The Texas Miracle Is No Myth

National Review Online ^ | August 19, 2011 | John R. Lott Jr.

[JohnRLott]

Just hours after Rick Perry officially entered the presidential race last Saturday, liberals started to attack Texas’s economic record. Paul Krugman got the ball rolling in Sunday’s New York Times: “So what you need to know,” Krugman claimed, “is that the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment.” With the latest Gallup poll showing that just 26 percent of Americans approve of President Obama’s performance on the economy, liberals have little choice but to try to distort what is happening in Texas. To do so, they will have to rely on sleight of hand. Krugman continued:

"In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. That was less than unemployment in collapsed-bubble states like California and Florida, but it was slightly higher than the unemployment rate in New York, and significantly higher than the rate in Massachusetts. . . . ". . .

[casinva]

Here is Sarah Palin in a 2010 interview (video) with Bill OReilly describing her view of what to do with illegal aliens. She describes her desire to implement immigration reform including registration, job provisions and benefits (to citizens first and those in the citizenship process), and the granting of citizenship to those who follow the steps to citizenship, a series of steps commonly referred to by many as a “path to citizenship”.

http://blog.faithinpubliclife.org/2010/07/sarah_palin_supports_comprehen.html

[LOC1]

There is a lot of oil known to be available off the coast of California, too. Particularly near the Santa Barbra Islands. California just will not allow it to be developed.

[1010RD]

Yep, the stupidity of liberals is endless. Can’t they imagine what new socialist programs could be put in place with all that oil money?

[1010RD]

Good point. The issue isn’t that a modern society can run on zero taxes. We need some level of government revenue to function. The libertarian ideal is as utopian as the communist one.

The conservative goal should be to drive the cost of government, including regulation, down. That’s a goal that would win election after election.

If you can promise the people their cake and let them eat it at a bargain price...we’re a majority for generations.

[Spktyr]

They could try and pull an Arab Emirates or Kuwait with that - none of the actual citizens would have to work if they didn’t want to, the oil revenues would pay for everything, etc., etc.

(Note that I said try. California would probably screw it up anyway.)

[1010RD]

All the liberals I know are innumerate. Many of them have Masters or PhDs, some have spent decades in ‘learning’, but the one thread that unites every liberal I know is innumeracy and a willingness to lie for their cause.

[RayChuang88]

There's actually a lot of oil inland in California, especially in Kern County.

Here's the problem: the oil has the viscosity of molasses in winter. That's why it's expensive to extract out, since you need to inject high-temperature steam to make the oil "flow" and even then, you need mechanical pumps to get the oil out. That's why you see large numbers of mechanical oil pumps at the oil fields on the west side of the Central Valley on California Highway 33 from the city of Taft northward to the junction of Highway 33 and 46.

[LOC1]

It is not nearly as thick as the bitumen locked in the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, nor as thick as the heavy oil from the Orinco area of Venezuela. Both of those countries have found a way to produce difficult crude oils.

[RayChuang88]

Here's the problem: it's REALLY expensive to extract out the oil from the Alberta Tar Sands and the Orinoco Oil Sands. The best method is a modified version of the high-pressure high temperature steam injection Shell did to extract oil from oil shale in Colorado so the oil can be extracted out in liquid form in situ, but that's a very exorbitantly expensive because you have to heat and pressurize the steam (and use a lot of water!) to accomplish this.

[mrreaganaut]

TEXAS may be doing well, but that isn’t necessarily PERRY’s doing. Democrats believe in the cult of personality; Republicans both worship God AND elect leaders - without confusing the two.

Clinton’s America did well, too, after he was stopped from being effective by a Republican congress. We need evidence that Perry has done more than rubber-stamp an effective Republican state legislature to know that Perry deserves any credit.

So far, Perry seems to be an establishment candidate. The fact that he is being touted by John Lott speaks volumes. Only two candidates to the right of the establishment have won the Republican nomination in the past century: Goldwater and Reagan. Perry now replaces the unelectable Mitt Romney as the defender of the status quo, in the face of an electorate unsatisfied with the way things are.

[LOC1]

The break-even value of extracting oil in Alberta is about $80 per barrel. The current production is above 1 million barrels per day and projected to reach 3 million barrels per day. Yes it is expensive, but it is possible. Same thing would be true for more of the Kern County crude oils, if it were not for California restrictions. Put it another way, if Kern County were in Texas, we would be recovering that crude oil.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Thanks for the link.

Frankly, I think the steps are:

1. Get control of border first
2. Make it difficult for illegals to work
3. Then deal with what’s left.

Sounds as if Sarah wants a “path to citizenship” for those who are
here illegally.

[LibertarianInExile]

“Clinton’s America did well, too, after he was stopped from being effective by a Republican congress. We need evidence that Perry has done more than rubber-stamp an effective Republican state legislature to know that Perry deserves any credit.”

Well said. And by the way, IMHO, Coolidge was probably our greatest president of the 20th century. My favorite Coolidge quote:

“There always have been, and probably always will be some who will feel that their own temporary interest may be furthered by betraying the interest of others...Their influence, whatever it may seem at a particular moment, is always ephemeral...They may at times somewhat retard and delay [the] progress [of the race], but in the end their opposition will be overcome. They have no permanent effect...The power of the spirit always prevails over the power of the flesh. These furnish us no justification for interfering with...freedom...because all freedom, though it may sometimes tend toward excesses, bears within it those remedies which will finally effect a cure for its own disorders.”

[Aetius]

I’m not defending Perry on immigration. I’m sure he’d be a worthless panderer like Bush, but other than her support of the Arizon law, what is there to indicate that Palin would be any good on immigration?

And has she articulated a position on legal immigration other than the standard and trite “I’m against illegal immigration and for legal immigration” we hear from too many Republicans? Generally, does she think we should maintain current high levels of legal immigration, or that the levels should be increased or decreased? Specificially does she support ending Ted Kennedy’s absurd Diversity Visa? Does she support ending extended-family chain migration? Does she support getting stricter with asylum seekers and refugee settlement in the US?

This isn’t me being anti-Palin. I wish the same questions would be posed to all the GOP candidates. And while her support for the Arizona law is admirable, I just don’t see what else there is to suggest she would be good on immigration.

Texas has avoided California’s fate for one reason; white Texans are much more conservative than white Californians, and have voted overwhelmingly for the GOP going back almost 20 years now. But thanks to immigration, there will soon come a time when winning 70+% of the white vote in Texas doesn’t guarantee victory, and when that happens Texas probably will become another California, and the GOP will be pretty much doomed nationally.

[JohnRLott]

“Perry seems to be an establishment candidate. The fact that he is being touted by John Lott speaks volumes.”
Ugh? There are several errors in just these two sentences. 1) Perry is the establishment? Is that the reason why Karl Rove and others are attacking Perry?
2) I wasn’t supporting Perry. I hate to see people such as Krugman make inaccurate statements, and I wanted to correct the record.
3) Apparently, you think that I am part of the “establishment.” Well, possibly you could explain that to me. It would be interesting to have you justify that claim. From going after the issue of gun-free zones thirteen years ago, long before anyone else would touch the issue, to so many other points, for better or worse, I have often been first on an issue. Read my book Freedomnomics and please explain how it is “establishment.”

[10thAmendmentGuy]

Mr. Lott,

I just wanted to say that I love your book More Guns, less Crime. I bought the original edition thirteen years ago and I've often pulled it out during gun discussions to recite some stats from it. Thanks for writing it.

[mrreaganaut]

1) Perry is the establishment choice. All the talking heads breathed a sigh of relief at an alternative to Bachmann, Paul, Palin, and the ever-diminishing “frontrunner,” Romney. Perry is not the only governor running, but he is the only ‘viable’ governor, and thus, the ‘safe’ choice.

2&3) I’M SO SORRY!!! I realize now that I had a brain cramp and confused you with Sen. Trent Lott. This doesn’t look good for my analytical acumen, but hopefully, it speaks well for my honesty to confess it. I did like ‘Freedomnomics’ better than ‘Freakonomics,’ if that helps my abject apology any.