"Perry wants us to know some other facts about his long record as Texas governor. His website is proud of his economic policies: Texans enjoy one of the lowest tax burdens in the country and one of the lowest government debt burdens per capita; he cut taxes on small businesses and delivered a historic property tax cut; he protected the states Rainy Day Fund, which has $6 billion set aside for future needs. Here are some things that Perry never speaks about. Texas has the second-highest poverty rate among the 50 states, behind only Mississippi. It has the second-highest percentage of population without a high school diploma. Texas leads the nation in the percentage of people with no health insurance, over one quarter. It is tied with Mississippi for having the biggest percentage of workers paid at or below the minimum wage." Listening to Perry you would think Texas is the greatest place on earth! http://www.myjournalcourier.com/articles/economic-35166-model-texas.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2PQ_gU9hN0#t=0m19s
You need to compare Texas with a state with similar demographics since as someone already pointed out you have a HUGE illegal population there. California is the closest in demographics. California is falling apart at the seams and they are behind Texas in jobs, infrastructure, education and Texas spends alot less on these things and gets better results. Also the cost of living in Texas is far lower than in CA and I am not just referring to taxes. You can be at the poverty level in TX and live alot better than in most states.
Interesting; I was under the impression that texas was a booming state with lots of opportunity for employment as opposed to living in the north where there were allegedly no jobs. Of course Texas is a right-to-work (right-to-starve) state, so you know even for those who work, many of them are still living in poverty.
You don't think all the illegal immigration has anything to do with it? Out of all the states, Texas does have the longest length of border alongside to Mexico. Texas has been petitioning the Federal government for many years now to compensate them for the disproportionate burden of all these illegal aliens, since the federal government has refused to assign adequate resources for immigration enforcement and border security. All this cheap labor has been great for businesses in the short-term. But it is all a pyramid scheme the will come crashing down. When these impoverished workers, who barely earn enough to take care of themselves, have children, what then? The businesses will have to be taxed to provide expensive public education to all these children. Taxes will have to go up in the future to take care of all these poor people who are unnable to adequately take provide for themselves. The increased costs of law enforcement (police patrols, jails, the court system) and crime (businesses will have to install cameras and hire security guards) alone will outweigh whatever economic benefit there is now from cheap labor.
I live in Texas and thankfully have no State Income Tax. And I would think one reason our poverty level is higher is because we have a large majority of illegals in our State. The School system in the County I live in is outstanding compared to school systems in many other States, Counties and Cities. It is up to voters, parents in each County of any State to demand a good system of education because after all our taxes our paying for it.
The state where workman's comp insurance to cover employees is OPTIONAL for employers to provide! Guess who ends up paying for people badly injured on the job? The FEDERAL taxpayers! The state where if a doctor drunkenly cuts off a leg when he was supposed to do an appendectomy, the patient would still HAVE to PROVE the doctor INTENDED to cut off the wrong leg to recover damages! The state where the VOLUNTEER fireman can't come to save your house because they don't have gas money for the firetruck. Yeah, baby, an EXCELLENT standard of living for the lucky and the predators! Everyone else? Not so much.
It is also a state where the Federal Government has allowed an uneducated foreign population take residence.
Since the white non-hispanic population is only 45%. Would the other 42% be Hispanic rednecks or black rednecks? http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html
That is a problem. Uneducated Mexicans can swim across the border faster than Texas can create jobs for them. But try explaining that to the bleeding heart open borders/amnesty crowd.
Texas has the 2nd highest Hispanic population in the US, along with one of the highest black populations. So of course HS dropout rates and poverty (aka welfare) are going to be high. Mississippi (the state with the highest poverty rate) also has the highest percentage of blacks in the entire nation. What did you expect? Any state or city with a high minority population is going to be high in poverty, unemployment, HS dropout rate, etc - look at Detroit (80% black) or California (largest Hispanic population in the US, and has 9 of the 10 cities with the highest unemployment rate in the US) - that's a given sadly due to the welfare culture imparted on them by Democrats.
Nationalizing millions of low skilled / low wage illegals..... who will legally swamp entry level jobs reserved for America's youth, uneducated and retirees while being able to legally feast on state and federal social infrastructure.... and legally expand the EITC filer rolls to collect federal "wage subsidies" from the public fisc (that will far eclipse their remittances).... should be a wonderful and flavorful addition to the melting pot. :/ All for the purpose of plumping up the anti-free enterprise, pro-economic fascist "progressive" crowd's (a roughly 20% voter demographic, incidentally) useful idiot voter contingency. Cloward-Piven
And those living that way are the illegal aliens we were swore as government agents to keep out of this country. Perry is not the only problem for the state of Texas, Obama is a real problem letting 11 million of them stay here in this country all for his vote.
Excellent post! Factual, logical with a little common sense sprinkled. And you're spot on with your conclusion. Anyone looking at our dependant welfare culture without partisan glasses understands how destructive our so called "war on poverty" is. It only stands to reason you don't decrease heroin use by flooding the streets with heroin and you don't fight poverty just by flooding the streets with welfare checks, food stamps, free housing and free phones either.
Soooo,you're claiming that the african american population is part of the '87% rednecks'? - - - Updated - - - You sure you know what the hell you're talking about?....because I'm not.
third quarter 2011 numbers Texas white unemployed 6.3%, black unemployed 15.5 %, Latino 9%...... hmmm looks like most of the "rednecks" have jobs at least. Seems like the sheila jackson lee fans are sucking the guvment teat the hardest http://www.epi.org/publication/ib322-african-american-latino-unemployment/ http://www.epi.org/publication/ib322-african-american-latino-unemployment/
Yeah, the feds came into Texas, put a gun to the heads of ALL those patriotic, law abiding businessmen and said "You MUST hire illegals at $3/hour, no benefits, no risk of being sued for hurting them doing unsafe work without training or protection, and you can deport them without paying a final paycheck! ". Oh the poor Texan businessmen struggled and prayed for powerful regulations and penalties to stop themselves from doing this evil, but Bush never came through, leaving enforcement of America's labor laws up to "voluntary guidelines" for businessmen, who left the enforcement of American labor laws to the illegals themselves! Certainly, how could we believe a foreigner would entice us into breaking the laws of our OWN COUNTRY! Do any Americans go to Mexico and buy illegal drugs, or underage Mexican prostitutes? NEVER! And so the illegals came and stayed and the unfortunate Texas businessmen pocket ENORMOUS profits to their GREAT SHAME! Pity these poor wretches, business owners with pockets full of dirty money they cry as they spend it on sports cars and loose women, the HELPLESS VICTIMS of the siren call of Illegal Worker Menace! How could they ever be expected to stop themselves? Please pass laws for LONG JAIL TERMS for ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS! Texas business owners will thank you for saving them from themselves.....!
I guess libs are going to pretend it's just a 'coincidence" that Missouri, the state with the highest poverty (aka welfare dependency) is also the state with the highest black population in the US - and then they'll say that pointing out the correlation is 'racist'.