Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 864 -- States With Income Taxes Have More Budget Crises Than States Without Income Taxes.

Income Taxes Not The Answer-

I keep promoting this Texanomics blog, and I've had people ask if it's me doing it. It's not, but so far so good:

Go check out the Texanomics blog to see a larger version (just click the graph). The green line is Texas. The orange line is other states without a state personal income tax. The blue line is the United States, and the red line is states with personal income taxes.

I've written about this plenty in the past. States without income taxes perform better economically than states with income taxes.

One of the arguments in favor of income taxes is that they help smooth things out and prevent budget crises when the economy turns downward. This is simply incorrect. States with income taxes have plenty of budget woes. Indeed, states with personal income taxes have more budget crises than states without personal income taxes. Far from smoothing things out and providing a "third leg of the stool" of stable revenue, states with income taxes have more volatility in their revenue collection than states without income taxes:

Just say no to an income tax in Texas.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama's Dropping Popularity.

Posted by Will Franklin · 2 September 2010 01:01 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 863 -- How Badly Will Obama Hurt Democrats In 2010?

Obama's Down-

Rasmussen:

The number of voters who Strongly Disapprove of the president’s performance held steady at 43% in August. At the same time, the number who Strongly Approve inched up a point to 27%.

Those figures generate a full month Presidential Approval Index rating of -16, a slight improvement from last month. From December 2009 to March 2010, the president’s approval index bounced back-and-forth between -14 and -15. In April, the index jumped four points to -11, the highest level of optimism measured since October 2009. That number, however, has steadily declined in the following months.

It's bad, but it has sort of stabilized.

How much will Obama's unpopularity harm the chances of Democrats in November?

How much will Democrats turn on Obama after the devastation?

Does Obama secretly want Democrats to fail in 2010, so he will have a better chance to succeed when he is on the ballot again in 2012?

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama's Jobs Deficit.

Posted by Will Franklin · 1 September 2010 02:19 PM · Comments (2) · TrackBack (1)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 862 -- Obama's Jobs Deficit.

Stimulus Has Failed-

The stimulus has failed:

Time for America to cut its losses on this disastrous regime.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: The Emerging Pension Crisis.

Posted by Will Franklin · 31 August 2010 06:07 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (1)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 861 -- The Emerging Pension Crisis.

Defined-Benefit Retirement Plans Unsustainable-

One day, some of us will be saying "we told you so." Pensions, just like federal entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are just not solvent. They overpromise, and one day, the reckoning will be very, very ugly:

Much bigger increases in employee costs are on the horizon. Thanks to huge unfunded pension and retirement health-care promises granted by past governments, and also to deceptive pension-fund accounting that understated liabilities and overstated future investment returns, California is now saddled with $550 billion of retirement debt.

The cost of servicing that debt has grown at a rate of more than 15% annually over the last decade. This year, retirement benefits—more than $6 billion—will exceed what the state is spending on higher education. Next year, retirement costs will rise another 15%. In fact, they are destined to grow so much faster than state revenues that they threaten to suck up the money for every other program in the state budget.

Nearly every governmental entity faces something similar, from local school districts and governments up through the federal government. It's not pretty.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Has America's Recovery Blueprint.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 August 2010 05:37 PM · Comments (1) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 860 -- Texas, Germany, America, And Economic Experiments.

Which Model Works Best?-

A WILLisms.com reader Neville, from Oregon, writes in with a link to this David Brooks column which evaluates the divergent German and American responses to the economic/financial crisis:

According to Gary Becker of the University of Chicago, the Americans borrowed an amount equal to 6 percent of G.D.P. in an attempt to stimulate growth. The Germans spent about 1.5 percent of G.D.P. on their stimulus.

This divergence created a natural experiment. Who was right?

The early returns suggest the Germans were. The American stimulus package was supposed to create a “summer of recovery,” according to Obama administration officials. Job growth was supposed to be surging at up to 500,000 a month. Instead, the U.S. economy is scuffling along.

The German economy, on the other hand, is growing at a sizzling (and obviously unsustainable) 9 percent annual rate. Unemployment in Germany has come down to pre-crisis levels.

Neville also echoes the point Glenn Reynolds made this morning, which is that this is a "surprising indictment of everything the Obama administration has done since Inauguration Day."

As Professor Reynolds would say, "indeed."

In his email, Neville also brought up the point that Texas is in many ways America's "Germany" in this divergent set of examples.

Texas rejected huge portions of the federal stimulus-- the hundreds of millions of unemployment insurance dollars with strings attached. Texas has received the second lowest number of stimulus dollars per capita. Texas has one of the freest economies in the country, with one of the lowest debt loads per capita in the entire nation. Texas necessarily limits government by virtue of the legislature meeting for only 140 days every two years. Texas has relatively low taxes, keeps state government spending growth basically in line with population and inflation growth, and Texas has enacted among the most sweeping tort reform packages in the nation.

The result is that Texas' foreclosure rate is far below the national average and its bankruptcy rate is near the bottom. Texas has added far more jobs than all other states combined over the past few years, and income growth in Texas is far ahead of all other states.

Indeed, individual Texas cities (Austin, for example) have outpaced every other state in private-sector job growth over the past few years:

That green bar is the Austin metro area. The other bars are Utah, Delaware, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Nebraska, and Montana.

You could do the same graph for Houston and Dallas, and San Antonio would rank second if it were its own state.

Texas, just like Germany, is not completely out of the woods yet. Nor are Texas or Germany without their own shortfalls. Texas' economy was as turbulent as any in the 1980s, with bank booms and busts, oil booms and busts, and real estate booms and busts. While Brooks notes that "Germans have recently reduced labor market regulation, increased wage flexibility and taken strong measures to balance budgets," some serious long term structural issues remain in that country, in terms of over-promising on pensions and entitlements.

Still, the recent relative success of Texas and Germany, compared to the backsliding United States economic picture, offers strong evidence that Keynesian stimulus is a failed policy prescription, and market forces can best provide the kind of economic growth that political leaders covet.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Republicans Lead On Every Single Issue.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 August 2010 03:02 PM · Comments (5) · TrackBack (1)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 859 -- Republicans Lead On Every Single Issue.

Top Issue = Jobs, Jobs, Jobs-

New numbers from Rasmussen:

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on all 10 of the important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports.

The GOP has consistently been trusted on most issues for months now, but in July they held the lead on only nine of the key issues.

Republicans lead Democrats 47% to 39% on the economy, which remains the most important issue to voters. Those numbers are nearly identical to those found in June. Republicans have held the advantage on the economy since May of last year.

But for the first time in months, Republicans now hold a slight edge on the issues of government ethics and corruption, 40% to 38%. Voters have been mostly undecided for the past several months on which party to trust more on this issue, but Democrats have held small leads since February. Still, more than one-in-five voters (22%) are still not sure which party to trust more on ethics issues.

Government ethics and corruption have been second only to the economy in terms of importance to voters over the past year.

It is imperative that Democrats be sent a profound message this November that Americans will not tolerate the breathtakingly abuse of power and accelerated expansion of government we have seen over the past couple of years.

Americans voted Republicans out because they got too big government on us all. Then Democrats went and did the big government thing strung out on meth. Obama likes analogies about car keys and driving off cliffs-- and D and R standing for drive and reverse.

When Republicans turned the keys over to Democrats in late 2006, unemployment was 4.5%, GDP growth was robust, federal budget deficits were on track to become surpluses, and things were cranking along just fine, economically. It is Democrats who created market uncertainty. It is top-down Democrat housing micromanagement that created the foreclosure crisis. It is Democrats who canceled pending free trade agreements which were expanding markets for American goods and services and providing higher quality products to American consumers and lower prices. It is Democrats who twisted the throttle on the insolvency of entitlement programs like Social Security. It is Democrats who drove this country off a cliff, economically.

It certainly will not be Democrats to get us out of this mess.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Only State Among Largest Twenty To Gain Jobs Since 2006.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 August 2010 01:16 PM · Comments (91)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 858 -- Texas Only State Among Largest Twenty To Gain Jobs Since 2006.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs-

Compared to 2006, nearly every state in America has fewer jobs. Texas is one of the few (and the only large state) that has added jobs over that time:

Why is it that Texas has been more resilient in the face of the economic challenges our nation faces?

Could be the economic freedom.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Economic Freedom, And Why It Matters.

Posted by Will Franklin · 25 August 2010 11:49 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (1)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 857 -- Texas Among Best In Economic Freedom.

Again, Texas Among The Very Best-

The Fraser Institute released new rankings of economic freedom for all 50 state in the U.S., as well as provinces in Canada, and Texas is again among the best:

Reinforcing the notion that economic freedom leads to greater prosperity, this year's report shows that Delaware, Texas, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Utah, Louisiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Tennessee—the top 10 most economically free states—had an average per-capita GDP of $40,183 in 2007, compared to $37,397 for the 40 lowest-ranked states.

Among states with the lowest levels of economic freedom, Michigan, Hawaii, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, New Mexico, Montana, Maine, Mississippi, and West Virginia had an average per-capita GDP of $32,170 in 2007, compared to $39,791 for the rest of the US.

Indeed, American states generally are freer than Canadian provinces, but there are a couple of exceptions:

Economic freedom is a good value on its own, but it also has serious social implications that liberals, conservatives, and everyone else should agree on. Over time, freer states produce more jobs, more prosperity, and higher standards of living:

Higher standards of living ultimately mean longer, healthier lives, and if you're one of those who glorifies the state, it ultimately means more tax revenue.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Income Growth.

Posted by Will Franklin · 24 August 2010 12:08 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 856 -- Income Growth.

Again, Texas The Very Best-

In his stump speeches and television ads, liberal trial lawyer turned career politician Bill White has now essentially acknowledged that Texas is the best state for economic and job growth in the country, but he has turned his attacks on our state toward the erroneous notion that the jobs being created aren't good enough.

The facts, from Texanomics (one of my favorite new blogs), don't lie:

It's kind of small and hard to read, but click on the graph for a bigger version over at Texanomics. That green bar is Texas private-sector wage growth from 2006-2009. Those blue bars are other states.

Another example of Texas domination.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Bankruptcy.

Read More »

Posted by Will Franklin · 23 August 2010 10:34 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 855 -- Bankruptcy Rates.

Again, Texas Among Best-

Bankruptcies are way up in the United States this year, at a 5-year high, but Texas ranks 48th:

Of the ten states with the largest populations, Texas has the lowest bankruptcy rate by far.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: WNBA.

Posted by Will Franklin · 20 August 2010 08:00 AM · Comments (4) · TrackBack (1)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 854 -- The WNBA.

Disproportionately High Coverage Relative To Actual Attendance-

The WNBA is subsidized and loses money:

...the NBA owns and subsidizes 6 of the 13 WNBA franchises, and the WNBA teams lose between $1.5 million and $2 million per year.

And yet, some argue that there is anti-female gender discrimination in terms of televised coverage of the WNBA. The numbers, however, speak for themselves.

The WNBA is the butt of so many late night talk show jokes for a reason. Meanwhile, there are women's sports very much worth watching, but they are still a bit niche for general audiences in mass media markets. Maybe icons of female-friendly mass media could throw a little love toward these sports.

Christina Hoff Sommers makes just this point:

The latest USC report is silent about the near-total absence of sports in women’s media. The limited coverage consists mainly of human-interest stories about women athletes. By the logic of the USC authors, shows such as “The View” and “Oprah” should be offering sports highlights and scrolling tickers with scores. Magazines such as Vogue, Allure, Cosmopolitan, and Better Homes and Gardens should be bursting with stories about draft picks, photographs of awesome plays, and up-to-date information about fantasy teams and brackets.

Indeed.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: The Ring Of Fire.

Posted by Will Franklin · 19 August 2010 09:44 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 853 -- The Ring Of Fire.

Wither American Exceptionalism?-

America could end up like Greece if we're not careful:

Sadly, "The Ring of Fire" chart is highly suggestive of lackluster economic growth performance in the industrialized countries in the years ahead. Since one has to expect that, over the course of the economic cycle, high budget deficit levels will be associated with higher interest rates as industrialized country governments compete with their private sectors for a limited pool of available financing. One would also expect that high public debt levels will undermine private sector confidence as both households and companies will come to fear the prospect of future distortive taxes to deal with compromised public finances.

America needs to get back to what got us to greatness in the first place. Limited government. Limited federal intervention in the economy. Limited federal intrusion into state and local matters. Limited taxation. Pro-growth, pro-commerce laws. Freedom.

The only way to truly "drain the swamp" of corruption, mitigate the influence of lobbyists, and clean up Washington is to shrink and limit government.

It's the only way for America to succeed into the next century.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama Versus Small Business.

Posted by Will Franklin · 18 August 2010 11:07 AM · Comments (2) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 852 -- Small Businesses Facing Major Tax Hikes Under Obama.

Tax Increases On The Way, Joy-

Small businesses are in for a world of hurt:

Thanks, Democrats.

Times are tough, but they are about to get a lot tougher, absent some kind of change of course:

America is suffering its largest drop since World War II. When the economy was at its Bush-era height, in 2007, a little over 63% of adult Americans had jobs. Friday's report shows that only about 58.4% do, a decline of nearly five percentage points. While the unemployment rate remains steady at 9.5%, the employment-population ratio continues to fall each month. In April it was 58.8%, in May 58.7%, and in June 58.5%.

Since America has about 238 million noninstitutionalized civilian adults of working age, this decrease means that we have nearly 12 million fewer jobs today than we would have if the employment-population rate were still at its 2007 level of 63%.

No other recession in the past 60 years saw such rapid job destruction in either absolute or percentage terms. In the 1979-82 recession, unemployment topped out at a higher rate, 10.8%, but the employment-population ratio declined by only three percentage points, to 57% from 60%.

Yeah. Higher taxes will help this. Not.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Economy.

Posted by Will Franklin · 11 August 2010 10:11 AM · Comments (1)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 851 -- The Texas Economy.

Not Perfect, But The Best We Have-

Are you reading Texanomics yet?

You should be.

This graph shows private-sector employment changes in the handful of states that added jobs from 2005-2010. This is really a sad picture in so many ways.

We've really got to figure this thing out. Our country can't just not create jobs.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: America's Jobless Recovery.

Posted by Will Franklin · 10 August 2010 10:24 AM · Comments (15) · TrackBack (1)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 850 -- Jobless Recovery.

Mixed But Mostly Bad National Numbers-

The new normal:

The July jobs report reveals an economy struggling to add jobs. While private sector jobs have increased by 151,000 over the last three months, this job growth is slower than that of March and April. An average of 50,000 new private jobs a month is disappointing for this stage of a recovery and will not lower the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate remained flat at 9.5 percent in part because 181,000 workers exited the labor force. The labor force participation rate dropped to 64.6 percent, matching its low for the recession that was set in December 2009.

The labor force increased in the first half of the year but has steadily declined since its April peak of 65.2 percent. Both adult men and women have seen their participation rate drop by 0.6 percentage points since April, while teenagers’ participation rate has dropped 1.3 percentage points.

Job gains in the private sector were scattered. Manufacturing (36,000) and health care (27,800) had strong increases. Construction (–11,000), financial services (–17,000), and professional business services (–13,000) were the big losers. Government hiring fell by 202,000, with 143,000 of those losses attributable to temporary census workers. State and local workers (–48,000) had one of the sharpest job declines of this recession. Another signal indicating a weakening labor market is the drop in temporary services (–5,600), which had its first decline since the fall.

The President could learn something from his trip to Texas today.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Supreme Court Polarization.

Posted by Will Franklin · 9 August 2010 09:03 AM · Comments (10)

Obama's Texas Visit.

President Obama is visiting Texas today to raise money for Bill White.

Bill White will gladly take the money, but he won't dare be seen with Obama:

One wonders if Obama knows some of these stats:

* Since 2005, Texas has gained more private-sector jobs than all other states combined, times four. Texas dominates private sector employment gains over the past half decade. From 2005 to 2010, Texas cities rank 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 11th in America for raw private-sector job growth.

* Of America's 100 largest metros, only 16 added private-sector jobs (84 shed) between 2005 and 2010. All 6 in Texas added jobs.

* More than half of all job growth over the past year has been in Texas.

* Texas is one of only 5 states to add manufacturing jobs each month so far in 2010.

* Businessweek- Texas has 3 of top 5 and 4 of top 10 cities for new grads looking for jobs.

* CNNMoney ranked America’s top counties for job growth over past 9 years. Texas has 5 of top 7.
#2 (Williamson)
#3 (Hays)
#5 (Fort Bend)
#6 (Webb)
#7 (Collin)

* Also, Obama has publicly stated a goal of doubling U.S. Exports in five years. Texas is the top exporting state 8 years running now, so maybe he could learn something while he's visiting Texas today.

Read More »

Posted by Will Franklin · 9 August 2010 06:59 AM · Comments (3)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 849 -- Supreme Court Polarization.

Supreme Court Partisanship-

Traditionally, the Supreme Court was truly removed from politics, and decisions were rarely close:

We have become accustomed to “minimum winning coalitions” in recent decades. But throughout the 19th century, a one-vote majority decided only 1 percent of cases on average. Between 1900 and 1950, that average rose to 4 percent. Since 1951, the average rate is 17 percent.

One-vote majority rulings carry the same legal weight as all majority opinions. Yet they lack the symbolic power of decisions by a more united court. Experts consider these 5-to-4 decisions to be more expressly political than others, representing a threat to the court’s moral authority.

My theory on this is that the scope of action from our legislative and executive branches is advancing rapidly, and therefore the judicial branch is required to weigh in on more gray-area partisan issues rather than the traditionally clear-cut "is it Constitutional?" arguments they once weighed. Any student of Constitutional law will tell you that early Supreme Court rulings generally interpreted the Constitution far more narrowly and overruled Congressional or Presidential action on just about everything remotely questionable.

Moreover, beginning with FDR and escalating throughout the mid-to-late 20th Century, the Supreme Court has expanded its own scope, legislating from the bench, and wading into questions that necessitate weighing further into similar questions when they arise.

Early Congresses would have never dreamed of passing socialized health care bills, even if they wanted to, because they knew early Supreme Courts would unanimously rule such action unconstitutional. These days, not so much.

The antidote for these polarized rulings is to dramatically reduce the size and scope of governmental interference in our lives. If government is limited, what is and what is not Constitutional becomes far more obvious.

Reducing the size and scope of big government interference, unfortunately, will require decades of conservative Congresses, with conservative Presidents, who appoint the kinds of Justices who are willing to return to the Founding Constitutional principles that made America great and unique in the first place.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Transportation.

Posted by Will Franklin · 6 August 2010 10:57 AM · Comments (25)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 848 -- Transportation.

Imbalance-

A couple of decades ago, traffic congestion was pretty terrible in every growing, sunny area of the country. Today, it's not that it is especially better anywhere, but it has gotten worse a lot faster in some places, compared to other places.

Take the California solution versus the Texas solution over that time.

The California way led to more congestion. The Texas way worked:

Traffic congestion has gotten much worse, and traffic volumes have increased materially. Our recent article showed that transit market shares had declined.

These results are in stark contrast to Houston, which in 1984 had the worst traffic congestion in the nation. Houston set about to solve the problem by expanding its roadway capacity. Since 1984, Houston's traffic grew twice as fast as that of Los Angeles, and population grew three times as fast (at least in part because many Californians were moving to Texas). Houston also added freeway mileage at double the percentage rate of Los Angeles. The reward was an increase in traffic congestion less than one-third that of Los Angeles (Figure). The most recent INRIX Scorecard shows Los Angeles traffic congestion to be more than 2.5 times as intense as Houston's.

Not so incidentally, the GAO reported recently that Texas had the lowest rate of return on dollars sent to the Federal Highway Trust Fund, from 2005-2008:

Sound familiar? Per capita, donor state Texas ranks in the 40s in terms of pork received, second-to-last in stimulus dollars received, and last place in Highway dollars coming back to the state.

Meanwhile, California is subsidized by Texans for building the equivalent of the Monorail boondoggle on The Simpsons:

It's hard to sustain this kind of imbalance forever, and what works for old, dense, compact urban areas on the East Coast is not necessarily right for growing, modern cities in "Flyover Country." Yet, our national transportation policy is largely designed and "driven" by people who live in high rise condos in Virginia and commute via underground train into the heart of the District of Columbia each day.

UPDATE:
“No Distribution Shall Be Made to the State of Texas”

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Politics Too Integral In Federal Money.

Posted by Will Franklin · 5 August 2010 09:50 AM · Comments (147)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 847 -- Our Broken Federal Fund Dispersal System.

Pork, Stimulus, Recession-

Here's yet another good example of what I don't like about the establishment press.

The Houston Chronicle somehow manages to get it wrong even when they're on the brink of getting it right:

Small states earning big federal dollars: Seniority for senators can mean money disparity per resident

WASHINGTON — North Dakota received about $127 million in federal money in 2010 for projects to benefit its population of nearly 650,000.

Oklahoma, a state with nearly six times as many residents, received only $88 million. The difference is striking, and it's because North Dakota has something Oklahoma does not: a senator who is a powerful and senior committee chairman.

Of the eight senators who represent the nation's four largest states — Texas, California, New York and Florida - only one, California Democrat Barbara Boxer, holds a chairmanship of a standing committee with substantive legislative authority.

Great. This is an interesting story that illustrates how broken our system is, but here's what irks me. On the sidebar of the story, there is this graphic:

This is really just a failure on so many levels. Where is the link to the source? Citizens Against Government Waste puts out a lot of great reports, so this vague citation from the Chronicle is not helpful at all. Why only list a few states? This "I have the information, and I choose which parts to tell you" model of reporting is old style journalism, and it is dying out for a reason.

More importantly, in the entire story, never does the word "earmark" appear, and the word "pork" only appears once, right at the end, in a quote.

This entire story is based on pork barrel spending, not total spending. Pork is defined pretty specifically, too. Pork has to meet one or more of the following criteria:

• Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
• Not specifically authorized;
• Not competitively awarded;
• Not requested by the President;
• Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the
previous year’s funding;
• Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
• Serves only a local or special interest.

This doesn't sound like the spending referenced in the article. The article calls North Dakota's pork haul, simply, "projects to benefit its population."

Yeah. There's a fundamental difference there.

Citizens Against Government Waste's Pig Book details the information referenced by the Houston Chronicle:

What is so hard about that?

The future of journalism is not this antiquated top-down offering of patchy bits of information. The future of journalism is data. For example, the most viewed page on the online-only Texas Tribune website is a data app detailing what public employees earn.

Not-so-incidentally, looking at stimulus spending, certain states are also created more equal than others:

So, Texas, a donor state, ranks 41st in pork received, next-to-last in stimulus received, and yet we're dominating it in America's "Great Recession."

This speaks volumes about the effectiveness of government spending.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Unbalanced Recession.

Posted by Will Franklin · 4 August 2010 10:06 AM · Comments (20)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 846 -- Only Four Of Twelve Federal Reserve Districts Have Had Job Growth Since January 2001.

2001-2010 Job Growth, Or Lack Thereof-

The Dallas Federal Reserve district includes all of Texas, plus parts of Louisiana and New Mexico. Since 2001, it has far outpaced the rest of the nation's other 11 Fed districts:

Every district is down from the peaks of a couple years ago, but only the Richmond, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Dallas Fed districts have experienced employment any growth over this period whatsoever.

The Dallas Fed district is up (in thousands) from 10,112.5 to 10,997.9 (+885.4, or 8.76%) over this period.

The Richmond Fed district is up from 13,105.6 to 13,326.0 (+220.4, or 1.68%) over this period.

The Minneapolis Fed district is up from 4307.6 to 4339.6 (+30.0, or 0.7%) over this period.

The Kansas City Fed district is up from 7628.0 to 7693.3 (+65.3, or 0.86%) over this period.

All eight others are down since 2001.

Indeed, comparing Texas' job growth during the zeros/aughts/ohs (or whatever the last decade was called) to every other state's job growth or lack thereof, the comparison is stark:

From 2005-2010, among the 100 largest metros in America, only 16 added private-sector jobs. 84 shed jobs. All 6 in Texas gained over this five year period.

From 2005-10, Texas cities rank 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 11th in America for raw private-sector job growth.

10 states plus Washington, D.C. created any net private-sector jobs whatsoever from 2005-10. 40 states lost them. Texas gained more than all other adders combined, multiplied by four.

Since 2005, California has lost average of 520 private-sector jobs per day (-950,300 total). Texas has gained 260 per day (+474,400 total).

These ridiculous numbers don't mean that Texas is immune to the nation's deep and prolonged downturn, but it doesn't it mean that maybe Texas had something right, and Obama's one-size-fits-all prescription for the nation just isn't right.

Washington, D.C., Obamanomics, Congress in general-- they are all broken and need to be rendered as insignificant in our daily lives as possible.

Governors-- good ones like Rick Perry and Chris Christie-- competing, innovating, and reforming in their various states will bring this country back:

Remember November.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Laffer Curve, Visualized.

Posted by Will Franklin · 3 August 2010 10:18 AM · Comments (152)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 845 -- Tax Hikes A-Comin' Our Way.

The Art Of The Laffer Curve-

Art Laffer has an important take on tax rates and tax payments in the Wall Street Journal:

Since 1978, the U.S. has cut the highest marginal earned-income tax rate to 35% from 50%, the highest capital gains tax rate to 15% from about 50%, and the highest dividend tax rate to 15% from 70%. President Clinton cut the highest marginal tax rate on long-term capital gains from the sale of owner-occupied homes to 0% for almost all home owners. We've also cut just about every other income tax rate as well.

During this era of ubiquitous tax cuts, income tax receipts from the top 1% of income earners rose to 3.3% of GDP in 2007 (the latest year for which we have data) from 1.5% of GDP in 1978. Income tax receipts from the bottom 95% of income earners fell to 3.2% of GDP from 5.4% of GDP over the same time period.

The entire semantical/linguistic argument in the establishment media right now regarding the near-term future of tax rates in America hinges on the tax "cuts" for the "rich" "expiring" or going back to "normal."

For those of us in our twenties and even early thirties, we have only paid taxes under the "Bush tax cut" rates. For us, when the rates go up-- as they will under Obama and the Democrats on January 1, 2011-- that is absolutely a tax hike. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

It will be the largest tax increase in American history, and it will happen at precisely the worst time possible for our struggling national economy.

No amount of passive-aggressive semantical gymnastics by the Democrats can change that reality.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: America's Economy Would Be Far Worse Without Texas.

Posted by Will Franklin · 2 August 2010 11:23 AM · Comments (19)

Sunday Heidi Weimaraner Update: 4+ Years Old.

It has been nearly 3 years since the last photo update on Heidi, the Weimaraner. It's been even longer since the very first update. She's 4 and a half years old now.

These were shot at Auditorium Shores in Austin, just South of downtown and the Colorado River (also known as Town Lake at this spot):

Read More »

Posted by Will Franklin · 1 August 2010 01:41 PM · Comments (7)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 844 -- America's Economy Would Be Far Worse Without Texas.

2000-2010 Job Growth, Or Lack Thereof-- Plus Foreclosures-

Since 2000, America has lost a lot of private-sector jobs. A lot of them. Texas has gained a ton of private-sector jobs over the same period. Gobs.

Imagine if Texas wasn't around or was its own-- ahem-- country. Think about how much worse our national economic picture would be right now:

Indeed, new foreclosure numbers are out, and they aren't pretty (154 out of 206 metropolitan areas with at least 200,000 residents posted an annual increase in foreclosure activity between January and June), but the Texas mortgage foreclosure rate is about half what it is nationally.

In Texas, one in every 788 homes faces foreclosure, whereas that number is 1 in 194 for California, 1 in 265 in Michigan, 1 in 358 in Illinois, and 1 in 411 in the U.S. as a whole.

CNN/Money notes:

Still, the report found that there are some remarkably untroubled markets, many of them in the Northeast, Midwest and Texas, where home prices never really bubbled during the boom and have not fallen very far during the bust.

The Atlantic has more data, showing that many Texas cities have among the lowest foreclosure rates in the nation.

Jobs. Foreclosures. Migration. GDP growth. Basically every indicator shows strength in Texas and weakness in the most liberal states such as California.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: America's Recession Not Created Equal.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 July 2010 08:48 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 843 -- America's Recession Not Created Equal.

2009-2010 Job Growth, Or Lack Thereof-

A supporter of the Perry campaign passed along a site, called Texanomics, which is pretty new and fairly sparse thus far, but which has two really great graphs.

This one covers the job growth in America over the past year. Texas accounts for more than half of U.S. job growth (among job-adding states):

Interesting that Texas comes in first, and Indiana comes in second, as these two states in early 2009 turned down Unemployment Insurance stimulus dollars from the federal government, which would have meant expanding government benefits.

Think there might be a connection there?

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Jobs In Texas.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 July 2010 09:48 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 842 -- Texas Job Growth.

2005-2010 Job Growth, Or Lack Thereof-

From 2005 to 2010, 11 states (including Washington, D.C. as a "state") added any private-sector jobs. Texas was one of those 11 states.

The other 40 states lost private-sector jobs over the past five years.

In the 40 states that lost private-sector jobs, the total loss was 5,094,900.

In the 11 states that gained private-sector jobs, the total gain was 588,800.

The net private-sector job loss in America from 2005 to May 2010 was therefore 4,506,100.

From 2005 until May 2010, Texas added a net 474,400 private-sector jobs.

Texas created 80.57% (474,400/588,800) of all the private-sector jobs created in America's private-sector job-adding states, from 2005 through May 2010.

This also means that Texas created more private-sector jobs than all other states combined. TIMES FOUR+:

Think Texas might be onto something? It's one of the only large states with an unemployment rate below 10%. The other 10 private-sector job-adding states (and D.C., the non-state "state") since 2005 are all Republican, with the exceptions of Washington and Washington, D.C.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Every Texas City Doing Better Than Every City Elsewhere.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 July 2010 04:57 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 841 -- Every Texas City In Top Quintile Of Economic Recovery.

Not Accidental, Not Because Of Democrats-

Every Texas metropolitan area that is in the top 100 nationally in population is in the top fifth of overall economic performance, according to the left-of-center Brookings Institute:

Texas liberals look at that and say, "yeah, good job Democrat mayors, who control these major cities."

This is wrong on so many levels.

First, the true explosive economic growth and job growth in these metro areas is in the Republican-leaning suburban counties such as Montgomery and Fort Bend (outside of Houston), Williamson and Hays (outside of Austin), Collin and Denton (outside of Dallas), and so on. How do Democrat mayors get credit for the growth that is happening outside of their purview? Often, the real growth is happening outside of their purview because of the onerous nature their purview.

Second, why is it that every Texas city is included in this list? Is it just a coincidence that all the Texas cities perform well, while the Democrat-controlled cities like Chicago, most of the cities in California, cities in the Northeast, cities in Florida, and so on all suck economically? Get real. The fact that these cities are in Texas and not elsewhere has almost everything to do with their success.

Third, and this may be the most important rebuttal of the three:

The ample number of medium-sized conservative towns in Texas-- Midland and Amarillo for example-- are performing even better than the big cities like Dallas or Houston. I don't think you can point to a single place in America-- other than Washington, D.C.-- that has been immune to this recession, but, without a doubt, Texas and a handful of smaller conservative states lead the nation, economically.

Texas is the number one exporting state, 8 years in a row, and the trend is accelerating.

Only eleven states added private-sector jobs from 2005 to 2010, and thirty-nine lost them. Among those eleven states that added any private sector jobs over the past 5 year period, Texas is responsible for the creation of 80.57% of all private-sector jobs in America.

In other words, since 2005, Texas created more private sector jobs than all other states combined-- multiplied by 4.15.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama's Deficits.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 July 2010 12:06 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 840 -- Obama's Deficits.

Unprecedented-

Lately, we have heard liberals defending President Obama by invoking President Reagan's admittedly large deficits. While it is absolutely true that Reagan's plan for winning the Cold War was to build up our defenses and leave the Soviets unable to keep up (hey, it worked!), and defense spending escalated dramatically in the 1980s, deficits weren't nearly as high as they are today:

The Obama deficits are double that, and more than one-third higher than even the Gipper's worst year. What explains this? Part of it is that Democrats are simply spending much more, sending outlays as a share of GDP above 25% for the first time since World War II. The White House now says outlays will be higher in 2011, at 25.1% of GDP, than at the height of the stimulus in 2009 and 2010.

This is an ironic tribute to the degree to which Democrats on Capitol Hill have been increasing spending willy-nilly below the media radar. The 111th Congress is the most spendthrift in a century outside of World Wars I and II.

The other explanation for the record Obama deficits is that revenues have been so anemic, thanks to the lackluster economic recovery. In the Reagan years, revenues as a share of GDP never fell lower than 17.3%, despite (or we would say because of) his pro-growth tax cuts. In 2010, by contrast, the White House now says tax revenues will hit an astonishing low of 14.5% of GDP, rising only to 15.8% in 2011, even with the huge tax increase that hits on January 1, 2011.

Reagan also cut non-defense spending and fought for tax relief, which grew the economy, ultimately generating more wealth and more tax revenue over the medium/long term.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Facts About Redistricting.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 July 2010 01:07 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 839 -- Everything You Need To Know About Redistricting.

States Matter-

Redistricting is happening next year. Elections at the state and local level this year may determine the balance of power in the U.S. Congress for the next decade.

More than 4 in 5 state legislative seats in America are up for grabs, with the vast majority of those elections being "contested":

A total of 6115, or 83 percent, of the nation’s 7382 state legislative seats are up for grabs in 2010 in the 46 states holding regular elections.

In terms of legislative chambers, Democrats hold the majority in 60, Republicans in 36, and two, the Alaska Senate and Montana House, are tied. After netting just under 100 seats in the 2008 election cycle, Democrats now hold 55.4 percent of the partisan held seats in state legislatures compared to the 44.4 percent with Republican incumbents. Third party legislators and independents continue to hold only a small fraction of all seats. This is the Democratic high water mark since the aforementioned 1994 election when Republicans added more than 500 legislators to their ranks. As of now, there are 802 more Democrats serving in legislatures than Republicans.

It is especially important that reddish states adding Congressional seats after the 2010 Census elect Republican majorities to their state legislatures.

Republicans clearly have a lot of work to do, but history is on our side.

History shows that the President's party loses not only federal Congressional seats but legislative seats as well. The exceptions were 2002 and one cycle during the Great Depression:

Another trend that works in favor of the GOP is the three-in-a-row syndrome. Democrats have increased their legislative numbers in each of the past three election cycles with their biggest surge being in 2006 when they added 322 seats. Neither party has netted seats in four consecutive elections since Democrats capped off a string of winning four elections in a row in 1936.

Trends and history, plus the general "wave" year for Republicans, bode well for 2010.

Here is the battleground:

It's time for "the South" (Alabama, et al.) to cast off those Democrat legislators and put in some Republicans who will draw the Congressional districts properly. It's important for Texas to elect a big Republican majority, because Texas will gain 3 or 4 Congressional seats next year, and we all remember what the Democrats did last time redistricting came up. They fled the state.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Job Growth In The States, Or Lack Thereof.

Posted by Will Franklin · 22 July 2010 11:01 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 838 -- Job Growth In The States, Or Lack Thereof.

Over Past Year, Texas Has Created More Jobs Than Any Other State-

From June 2009 to June 2010, Texas (with ~8% of America's population) has created nearly a third of all net new jobs in America (as a fraction of job-creating states). Over that same time period, among the states adding any jobs, Texas created more than 46% of all private-sector jobs:

Beginning in January of 2010, the Texas job growth trajectory is even higher. Texas has added 166,100 jobs in the 2010 calendar year, far more than any other state.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama's Job-Killing Drilling Moratorium.

Posted by Will Franklin · 21 July 2010 10:22 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 837 -- Obama's Job-Killing Drilling Moratorium.

Gulf State Economies Harmed-

Obama is adding insult to injury when it comes to the Gulf region:

The analysis addresses the negative impact the six-month offshore drilling moratorium will have on the US, both directly and indirectly. It estimates 12,046 full-time jobs will be lost nationwide, not only on oil rigs, but also in associated industries.

The study, sponsored by Save US Energy Jobs – a project of the American Energy Alliance – also focuses on the spillover effect the moratorium will have on other job sectors such as mining, transportation, warehousing, wholesale and retail trade, health care, entertainment, education, and waste management. Texas will see a decrease of approximately 2,492 jobs, and Louisiana will see a decrease of approximately 4,719 jobs.

The moratorium also will cause a loss in wages. According to the study, analysts are predicting loss of wages from $65 million to $135 million/month, negatively affecting an already distressed work force.

State and local tax revenues also will be affected. Texas will decrease by $22.8 million, Alabama will decrease by $7.2 million, Mississippi will decrease by $8.4 million, and Louisiana will decrease by $59.3 million, according to the analysis.

Obama hates Gulf Staters.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Think U.S. Debt Is Bad Now? Wait Another Decade.

Posted by Will Franklin · 20 July 2010 08:24 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 836 -- Think U.S. Debt Is Bad Now? Wait Another Decade.

America's Debt Projections-

This is no good:

The chart [above] examines the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) most recent Long-Term Budget Outlook projections for the next 25 years of federal debt held by the public. Projections are shown under the CBO baseline, alternative scenario, and the alternative scenario incorporating crowding-out effects (data from this most-likely scenario are only given through 2027 because at this gargantuan level of debt CBO models simply break down).

Even under the extremely unrealistic best-case scenario, debt continues to grow faster than the economy, increasing from around 60 percent of gross domestic product in 2010 to 80 percent of GDP in 2035.

No good at all.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Regionalization Of The Coming Republican Wave.

Posted by Will Franklin · 19 July 2010 11:36 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 835 -- Where Will The Republican Wave Happen?

Regionalization Of American Politics-

Some interesting figures about where the Republican wave may come from this year:

To regain control of the House, the GOP must flip a significant number of Democratic-leaning seats in two key regions where Republicans were once competitive, but lately have not been.

I tend to believe the West is where Republicans will make the most gains, as those voters tend to be more small-l libertarian and thus more in line with the Republican Party. This goes for the House and Senate alike.

If all the Democrats named Reid lose in Nevada, for example, it will be a great year for Republicans.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Voting With Your Feet.

Posted by Will Franklin · 16 July 2010 12:17 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 834 -- Voting With Your Feet.

Americans Choosing Policies That Make Sense-

While Washington is mired in the muck of la-la-land solutions for serious problems, Americans are still taking charge, voting with their feet, and moving to states where they can find opportunity.

Movers.com notes that Texas has the highest move-in rate of all the states:

The state with the highest ratio of inbound-to-outbound relocation is Texas, with North Carolina and Florida coming in second and third. These states are seeing population growth, according to Moving.com’s relocation statistics. The states seeing the most people leave without inbound moves to replace them are Michigan, New York and Ohio. Moving.com statistics show Dallas as the No. 1 inbound-to-outbound metropolis in the nation, followed by Houston. Phoenix takes a close third. The other side of the spectrum shows Detroit, San Jose, and Philadelphia as seeing the most outbound Movers.com-assisted relocations.

Every single state has people moving in and moving out, every year. Indeed, many of the fastest-growing states, even Texas, see huge numbers leave each year, but the net impact of people moving in and moving out is what is important.

Texas nets the most inbound minus outbound for this latest ranking:

It should also be noted that although California continues to have a high rate of people moving in, they have even more moving out.

CA- 10.3%
FL- 8.1%
NY- 7.3%
TX- 6.3%

Send Obama a message this November that his victory in 2008 was a vague mandate for "hope," not a specific mandate for sweeping socialism.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: CNBC Ranks Best States For Business.

Posted by Will Franklin · 15 July 2010 09:21 AM · Comments (0)