Why Texas Is Growing (and Illinois Isn’t)

[Geee]

National Review:

The Census Bureau’s holiday treat is its release of annual state-population estimates, to be digested slowly in the new year.

 

The headline from this year’s release is that population growth from July 2012 to July 2013 was 0.72 percent, lower than in the two preceding years and the lowest since the Great Depression 1930s. This reflects continuing low, below-replacement-rate birth rates and lower immigration than in 1982–2007. Net immigration from Mexico evidently continues to be zero.

 

The nation’s economy may be growing again, but Americans — and potential Americans — are not acting like it. There’s a parallel here with poll results showing that majorities still believe we are in a recession that the National Bureau of Economic Research says ended in June 2009, nearly five years ago.

Sluggish population growth is matched by sluggish geographic mobility. The Census Bureau reports that only 4.8 million Americans moved across state lines in 2012 — about half the percentage that did so in the boom years of the 1990s. Americans were similarly immobile, indeed even more so, in the 1930s (the Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl for California were a picturesque but demographically minor exception).

[Draggingtree]

Governor to governor: Why Illinois fails and Texas thrives

By Rick Perry

July 9, 2014

Illinois and Texas each faced challenges in 2011. The national recession had damaged both states' economies and revenues were projected to be insufficient to cover anticipated spending.

 

What happened next is a clear demonstration of the differences between blue states and red states.

 

In Texas, we set priorities on our spending, identified where we could save and made tough choices about where we would cut. We turned in a budget that was balanced, that met the most critical needs and did not raise taxes on anyone.

 

Illinois raised taxes.

 

Today you can see how those decisions have played out.

 

Texas was able to restore in 2013 what was trimmed in 2011, provide major tax cuts to employers,

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-gov--rick-perry-texas-illinois-jobs-businesses--20140709,0,2380206.story