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Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 516 -- Texas, California, & Domestic Migration.

Texas Now America's Leader-

In the 1980s, when I was a youngster in a small town in the middle part of the country, I'd hear about some crazy new idea and not be all that surprised to learn that it had originated in California.

Sometimes the ideas were great, or at least seemed like the wave of the future. Personal computers. Avocados. Things like that.

Other times, though, California just seemed increasingly dysfunctional-- socially, economically, and politically. And it just seemed to get worse and worse as years went by. The worst impulses of Hollywood stars, labor union bosses, campus activists, urban rioters, and Aztlan nationalists seemed to take root in California. The 1990s were not kind to California. They lost the Rams to Missouri, and they couldn't even convict O.J.

That's why, earlier this decade, Arnold was such an appealing candidate. It was a chance for a Republican to clean things up and show people how to run a state government. It was a chance for Republicans to at least regain some electoral competitiveness in a deep blue state. Arnold was a chance to redefine the Republican brand in liberal America, proving to a new generation that conservative ideas are the cure to the consequences of decades of big government.

Unfortunately, under Arnold, the California state budget has grown even faster than under his predecessor. He has governed from the left-of-center status quo.

The continued-- accelerated, even-- liberal dysfunction in California helped drive 681 thousand people away from 2005 to 2007:

Meanwhile, Texas welcomed 430 thousand net new people over that same time frame:

Unfortunately, far too many of the movers are bringing their dysfunctional political values with them. Far too many can't seem to make the connection between why they left California, why they chose Texas, and why they shouldn't try to make Texas like California.

Texas has continued adding hundreds of thousands of jobs over the past year, while the nation has shed several times that number. While no state in our interconnected national economy is an island unto itself, Texas continues weathering the national storm for now.

Let's just hope that President Obama looks at what Texas has done right and what California and many other states have done wrong before he drives the remaining pockets of success into standardized economic gloom.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Congress Just Existing Ruins The Economy.

Posted by Will Franklin · 20 January 2009 03:52 PM

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