Texas is no miracle, worst then Alabama actually...

Texas Turns Out to Be Not So Miraculous After All
—Kevin Drum on Thu. March 6, 2014 8:28 PM PDT
http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/03/texas-turns-out-be-not-so-miraculous-after-all
Over at the Washington Monthly, Phillip Longman rocks like it's 2012 and relitigates the question of whether Rick Perry's so-called Texas Miracle is fact or fiction. He concludes that it's mostly fiction, and he makes a good case. Not a bulletproof case, but a good one. What's more, to the extent that Texas really does have a strong economy, he says, it's largely due to fracking, immigration from across the border, and a high birth rate. It's not due to low taxes—at least, not for most Texans:

Oh yes, I know what you’ve heard. And it’s true, as the state’s boosters like to brag, that Texas does not have an income tax. But Texas has sales and property taxes that make its overall burden of taxation on low-wage families much heavier than the national average, while the state also taxes the middle class at rates as high or higher than in California....The top 1 percent in Texas have an effective tax rate of just 3.2 percent. That’s roughly two-fifths the rate that’s borne by the middle class, and just a quarter the rate paid by all those low-wage “takers” at the bottom 20 percent of the family income distribution. This Robin-Hood-in-reverse system gives Texas the fifth-most-regressive tax structure in the nation.

Middle- and lower-income Texans in effect make up for the taxes the rich don’t pay in Texas by making do with fewer government services, such as by accepting a K-12 public school system that ranks behind forty-one other states, including Alabama, in spending per student.

The chart below tells the tale (data here). Most Texans pay more in taxes than most Californians. But rich Texans pay a lot less. That's great for rich Texans, but not so much for everyone else. For the middle class, Texas isn't a low-tax/low-service state, and it's not a high-tax/high-service state either. It's the worst of all worlds: a high-tax/low-service state. Hee-yah!



Stories like these really illustrate what the GOP sees as a success. It furthers the idea on their War on The Wage Earner. It furthers the idea that they have no concept of country or helping their fellow citizen. It is embarrassing the state of Texas can't best Alabama in education.

 

Thanks for confirming that Texas is not the wipe-every-nose income redistributing socialist nirvana that libs dream of.

Texas does not punish the rich and middle class for their success so that clowns in Austin can support lazy Wendy Davis voters on public assistance.

 

Texas rich punish their wage earning employees with crappy education and high taxes.

 

The education is only as good as the lib public teachers allow it to be.

As for high taxes who says that the rich and middle class should work their butts off and pay all year taxes so that lazy Wendy Davis voters can lay around doing nothing and paying no taxes?

 

Why should the poor subsidize the rich?

 

The poor are not subsidizing the rich.

The lower government handouts you are complaining about go to the poor not the rich.

 

You missed my point, why should the wage earner pay higher tax rates then the owner.

 

"Regressive" is only important to those who think government should run on other people's money.

 

There is no income tax so you mean sales taxes and property taxes.

The tax rate is the same for everyone.

Now I'm sure you will come back and say the Wendy Davis voter pays a higher percentage of her welfare income for sales taxes than rich people do which is true.

But that goes back to the redistributionists mentality of he left.

Libs want the free social services and they want the rich to pay for them.

 

Texas Dominates The Best Cities For Good Jobs

Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a quick tour of California to remind business owners that life’s a whole lot easier in the Lone Star State. Perry’s California critics called him “Governor Oops” for his miscues during the presidential debates, and Gov. Jerry Brown dismissed the Texan’s recruiting drive as “not a burp,” and barely even a certain bodily release of gas.

Laugh away, Californians. But Perry is playing the stronger hand here. Texas trounced the rest of the country our latest survey of the Best Cities for Good Jobs, with five metropolitan areas in the Top Ten, including the four best cities to find jobs in the next few years.

(See Also: How We Picked The Best Cities For Jobs)

This year’s winner is Dallas, which shrugged off the Nov. 2011 bankruptcy of American Airlines parent AMR Corp. to rack up 2.1% job growth last year and is projected to continue adding jobs at a 2.8% rate through 2019 – more than 300,000 on top of the 2.1 million already in Dallas and its Plano and Irving suburbs.

“The explanation is we have an incredibly diversified economy,” said Bernard Weinstein, who’s been tracking the north Texas economy since 1975 and is associate director of Southern Methodist University‘s McGuire Energy Institute. “As the national economy improves, we’re getting better.”

To construct this list, Forbes gathered data from Moody’s Analytics on the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. We then ranked the cities according to recent and expected job growth, current unemployment rate, and current and expected per-capita income. We threw out cities with high unemployment rates or that are clearly rebounding from severe economic distress, such as Stockton, Calif., which came in first on 2012 job growth at 3.7% but still sports a 14% unemployment rate. We also gave increased weight to areas with high and growing per-capita incomes, to avoid steering people to cities that are adding lots of low-wage jobs. A description of the methodology is here.

The Moody’s data show that Texans didn’t suffer as much in the financial crisis, and they’re doing much better now. The Texas unemployment rate rose from below 5% in 2007 all the way to a little above 8% in 2010, but now it’s falling back down again to a current 6.2%. The U.S. unemployment rate peaked at 10% and is still stuck at about 8%, with states like California, Illinois and New York well above that.

“You’ve got these two economic powerhouses, Texas and California, and you have to ask why we are outperforming,” Weinstein said. “It’s a real testament to the diversity and strength of our economy, that through good times and bad we are outperforming the nation.”




(See Also: How We Picked The Best Cities For Jobs)

One explanation that is definitely false: Texas isn’t growing on the backs of underpaid, non-union workers. While Texas is a right-to-work state, many of the highest paying jobs in the Dallas area are with unionized defense manufacturers like Bell Helicopter and Lockheed Martin, which produces the F-35 Lightning II fighter at a mile-long plant in Fort Worth.

Asked about the state’s reputation for union-busting and low-wage jobs, Dallas Federal Reserve Economist Pia Orrenius said “we get a lot of that.”

“People say it’s all low-pay jobs, so I looked at employment growth by wage quartile,” she said. And guess what? Not only is the Dallas-area per-capita income of $39,548 comfortably above the national average of $37,000, but it’s growing fastest in the top half of wages above $16 an hour.

Dallas doesn’t have the booming energy industry of Houston – No. 2 on the list with expected 5-year job growth of 2.6% a year – but it has a prosperous and growing financial and professional-services sector. Bank of America has large back-office operations in the Dallas area and the city is home to large law and accounting firms as well as professionals who serve the energy industry. “Those are your extremely high paying jobs,” Orrenius said, paying an average of $28 an hour.

The relatively higher wages in Dallas are what pushed it to the top of the list, but for raw growth the Austin area wins at No. 2 in the nation with an expected 5-year annual growth rate of 3.9%. (No. 1 was Honolulu, which but for recent hiccups in its job market and lackluster projected income growth would be in the Top 10 overall). Austin is sucking in high-tech jobs from more expensive California and struggling to keep up with growth in demand for houses and roads.

“The hottest place to be in Texas is Austin,” said Orrenius. “They’re just booming.”

The fastest-growing city for good jobs outside of Texas was another tech capital, Seattle, which is expected to add 136,000 jobs over the next five years. Others include Oklahoma City, prospering on the shale-fracking boom in oil and gas, and Denver, which is adding jobs in construction, professional services and mining.

(See Also: How We Picked The Best Cities For Jobs)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/02/25/texas-dominates-the-best-cities-for-good-jobs/

 

That's all liberal baloney! I have friends who have moved here to Texas from California and LOVE it; couldn't wait to get out of that state. They can come here and purchase a house for $250,000 that would sell for $1 MILLION in California. They are always amazed at what they can buy here in the way of a home.

As far as the schools go....YES, we ARE educating children from other nations here in our state. We are providing them a free education because the federal gov't refuses to do what by law it's supposed to do: protect our borders. Here we have 3 or more families sharing a small rental home....and we are forced to provide a free public education to all the kids living there. That's one reason real estate taxes for those who actually own homes is as high as it is: to make up for what the rest are NOT paying to support the public schools. But that's okay....if they are going to live here, I would like for them to be educated. Most Mexicans here in Texas....illegal or not.....or very hard-working people. They value education and want their kids to succeed. Most are very religious. Most are conservative in many areas. From what I know, Democrats are going to be rather saddened to find that unlike the black community, Hispanics are NOT going to vote as a group.

You quote the "spending per student." But as we all know by now....that does NOT equate to good educations. Our country has been pouring more and more money into our public school systems for decades and decades........and we've not gotten a good return on that money. Why? Because liberals protect the status quo; they protect the teacher unions and the lousy teachers who are kept on simply because they are members of a union. And when the "poor" get a good deal like Charter schools in which they succeed and which are far superior schools.....what happens? Leaders like Barack Obama take them away from them.......as did with that group in Washington D. C. almost as soon as he got into office. Shameful.....and even though the students and their parents wrote letters begging him NOT to take them away from the school in which they were excelling. Liberals expect NOTHING....ZERO....in return for the public money that goes into the public school systems. Although the federal gov't wants control over them......their record is terrible in the area of education. The schools that do very well are the schools with a lot of parental involvement....working to make them better. The federal gov't sure as heck has NO record that says they can or will...

 

Libs rate each state by how many government handouts are given away.

Naturally the lib who started this thread would not be pleased with Texas.

 

Don't forget....Wendy Davis' story of being poor was pretty much a lie. And when it DID get to the point she needed money to pay for her college education and someone to take care of her two daughters.....she got a "Sugar Daddy," that was willing to do so. And on the very day he paid off her school loans.....she filed for divorce from him. What a winner that gal is!

 

Davis was never poor but many Wendy Davis voters are poor and looking for government handouts.

 

This is all I can say about this "article".
[video=youtube_share;5hfYJsQAhl0]http://youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0[/video]

 

JP,
Charter schools in Texas are part of the public education system. And most charter schools deal with the students who have emotional or social issues that large public schools cannot deal with. Additionally, most charter schools in texas are in the urban and suburban areas. And some of the best public schools are either in rural and suburban environments.

And all tha shows is there is a good return on the money. However, because public schools are in a "Robin Hood" distribution system, smaller public school districts And because of that plan, public school funding is more evenly distributed than it was before. Before, public school districts like Edgewood did not have the resources or the funding to pay for the cost of a kid's education. In those days, under Texas law, each school district was responsible for their funding and responsible for the cost of the education. If the school district did not have a broad enough tax base, then it was stuck in funding while the costs kept increasing. Now, with the Robin Hood plan, school funding is more evenly distributed and the public school districts like Edgewood can compoete with school districts like Judson, Plano, and so forth.

That being said, Hispanic males in Texas do have a higher drop out rate than other male counterparts. The reason for this is a conservative value called Mi Familia, or simply called family. Hispanics are traditionally conservative socially, but not on foreign affairs, financial matters, or on government. And that was the mistake NeoCons made when we invaded Iraq. Most Hispanics in Texas did not approve nor want that invasion. But that is hindsight now.

 

The OP is pure propaganda and conjecture.

 

Best response I have ever seen. I hope you don't mind me using it when I see such stupid threads as this one the author put up.

 

my view of texas is something like a police state

 

2013 Texas ranked 12 while AL was 42 in spite of Al spending more money per student.

Texas's Dallas Independent School District contains 35 high schools. The district contains 11 schools that received gold, silver or bronze medals in U.S. News's Best High Schools rankings.

The School for the Talented and Gifted in the Dallas Independent School District retained its distinction as the best public high school in the country.

Maybe AL needs to spend more money per student like DC does.

 

Help yourself, it's hard to resist using it everyday on this forum everyday.

 

Why should the rich subsidize the "poor"? Let them eat cake.

 

Perhaps you should visit so you can elevate those misconceptions.

 

But the Robin Hood....taking from one district and giving to another.....hasn't worked that well. In fact, that is why there is a need for Charter Schools and why they are so popular and parents have their children on waiting lists to get in. Charter Schools also have some autonomy in what they can do. I've never heard the charge that they are mostly for "kids with emotional or social" issues. I'd like to see your PROOF of that charge.

Charter schools offer quality, non-traditional public education options. As I said they have some amount of autonomy....even though they are still required to adhere to the state requirements.

Charter schools receive state funds based on the average daily attendance of students (same as traditional public schools); however, they do not receive funds from local tax revenue and the majority, including Texas charters, do not receive state facilities funding. A recent independent analysis of revenue differences between charter school districts and independent school districts reveals a persistent funding gap exists. An average charter school in Texas receives an estimated $1500 less per student than independent school districts when examining general funds.

AND YET....they are popular and there is a waiting list. So money doesn't always equate to success.

Public charter schools were authorized by the Texas Legislature in 1995 to provide more choice and options in public education. Texas has a state cap of 215 open-enrollment charters with multiple campuses per charter. Open enrollment charters serve approximately 154,000 students on approximately 460 campuses across the state. In the State of Texas, charter schools operate under and receive academic accountability ratings from the Texas Education Agency. Both charter and traditional public school students in Texas take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) tests.

Enrollment in Texas charter schools continues to increase as more families want options. This year, there are more than 101,000 students on waiting lists. Seats per charter are limited by their charter agreement with the state, and where there is more interest than space, admission is frequently allocated by lottery-based admissions."

There's a reason they are popular; they are successful, making progress with kids that the regular public school system could not do for some reason. It's about choices......something the regular public school system doesn't often provide.....


https://www.txcharterschools.org/parents-supporters/what-is-a-charter-school.php

 

It isn't right that any school go without enough funding. It isn't right that rich neighborhoods get the better schools than the poorer ones. All funding should be divided equally among schools. Parents should have the right to send their kids to a charter school if they wish. The money provided for that child should be the same for a public school. If the charter school charges more, it would be up to the parent to come up with the extra.