round Rock.
  • “Red State” Turns Out To Be “Red Ink State”

    Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

    I have no particular sentiment for, or against, Kevin Smith. Dogma was good, but I thought Clerks was mediocre and overrated. His video rants can be intermittently amusing, but he hasn’t made a movie I was remotely interested in seeing in over a decade. When I became aware sometime last year that he was making a film called Red State, about those sinister, inbred redneck freaks of Jesusland, it was just another example of liberal Hollywood bias I wasn’t going to see.

    So today I’m browsing the new Amazon Blu-Ray releases when I see it listed there.

    Wait, you mean they’ve already released it? I wasn’t even aware it had even hit theaters.

    Evidently, neither was anyone else. It brought in just barely over $1 million at the box office. Given that it cost $4 million to make, and the rule of thumb is that a film must gross three times production costs to turn a profit, it’s likely that Red State probably lost the studio somewhere in the neighborhood of $11 million.

    In this, it joins a long line of money-losing, America-bashing films coming out of Hollywood. It turns out that those sinister, gun-toting, bible-thumping residents of Jesusland just happen to be the people who pay to see movies in theaters, and there evidently aren’t enough liberal urban hipsters in the world to make anti-American films profitable (unless you disguise them as science fiction and throw in hot blue chics).

    Think Hollywood will take note and stop greenlighting them? I doubt it. But one can always hope.