When comparing Texas and California it’s obvious the Golden State has advantages the Lone Star State lacks. To begin with it’s the largest population in the union, while Texas is only second. Then California has weather that is the envy of much of the nation. Texas has heat, humidity in the south, and frigidity in the panhandle.
California has the majestic and inspiring Pacific Ocean, while Texas has the bathwater warm Gulf of Mexico. California has Hollywood, while Texas has the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. California has Silicon Valley, while Texas has Austin: The city that banned Uber.
Yet when it comes to economic growth and prospects for the future, Texas is far ahead of California, according to CNS News. Its story, analyzing data just released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, found in the first quarter of this year the gross domestic product in Texas expanded at a rate almost forty times greater than that of California.
Surfing on a “boom in the mining sector and by a large increase in manufacturing” GDP in the Lone Star state grew at a rate of almost 4 percent, while the California economy wheezed along with growth of a tenth of one percent.
The numbers for California would have been even worse except the BEA uses a strange weighting system that includes the growth of “social assistance” and “government,” neither of which produce anything on their own, but rather take money from productive areas of the economy and redistribute it.
So what is the explanation for the disconnect between natural advantages in California and lack of growth? Easy. 120 state legislators and one moony governor are enough to single-handedly nullify all of the state’s natural advantages.
Just think about it. Mining in Texas contributed over 2 percent to GDP growth. It would never happen in California. Mining means digging and disrupting the dirt might startle a bug and environmentalists would never sit still for that! Number two in growth production for Texas was manufacturing.
That’s all well and good if all you care about is jobs and economic security. But in California they care about the environment and if workers have to be sacrificed on the altar of carbon denial, then so be it.
And in California this whole idea of “growth” makes our rulers uncomfortable. It might produce carbon or encourage someone to buy a car or even worse build a car.
A political elite that disdains progress and growth is going to retard the economy in any state, regardless of natural advantages. Which is why Texas is leading California. It may have second-class weather, but it boasts first class political leadership.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker’s bureau. Read more reports from Michael Reagan — Go Here Now.