So Texas Governor Rick Perry's main claim to fame, besides being a raging neo-Christian Levitican Fascist, Global Warming Denier, Seccessionist Tenther, and calling on the Death of the Fed Chair, Perry's prime qualification to replace President Obama is that he's shown himself to be a "Job Creator" in Texas with 40% of the jobs created in the US over the last 2-3 years.
From The Last Word, with Mellisa Harris-Perry Hosting.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Texas has managed to create more jobs than it lost during a bad economy. Texas has added a net 75,000 jobs since 2008. Where did those jobs come from? The private sector shed 40,000 jobs, but the Government? The Government added 115,000 jobs. PRESTO! Net Job Creation.
Federal Government jobs increased 7%. State Government jobs increased 8.4%.
So it's true, jobs were created in Texas. But...lower Taxes did not lead to Net job creation in Texas. Cutting Spending did not lead to Net Job Creation in Texas. Tort Reform? That did not lead to Net Job Creation in Texas. Less Regulation did not lead to Net Job Creation in Texas. What did lead to Net Job Creation?
Government Hiring.
To further illustrate Mellissa's point, Thinkprogress provided this chart.
47% of all government jobs added in the US between 2007 and 2010 were added in Texas. The chart shows that Texas employment wasn’t down much at all in these years, as the state lost only 53,000 jobs. But looming behind that number are large losses in the private sector (down 178,000) and large gains (up 125,000) in government jobs.
So the trend in Texas has been contrary to the national trend where most job loses have been to the public sector led largely by states such as Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Maybe if a few more states had used the same Keynesian Approach that Texas has using the support of Stimulus Funds many more of our states might be in better shape.
But then again, even that might be largely more of the Texas Mirage, Rick Perry really doesn't even deserve credit for it.
The Houston Chronicle has produce Ten reasons for growth of the Texas Economy, which include factors such as rising Oil Prices, stricter than average regulation of mortgage lending, Government Jobs, Growth in the Tech Industry, Military Spending and Drug Trafficking.
In fact, when looked at truly closely the "Texas Miracle" it doesn't show anything like what Perry claims. Texas actually ranks DEAD LAST in overall Job Creation.
In fact, “Texas has done worse than the rest of the country since the peak of national unemployment in October 2009.” The unemployment rate in Texas has been steadily increasing throughout the recession, and went from 7.7 to 8.2 percent while the state was supposedly creating 40 percent of all the new jobs in the U.S.
How is this possible, since Texas has created over 126,000 jobs since the depths of the recession in February 2009? The fact of the matter is that looking purely at job creation misses a key point, namely that Texas has also experienced incredibly rapid population and labor force growth (due to a series of factors, including that Texas weathered the housing bubble reasonably well due to strict mortgage lending regulations). When this is taken into account, Texas’ job creation looks decidedly less impressive:
All of the states around Texas have a lower unemployment rate, including Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico.
Further the majority of the private sector jobs in Texas have been minimum wage jobs without health care - causing Texas to lead in both these areas, the percentage of minimum wage jobs and the percentage of working people without healthcare.
What you're seeing in Texas is actually just an explosion of the Wealth Gap, because the Super-Rich in the Oil and Gas Industry and the Super Working Poor in the Service Industries. Kings and Serfs, with a vast vanishing middle-class gulf between them.
A Corporate Feudal America.
Vyan