The Dallas Business Journal today notes that, despite the recession and some ups and downs, Texas added 50,000 jobs in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Well, going back ten years, Texas is one of the only states to add any private sector jobs at all:

You can also go back 3 years and see a similar pattern.

Ideas matter. While no individual state is immune to national pressures in our increasingly federalized nation, Texas is a definite success story for a reason. The proof is in the pudding.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Only State To Add Jobs Through Recession.

This morning, the official national employment numbers came out, and the unemployment rate actually fell from 10.1% to 9.7%, despite a loss of 20,000 jobs in January.

Let's examine state-by-state, and look at Texas versus the rest of the nation over the course of the recession:

Over the past three years, every other state among the top 10 largest lost jobs, but Texas added them. Texas is also one of only two big states to add any significant private sector jobs over the past decade.

Ideas matter.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: 2010 Census.

Generally, Republican states will gain Electoral Votes and additional Congressional seats after the 2010 Census:

The eight states the Census will help:

1. Texas
2. Arizona
3. Florida
4. Nevada
5. Oregon
6. Utah
7. Georgia and
8. South Carolina

Texas: Analysts predict that Texas could gain up to four Congressional seats, the most of any of the handful of other states expected to grow.

Meanwhile, some states will lose Congressional seats and Electoral Votes.

The 11 states the Census will hurt:

1. Louisiana
2. Minnesota
3. Iowa
4. Missouri
5. Illinois
6. Michigan
7. Ohio
8. New York
9. Pennsylvania
10. Massachusetts, and
11. New Jersey

This Census may be eye-opening in terms of societal changes, as well, including the change of the American family:

More roommate situations (think Friends). Fewer married families with kids. More bachelors and bachelorettes. I would guess the 2010 Census will show some pretty major continuations of these changes.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama's Bogus Budget "Freeze".

A nice visual from Political Math:

Obama is looking more and more like a failed one-termer.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Has 8% Of The People But One-Fourth Of America's Fastest Growing Companies.

Another cool visual from the BillShrink blog:

Go check out the BillShrink blog to see the full size graphic.

No state is immune to the economic realities out there right now, and Texas is no exception. Even the energy industry has been shaky over the past couple of years. But Texas remains the leading economy in the nation, precisely because it has kept taxes relatively low, budgets balanced, and government spending in check.

Texas cannot afford to bring in the second biggest "porker" in Washington, D.C. and make her our Governor:

Texas can't afford Kay Bailey Hutchison's big spending ways. We have thrived, relatively speaking, in large part because the burden of government is low in Texas. We reject "free" money with mandates and strings attached from the Federal Government, routinely. We cut our state budget when necessary-- Texas has zero deficits and one of the very lowest levels of debt in the country.

A country can't tax, spend, and borrow its way to prosperity.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Government Spending Under Control.

Despite what certain negative Texas politicians say, government spending in Texas as a percentage of Gross State Product is extremely low in Texas:

Texas has it right when it comes to keeping government spending under control-- one of the very lowest levels of spending as a percentage of Gross State Product in the country. Even in these difficult economic times, Texas balanced its budget for 2010. Meanwhile, Obama announced yet another budget with massive deficits:

The deficit for this year would surge to a record-breaking $1.56 trillion, topping last year's then unprecedented $1.41 trillion gap. The deficit would remain above $1 trillion in 2011 although the president proposed to institute a three-year budget freeze on a variety of programs outside of the military and homeland security as well as increasing taxes on energy producers and families making more than $250,000.

Very different ways of doing things. Very different results.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: The Obama Curse.

After just one year in office, Obama is already an albatross for Democrats running for Governor, Senator, and other positions:

The party’s share of the gubernatorial vote in 2009 was down a dozen percentage points from Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential vote in each state. And in Massachusetts, the Democratic proportion of the Senate vote was down 15 points from Obama’s ‘08 showing. At no time during the presidency of George W. Bush did the Republican gubernatorial vote in Virginia and New Jersey decline more than 8 percentage points from the previous GOP presidential vote in the state.

Americans now have the most profound collective case of buyers' remorse in our nation's modern political history. People were upset by outrageous spending levels, bailouts, and other big government failures, so they elected something "different." They've quickly realized the "different" they chose was actually worse. Americans just want to be left alone to live the dream, without government's heavy debt burden, tax burden, and regulatory burden.

Brad Jackson noted that the Obama curse applies to more than politics. It apparently applies to college basketball as well:

At one point Obama said, “Man, I am honored to speak to the No. 1 team in the country.”

Not for long.

Later that evening, the number one Wildcats became another victim of the Obama curse, falling to South Carolina 68 – 62 behind the inspired play of the Game Cock’s Devan “Scott Brown” Downey. The Wildcats are no longer unbeaten and may not be number one again for next week’s poll. If you listen closely, you can almost here the groaning all the way back in Lexington, Kentucky, where someone is surely saying, “Thanks for nothing Obama.”

Obama still has time to turn things around, but right now he looks like a one termer and a failure, based on his own far-left ideological overreach.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Football..

The Wall Street Journal analyzed four NFL games and found that most of the time in football games is spent standing around:

I can almost see why foreigners hate American football so much, looking at it this way. Almost.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas #1 In Private Sector Job Creation..

Many economists are calling the 2000s a "lost decade" for America's prosperity, because many of the gains made from 2002-2006 in terms of GDP and jobs were lost between 2007 and 2009, after the Democrats took back Congress.

Texas was hard hit by the national (and, really, global) recession as well, but even with that hit, Texas was one of the few states that did not have a "lost" decade (.pdf):

Some tidbits for your digestion:

*Texas created more private sector jobs than any other state in the nation over the last 10 years and has the lowest unemployment rate among the 10 largest states in the nation.

*Texas created 724,300 more net private sector jobs as compared to December 1999, the largest private sector job gain nationwide over the last decade.

*Among the 10 largest states as ranked by civilian labor force size, Texas was well ahead of all other large states in private sector job growth with a percentage net gain of 9.30 percent as compared to December 1999.

*Florida was the only other large state to realize a net gain in private sector employment over the same period with 259,500 net jobs gained for a percentage net gain of 4.31 percent from December 1999 to December 2009. The other 8 large states showed a net loss of private sector jobs over the same period.

*Nationally, over the last decade, the private sector experienced a net employment loss of 1.408 percent or 1,549,000 jobs lost.

Don't mess with the Texas economy. Re-elect Governor Rick Perry. You can make your endorsement official here.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: State Government Debt In Texas.

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Despite what you may have heard from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and/or the other lady running for Governor, Texas is actually a great place to work, start a business, or otherwise engage in commerce.

Government debt is extremely low in Texas. In fact, the "bad" kind of government debt-- non-self-supporting debt-- has decreased by 16% (from $3.4 to $2.85 billion) in Texas over the past ten years.

Yes, you read that right: "bad" government debt in Texas has decreased substantially over the past decade. Moody's also upgraded Texas to its highest ever bond rating (AA+) this year.

That tends to happen when a state government keeps spending growth roughly in line with population growth plus inflation, as is the case in Texas over the past several years.

Forbes ranked the states on their debt levels, and it is really not surprising at all that the best states tend to be low tax "red" states, and the worst states tend to be high tax "blue" states. Texas ranked 4th best on the debt scorecard, and #1 among the ten largest states:

Forbes also has this interactive scorecard one can click around on to see more state government debt data:

Texas has one of the best debt levels in the entire country, so when you hear certain negative politicians cherrypick stats or distort the figures, think about what else they must be misleading voters about.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Unions Equal Government.

"Union member" has become synonymous with "government employee."

Heritage has crunched the numbers:

The BLS's annual report on union membership shows the labor movement's decline in membership continued in 2009. While a full 23.0 percent of Americans belonged to labor unions in 1980, by 2008 only 12.4 percent did. In 2009, that figure dropped slightly to 12.3 percent. There are now 15.3 million union members in the United States, 770,000 fewer than in 2008.

I have written about this topic quite a bit over the years. See this post, this post, and this post for more info on unions in the private versus public sector.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Austin, Texas #1 For Small Business Vitality.

If you are interested, the event is at capacity, but we can always up-size to a bigger space if we have a flood of last-minute registrations.

Register here.

Austin Texas ranks number one on Portfolio.com's Small business Vitality 2010 index:

More:

No major state has weathered the recession more successfully than Texas. So it’s logical that the best place to launch a new business would be a prominent Texas metropolitan area.

The nation’s top score for small-business vitality, according to a new Portfolio.com/bizjournals study, belongs to Austin, the state's capital and the center of a thriving metro with 1.7 million residents.

Hope. Change.

Texas should be the model for the nation's recovery, not Michigan/California/Rhode Island.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Medicaid.

The Heritage Foundation explains that the health care bill will impose crazy costs on the states:

Calculations of state costs, derived from the coverage and federal cost estimates prepared by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), show that the Senate bill would increase state Medicaid spending--for both benefits and administration--by $32.6 billion for FY 2014 to FY 2019, while the increased Medicaid costs to states under the House bill would be $60 billion for FY 2013 to FY 2019.

Health care reform is neither health care nor reform. It's just big government nonsense.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Oil.