WILLisms.com

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 614 -- Energy Industry Under Fire.

Anti-Energy-

Democrats are rampaging through Congress and working their hardest to ruin America's oil and gas industry.

WASHINGTON, June 9, 2009 - U.S. oil and natural gas production would drop significantly if Congress passes legislation to place additional federal regulations on the use of a widely used well-completion technique known as hydraulic fracturing, according to a new study. Jobs could be lost, government revenues would fall and the U.S. would be less energy secure.
If Congress were to place additional federal regulations on top of the state and local regulations that govern the oil and gas industry practice of hydraulic fracturing,the number of new U.S. wells drilled would plummet 20.5 percent over a five-year period, IHS Global Insight’s study, “Measuring the Economics and Energy Impacts of Proposals to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing,” found. Lower development activity would potentially reduce natural gas production by about 10 percent from 2008 levels by 2014, and leave the United States more reliant on imported sources of natural gas and oil.

“Hydraulic fracturing is a safe, proven, 50-year-old technology that is critical to developing the natural gas used to heat homes, generate electricity, and create basic materials for fertilizers and plastics,” said API President Jack Gerard. “More than one million wells have been completed using this technology. Unnecessary regulation of this practice would only hurt the nation’s energy security and threaten our economy.”

Additional restrictions on use of types of hydraulic fracturing fluids would cause an even more dramatic decrease in production of both natural gas and of oil, the report found. By 2014, gas production could fall 4.4 Tcf or 22 percent, while oil production could slip 400,000 barrels per day or 8 percent.

Elimination of the use of hydraulic fracturing would be catastrophic to the development of American natural gas and oil, with a 79 percent drop in well completions, resulting in a 45 percent reduction in natural gas production and a 17 percent reduction in oil production by 2014, the study found.

The intentions are typically good, but not always. A lot of this is not even just environmentalism. It's spiteful, punitive anti-oil/gas-ism.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Democrats Are Super Liberal & Everyone Knows It.

Posted by Will Franklin · 2 July 2009 08:57 AM · Comments (1) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 613 -- Democrats Are Way Too Liberal.

Left-Wing Overreach-

Americans view Democrats as entirely too liberal:

The worm has turned. Or is turning. The shine is coming off of Obama. Republicans are not exactly surging yet, but people are done with the Democrats.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Carbon Dioxide.

Posted by Will Franklin · 1 July 2009 04:09 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 612 -- Human Activity & Greenhouse Gases.

Waxman-Markey Is Bad Policy-

Today's Trivia Tidbit is a blatant rip-off of a post made a couple months back:

Crazy.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Cap & Trade & Construction.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 June 2009 06:37 PM · Comments (3) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 611 -- Cap & Trade Would Kill Construction Jobs.

Waxman-Markey Is Bad Policy-

Cap and trade would harm our economy in a big way. It is a ginormous tax:

Why was this even on the agenda? And how in the world did this ever pass the House? We need to move this country back toward fiscal sanity. We also need our Republicans to stand up and speak out on this issue. Offering no comment-- or, worse, voting with the Democrats-- just doesn't cut it.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Cap & Trade & The Chemical Industry.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 June 2009 03:19 PM · Comments (2) · TrackBack (2)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 610 -- Cap & Trade = Bad For Jobs.

Waxman-Markey Is Bad Policy-

Cap and trade may create a few "green jobs" over the next few years, but it will destroy a lot of other jobs. Especially over the long-run:

Cap and trade would be an incredibly huge tax on every person in the United States, and it would absolutely wreck many of our industries.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's Polling Implosion.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 June 2009 09:36 AM · Comments (1) · TrackBack (6)

Video response to the free fallin' video.

Earlier today, I posted this video about Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's free fallin' poll numbers:

This drew a video response based on a post I made here in February of 2005.

Thanks for the video response.

In February of 2005, my purely nuts-and-bolts political numbers analysis was entirely accurate. KBH was a juggernaut. Her poll numbers were off the charts. She was beloved by Texans. Note that my 2005 post was not an endorsement, just a bit of amateur punditry. Pretty good amateur punditry, I might add. I mean, look at those cheerleading photos. That's good stuff right there.

Since 2005, things have changed. KBH lost my trust for a variety of reasons (outlined in scattered posts on this blog), while Rick Perry earned it. There was a day in 2006, when I block-walked with Rick Perry and other Republican volunteers, when something just clicked: "this guy just gets it." Thinking back to my encounters over the years with Senator Hutchison, she always struck me as a very nice lady, but also very "overly-handled" and far from a true believer in the conservative movement.

Based on the polling trends in recent months (as seen in the "free fallin'" video), other Texas Republicans are now seeing the same thing I saw. KBH's polling implosion in 2009 is nothing short of spectacular. Her former air of inevitability is officially gone, and for good reason.

Thanks for taking an interest in what I had to say 4 years ago on my blog, though. I believe in the open exchange of ideas, so hopefully this interface will get people discussing even more just how incredibly far KBH has fallen in such a short period of time.

BTW, I tried to post a comment on your YouTube page, but it didn't show up for whatever reason.

Posted by Will Franklin · 25 June 2009 05:54 PM · Comments (1) · TrackBack (11)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 609 -- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's Free Fallin' Poll Numbers.

Texas Lyceum Poll-

Back in January, I signed on with Governor Rick Perry, because he just "gets it" on so many levels. Not only is Perry the clear conservative in the 2010 gubernatorial race in Texas, his likely opponent, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, has increasingly rubbed me the wrong way in recent years with her obscene earmarking, her incessant desire to be liked by the establishment left-wing media, and her penchant for big government programs (such as her prominent support for the expansion of CHIP from a safety net into a new middle class entitlement, her insistence on UI expansion, and-- of course-- her bailout votes).

When I signed on to help out Rick Perry's campaign, the few polls that were out there generally showed KBH far ahead, sometimes by as many as 20 or 25 points.

How accurate those polls were, I don't know. How accurate yesterday's Texas Lyceum poll showing Governor Perry up by 12 points is-- again-- I don't know. But there is a very clear trend over the past few months away from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison:

In public polls, KBH went from 25 points up, to 6 points up, to 4 points down, to 12 points down. Each month, it has just gotten worse for her. A visual of those margins:

Senator Hutchison is just plain out-of-touch with Texas. I think more people would be willing to accept her argument that it's her turn if: a) Texas weren't kicking so much tail right now compared to the rest of the country, and b) KBH weren't so squishy and hard to read on so many issues, including protecting life.

Poll numbers are not everything, though. If you're inclined to contribute some cash to help Governor Perry win in 2010, check out my personal Perry fundraising page.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Welfare States.

Posted by Will Franklin · 25 June 2009 10:28 AM · Comments (4) · TrackBack (7)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 608 -- Welfare States.

Texas Again Outperforming Nation-

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton triangulatorially signed GOP welfare reform and declared the "end of welfare as we know it."

Welfare as we know it may be back.

It is on the rise in most of the country:

Welfare rolls, which were slow to rise and actually fell in many states early in the recession, now are climbing across the country for the first time since President Bill Clinton signed legislation pledging "to end welfare as we know it" more than a decade ago.
Twenty-three of the 30 largest states, which account for more than 88% of the nation's total population, see welfare caseloads above year-ago levels, according to a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal and the National Conference of State Legislatures. As more people run out of unemployment compensation, many are turning to welfare as a stopgap.

The biggest increases are in states with some of the worst jobless rates. Oregon's count was up 27% in May from a year earlier; South Carolina's climbed 23% and California's 10% between March 2009 and March 2008. A few big states that had seen declining welfare caseloads just a few months ago now are seeing increases: New York is up 1.2%, Illinois 3% and Wisconsin 3.9%. Welfare rolls in a few big states, Michigan and New Jersey among them, still are declining.

But not in Texas:

Texas is not a welfare state.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Liberty Not Upheld By Liberalism.

Posted by Will Franklin · 24 June 2009 10:51 AM · Comments (1) · TrackBack (10)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 607 -- Freedom.

Liberal States Disrespect Liberty-

Liberalism, in the classical sense, includes a deep respect for liberty. Today, liberty is under fire from modern liberalism. As I noted in a blog post a few weeks ago, more liberal states are less free than more conservative states, based on the 2004 presidential vote:

Modern-day liberals who seek to portray Republican states as backward and oppressive have it all wrong. Note that this study is based on many criteria:

Libertarians should not vote for Democrats. Republican-leaning states have more liberty-- and not just economic liberty-- than Democrat-dominated states.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: The American People Aren't THAT In Love With Obama.

Posted by Will Franklin · 23 June 2009 10:06 AM · Comments (2) · TrackBack (7)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 606 -- Obama's Mythical Unprecedented Popularity.

Obama Not All That Special-

During the Bush administration, establishment media figures would justify their extremely biased coverage of the Bush administration by saying, "well, look at the polls, we're just reflecting the national mood."

With Obama, the press treatment alternates between rock star tabloid celeb and a sort of fawning infantile goo-gooing that you might get at age two from your favorite aunt. It goes from, "wow, he's so cool and hip! Tony Hawk skated through the White House!" to "oh, look, he took his first step! Aww!"

Personal likeability and popularity only go so far, when it turns out the President's policies are a bipolar back-and-forth that awkwardly transition from far left-wing philosophy to aimless in-over-their-heads incompetence-- and back again.

Polls are beginning to show serious cracks in the Obama is the greatest new thing since sliced bread narrative:

Voters are also remembering why they can't trust Democrats, and I think there are plenty of elected Republicans who have learned their lessons-- conservative voters (we're a big plurality) don't want RINOs and Democrat-lite "moderates," we want real conservatives.

The collective liberal establishment press still treats Obama like we're at that blue star, not the red star. When will their press coverage begin reflecting the national mood? Americans may think Obama's personal story is a neat tale that could only happen in this country, but buyer's remorse has also begun spread in a big way. We don't want higher taxes-- they are already too high as it is. We don't want socialized health care. We don't want cap and trade. We don't want unions running our country. We don't want the kind of bad ideas that have ruined California, Michigan, and Rhode Island to be forced on relatively successful places like Texas.

Just leave us alone on the policy side and stick to your Tony Hawk tweeting sessions and your Us Weekly photo shoots.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Some Cities Are Doing Better Than Others.

Posted by Will Franklin · 22 June 2009 08:57 AM · Comments (1) · TrackBack (15)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 605 -- Economic Performance In Cities.

No Surprise, Texas Cities Top The List-

Brookings released a study this week showing that although the global recession affects all of us, not all cities are facing the recession alike:

Note that Texas cities are all among the top group. There seems to be a correlation between ideology and relative success or failure. The best cities are not in deep blue territory, they are in places where taxes are lower, regulation is not as onerous, trial lawyers are not running amok, unions are not in charge, and government is relatively limited.

Why are we taking those policies from California and the upper-midwest and forcing them on places that held out with positive growth the longest? It is the definition of insanity.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Charitable Giving.

Posted by Will Franklin · 18 June 2009 10:47 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (9)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 604 -- Charitable Giving.

Small Contribution Levels From Obama & Biden Reflective Of Left-Wing Ideology-

A neat graph, courtesy of The Patriot Room:

Nobody should feel guilty for not contributing to charitable entities, but it is interesting and discordant that liberals are so interested in compelling people to give up more of their income with the force of law, while generally not taking part in much voluntary giving.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Cap & Trade.

Posted by Will Franklin · 17 June 2009 08:57 AM · Comments (1) · TrackBack (22)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 603 -- Business Climates.

Texas #1-

Some interesting numbers on which states have the best business climates right now:

What puts Texas first? It has a pro-business tax climate that ranks third, a low cost of living, a relatively solid economy, and a litigation environment that ranks 10th on our list. Texas also ranks first in the number of Fortune 500 companies located there. We used the Fortune rankings as one measure of attractiveness to large companies and an indication of strong infrastructure.

I don't necessarily agree with 100% of the methodology, and if I were creating a matrix with lots of measurements of business opportunity, I might include several more items, but it is still instructive and interesting. My hunch is that Texas would be in the top 5 in just about any credible measure of economic opportunity and success right now. That wasn't always the case, and Texas' prowess has accelerated notably over the past several years.

Only a left-wing partisan hack or a RINO Senator desperate to run down the state of the state in order to become Governor would say otherwise.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Cap & Trade.

Posted by Will Franklin · 16 June 2009 08:18 PM · Comments (3) · TrackBack (23)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 602 -- Cap & Trade & Inflation.

Cap & Trade Harms Agriculture, Not Just "Industry"-

Cap and trade is not just about sticking it to "big oil" or people with sprawling mansions, it will impact every facet of our lives. It will fuel inflation, and harm economic growth.

Food prices will also go through the roof with cap and trade:

• The cost of producing everything from wheat to beef will increase. Indeed, the price deflator for private farm inventories goes up over 20 points by 2035. This increase gets quickly translated into much higher food prices for consumers at the grocery stores.

Cap and trade should really be called "quota and tax." It is a big step toward more government control of our lives and more government intervention in the economy.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Congress Ruining America.

Posted by Will Franklin · 15 June 2009 05:10 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (7)

FLASHBACK: 4 years ago, Iran's sham election in Houston.

In June of 2005, Iran held elections that swept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into power. A little-known part of that election was the polling places Iran had open in the United States. Yes, the United States.

I took video of what I witnessed, but it was pre-YouTube. Yes, just 4 years ago was pre-YouTube. Crazy, right? At the time, I posted a few stills and a transcript of the video I took, along with some of my thoughts about Iran's sham election in Houston, Texas.

The United States classified in 2005 and still classifies Iran as a terrorist state. Having official agents of a terrorist state conducting an official Iranian election on Texas soil still just boggles my mind. This was not a free or fair election by any means, either. It was a clearly rigged and bogus election designed to legitimize Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Over the past four years, I have thought about that day several times, and I just sincerely hope that one of America's intelligence agencies was not as clueless as all the other folks I talked to that day.

Now, as Iranians protest Ahmadinejad's apparent sham of a reelection, I can't stop thinking about my encounter four years ago.

History will one day be very unkind to Iran's mullahcracy, as well as all of those who helped legitimize it for so long.

Posted by Will Franklin · 13 June 2009 09:50 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (9)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 601 -- Congress' Very Existence Imperils Prosperity.

Congress Out Of America!-

Congress is antithetical to liberty. It is antithetical to prosperity. When Congress is in session and meddling in our economy, markets are down bigtime. When Congress is not in session, markets aren't exactly tearing it up, but they are close to break-even:

When Congress is in session, watch your back.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Unions Versus Productivity.

Posted by Will Franklin · 5 June 2009 09:17 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 600 -- Unions Versus Productivity.

Unions Ruin America-

Productivity goes up as unions wane:

There are many reasons for the surge in productivity since World War II, including a better-educated population, more worker training and soaring investment in new technologies. But one reason often goes unremarked: The long-term decline in union membership — with its productivity-killing rules and above-market wages — which appears strongly linked to the powerful upward surge in worker productivity.

Unions end up hurting companies:

The National Bureau of Economic Research studied unionized public companies between 1961 and 1999, focusing on stock performance 24 months before their union votes to 24 months after.
It found the average loss per company was $40,500 in 1998 dollars for each worker eligible to vote. Equity values fall, the study concludes, for two reasons: (1) "A combination of a transfer to workers," and (2) "lost profit due to inefficiencies caused by the union."

The losses aren't limited to firms with organized workers. Research indicates a doubling of unionization in the U.S. would "lead to a 4.3% decrease in the equity value of all firms at risk of unionization."

Big labor is bad for America.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Global Warming Tax.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 May 2009 03:44 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 599 -- The Democrats' Global Warming Tax.

Waxman-Markey Is Terrible-

Does the possibility of mitigating climate change by a fraction of a degree over many decades warrant these costs:

The result is government-set caps on energy use that damage the economy and hobble growth--the very growth that supports investment and innovation. Analysis of the economic impact of Waxman-Markey projects that by 2035 the bill will:
* Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,
* Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,
* Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,
* Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,
* Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,
* Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500, and
* Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

This would be the biggest tax increase in the history of the world.

The good news is that public support for cap-and-trade and similar climate change measures has collapsed. The bad news is that we have very few gears with which to stop the left-wingers now running the show from doing terrible, lasting damage to America.

Maybe after 2010 we'll have some checks and balances on this radical agenda. Until then, hold on for dear life.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas 5th Freest State In America.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 May 2009 11:17 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 598 -- Freedom in the 50 States.

More Democratic, Less Freedom-

Small-L libertarians should not be Democrats.

Far too often, I hear from young Americans that they aren't totally thrilled with the Democrats, especially on taxes and spending. They also don't really like some of the hyphenated interest-group politics that dominate the Democratic Party. However, how could they possibly vote for Republicans? That's just crazy, because the Republicans are far too stuck in the 1950s and want to take away basic rights and freedoms to advance their socially conservative agenda.

My response is almost always to ask people what freedoms they lost under President Bush. Only some of the time, the answer is, "the Patriot Act." Notwithstanding that almost every Democrat in Congress voted for the Patriot Act, the few people who name the Patriot Act can't name a single thing that the Patriot Act did to allegedly take away their freedom.

My next response is typically to ask what other freedoms they lost under Bush. Few can ever name anything, and when they do, it's something silly like "stem cell research" (which was never even banned under Bush-- in fact, he was the first President to fund it with federal dollars).

Finally, I generally make the point that economic freedom leads to economic success, which leads to personal freedom, not the other way around. While many Republicans became enamored with earmarks and balked at entitlement reform, the Republican Party is still the best avenue for limited government, free markets, and smaller tax bills. The Republican Party is also the best avenue for the advancement of freedom of speech, respect for the 2nd amendment, respect for religion, respect for parental rights, and protection of private property rights.

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University recently released a study on personal and economic freedom in states confirming all of this; it turns out there is a correlation between less freedom and a higher percentage of Democratic vote (link):

Looking at some of the other graphs in the study, many states with low economic freedom also have low personal freedom. Meanwhile, a lot of states with high economic freedom also have high personal freedom. This could get into a chicken/egg argument, but when you look at the top states for each type of freedom, including personal freedom, most of them are pre-Obama red states, while most of the worst states for freedom are deep blue states.

Texas, for example, ranks #4 in fiscal freedom, #27 in regulatory freedom, #7 in economic freedom, and #5 in personal freedom. Overall, Texas is #5 in freedom (.pdf):

Meanwhile, "progressive" states like Vermont, which people assume is very free due to their pro-2nd amendment laws and gay marriages, score poorly. Vermont is #47 on fiscal matters, #39 on regulatory matters, #45 on economic issues, and #11 on personal freedom. Texans have more personal liberty than residents of Vermont. Think about that. And think about the fact that Vermont is #40 overall. Then look at a big, liberal state like New Jersey (.pdf):

New Jersey is ranked #49 overall. It's near the bottom of each type of freedom. It is instructive that New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and California make up the bottom four states for overall freedom, and those states also just happen to have some of the highest out-migration rates in the nation. People are moving to where they can be free, and it all starts with economic freedom.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Successful San Antonio.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 May 2009 11:56 AM · Comments (2)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 597 -- San Antonio Success.

Growth-

The Dallas Fed has some interesting facts about San Antonio:

Not so coincidentally, a major company recently announced it is picking up and moving 1400 jobs and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment to San Antonio. <---- Click the link and see a quick video from a key player at the company, explaining their reasons for picking San Antonio and Texas in particular out of hundreds of cities around the country.

California really ought to be the place where a lot of these companies want to locate. It has lots of well-educated people. Its weather is just really fantastic. It has so much going for it.

Unfortunately, it pursued left-wing policies for far too long and is just really a fiscal nightmare that many companies want no part of. Limited government works. California won't work until the unions disintegrate and the freedom-loving creative class realizes that Democrats are far from the party of liberty maximization.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Corporate Taxes Are Too High.

Posted by Will Franklin · 22 May 2009 09:26 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 596 -- American Corporate Taxes Way Too High.

Corporate Taxes Dragging Down American Competitiveness-

The Tax Foundation has the details:

OECD countries such as Ireland, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Switzerland have enjoyed an influx of foreign capital and investment not because they are "tax havens" but because they have dramatically lower corporate tax rates than the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan. Until these high-tax countries lower their corporate tax rates, they will continue to lose ground—investment and jobs—to lower tax competitors.

Why is this such a hard thing for so many people to grasp?

We are failing to reach our potential as a nation because we are hostile to productive, successful people and enterprises. Our taxes are too high.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Pork Taints GOP Brand.

Posted by Will Franklin · 21 May 2009 04:29 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 595 -- Earmarks Undermined Trust, Ruined Republican Brand.

Pork Was The Problem, Politically-

The Republican Party is looking for answers right now. In 2006, Democrats just really stuck it to Republicans in Congressional elections. In 2008, Obama really just walloped us again. These things are cyclical. The President's party usually loses seats in midterm elections, as a rule, so 2006 was nothing too out of the ordinary. In 2008, Obama won places like North Carolina and Indiana. That is just unacceptable.

The Republican brand was tarnished by a lot of things, including Mark Foley's non-sex sex scandal (which dominated media coverage in the final month of the 2006 cycle) and the idea that the GOP was a corrupt party in bed with lobbyists and special interests. I think fatigue over the Iraq war probably played a role, as well, but when I am at events with a lot of Republicans, listening to what they care about, almost uniformly they express that they are angry their Republican Party spent like drunken sailors and let budget deficits get out of control. They hate the spending. They hate the pork barrel projects.

Pork, while only a relatively small piece of an enormous spending problem, is the symbolic embodiment of wasteful spending. When people think of out-of-control deficits, they don't conceptualize that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the big three auto-pilot programs inflating the budget deficit the very most. They think of bridges to nowhere and other pork projects:

Pork is back up under Democrats, and lots of unprincipled RINOs are joining them at the slop trough.

Republicans won't take back Congress until our Party stands for something. We can't be lite-Democrats. That doesn't mean that we can't reach out to moderates, but we can't pander to moderates so much that we dilute what we stand for.

Oink.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Kudos To Rick Perry On UI Rejection.

Posted by Will Franklin · 20 May 2009 04:22 PM · Comments (3)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 594 -- Texas' Unemployment Insurance Tax Rate.

Texas' Advantage Over Other States-

Earlier this year, Texas' Governor Rick Perry rejected part of the federal stimulus dollars designed to expand the Unemployment Insurance program, which means a rejection of more than 500 million dollars in federal dollars over the next few years but also a rejection of between 75-80 million dollars annually that Texas would be on the hook for forever.

Most, if not all, Democrats criticized Governor Perry for his decision, while some unprincipled big-government Republicans (like Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison) joined the chorus.

While some view it as a Scarlet Letter of shame, Texas has a relatively limited UI program and a lower UI tax rate than the national average:

Meanwhile, Texans who lose their jobs are still covered. They still receive unemployment benefits, just not the expansive benefits many big-government states offer. Meanwhile, Texas has been the nation's engine of job creation in recent years.

Not entirely a coincidence.

Job-seekers are leaving their home states and heading to Texas in droves in search of opportunity, not unemployment benefits.

Art Laffer and Stephen Moore add:

One last point: States aren't simply competing with each other. As Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently told us, "Our state is competing with Germany, France, Japan and China for business. We'd better have a pro-growth tax system or those American jobs will be out-sourced." Gov. Perry and Texas have the jobs and prosperity model exactly right. Texas created more new jobs in 2008 than all other 49 states combined. And Texas is the only state other than Georgia and North Dakota that is cutting taxes this year.
The Texas economic model makes a whole lot more sense than the New Jersey model, and we hope the politicians in California, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota and New York realize this before it's too late.

I was recently conversing with a 30-year-old female Obama supporter, who couldn't quite warm to the fact that Texas is doing the right things. She kept saying that Texas is ranked so low in "education," so low in "health care," so low in x, y, and z. What do those terms even mean? Typically, spending or spending per capita. I think that's what she meant. Spending. Or maybe spending per capita.

When a state prioritizes chasing social services rankings over growth and free enterprise, it paves its way to its own demise. California is a perfect example of what happens when a state prioritizes moving up the rankings on indexes of state spending toward various big government programs above all else. The reckoning always comes. It has come to California.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: The Media Heart Obama.

Posted by Will Franklin · 19 May 2009 09:09 AM · Comments (3)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 593 -- Media Are Obama's Best Campaigners.

News Coverage Slanted Strongly For Obama-

Obama had the best media coverage in maybe the history of presidential campaigns. It makes sense, then, that he also has received very positive coverage in the media during the first 100 days of his administration:

Following passage of the stimulus in mid-February, the three evening newscasts ran 19 such one-sided stories touting its benefits — and promoting the liberal presumption that such government spending can promote a healthier U.S. economy. Instead of challenging the premise of Obama’s big government approach, the networks deployed their resources in a campaign to validate it.

Then there's the environmental coverage:

It is not surprising or anything, but having data is never a bad thing.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Illegitimacy In America.

Posted by Will Franklin · 18 May 2009 09:55 AM · Comments (2)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 592 -- Illegitimacy Rates.

Diverging Out-Of-Wedlock Birthrates By Class-

More than 40% of all births in America are now out of wedlock, and a much higher proportion than ever before are white women, but there are big differences between and among classes:

It comes down to this: well-educated white women in moderately affluent circumstances almost never had babies without a husband, and women from middle class homes were almost as finicky about requiring a husband. At the same time, white women with no more than a high school education in low-income households were having nearly half of their babies without a husband.

Beaver Cleaver is still in many ways correlated with success, and vice versa, despite the image on TV and in movies of successful white women having children out of wedlock.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Entitlement Bubble.

Posted by Will Franklin · 15 May 2009 12:32 PM · Comments (2)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 591 -- Entitlement Bubble.

And You Thought Bailouts Were Bad-

The various bailouts we've seen in recent months are pretty outrageous and unacceptable. Lots and lots of money, much of which is being flushed right down the drain. Lots of money going into corrupt hands. Lots of money being taken out of the private sector. Lots of money being printed and lots of debt being passed on to future generations.

Well, if you thought bailouts were bad, take a look at some perspective on the entitlement bubble headed our way:

The unfunded liability in Social Security and Medicare are 61 times greater than the TARP bailout. Over the longer term, without a serious and thoughtful fix, Medicare is going to be the disaster that ruins American free enterprise. In the shorter term, though, Social Security is the biggest issue and even more pressing than Medicare. Indeed, Chuck Blahous notes:

In a nutshell, the story is this: Social Security's finances are significantly weaker than foreseen even just a year ago. Last year, the Trustees projected that the program would enter permanent cash deficits in 2017. This year, that date has been moved forward slightly, to 2016. Not since the 1983 reforms has the program been so close to operating deficits. The projected Social Security insolvency date (of legal significance but less meaningful as a measure of the program's economic impact) has advanced by four years, from 2041 to 2037.
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Remember all of those advocacy pieces saying that there was no entitlements problem, no Social Security problem, but only a health care problem? Guess what: Social Security costs are rising this year by more ($57 billion) than all of the components of Medicare combined ($43 billion.) Medicare certainly has the greater long-term shortfall, but in the near-term, Social Security's cost growth is just as great an issue as Medicare's.

The total effect of the worsened Social Security outlook is to severely constrain the choices facing policymakers as well as the time during which they need to be made. If we act soon, we can fix program finances, without cutting benefits for those in retirement, without imposing real declines in future benefit levels, and even without raising taxes. But the window for avoiding these tough choices will close in just a few more years.

It's a bubble. And it will burst in the not-so-long term without legitimate and substantial reform in the very-short term.

So many times in recent decades, when a bubble bursts, people say, "nobody saw it coming."

Well, we see this coming. It's pretty clear what's happening. We know how to fix it. It's only dogma and demagoguery, pure and simple, that is keeping us from doing what we need to do to save our fiscal ship from hitting the giant, obvious, slow-moving iceberg we're about to crash into-- and then act dumb and say, "nobody saw it coming."

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Posted by Will Franklin · 14 May 2009 05:34 PM · Comments (0)