LA Times - Texas - The Job Engine [LA Times OpEd - July 3, 2011] "....At the same time — and this, of course, is the tough part for those on the left to swallow — it is clear that the state's limits on taxes, regulations and lawsuits are contributing to the job machine. "The most important thing I think that's happened to us is tort reform," Fisher, the Dallas Fed president, has said. He added that when John Deere and other companies have decided to hire in Texas, they've been largely driven by steps the state has taken to cap non-economic damages in medical malpractice suits and to make it harder to bring product liability and class-action cases..."
Betting on Rick Perry - a winner in a GOP year, with no need in the world to win liberal approval ………..”IT WILL BE THE JOBS ISSUE—and Texas’s record in creating them—that will define Rick Perry’s presidential run. Since he became governor in 2001, the U.S. as a whole has had a net loss of private-sector jobs, while Texas—which has only 8 percent of the nation’s population—has had a net gain of 825,000 jobs.
Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Board, told me that if you look at the number of jobs created since the recession technically ended in June 2009, Texas has accounted for 48 percent of net new jobs created in the U.S.
Fisher also disparages claims that the jobs are all low-paying jobs at McDonald’s or Walmart, paying the minimum wage, or that they were primarily caused by the oil and natural gas boom. According to Tom Pauken of the Texas Work Force Commission, the annual median wage in Texas in 2010 for all occupations was $31,500 a year, only 7 percent below the national average. That difference is easily explained by the fact that Texas has a younger workforce than most states and a higher percentage of workers in lower-pay agriculture jobs near the border with Mexico. [ CW: Cost of living in Texas is lower than many other states; Texas has no state income tax; Texas is a right to work state.]
As for where the job growth has been, three sectors of the economy have grown faster than the energy sector, which alone added 40,500 net new jobs in 2010. Last year, Texas added 57,900 new jobs in trade, transportation, and utilities; a total of 53,400 jobs in professional and business services; and 44,900 net new jobs in the hospitality industry.
For each of the past seven years, CEOs polled by “Chief Executive” magazine have rated Texas first in the nation for economic development climate and job growth. What is the secret of Texas’s success? Rick Perry isn’t shy about his answer. “It’s all about four points,” he told me. “First, don’t spend all the money. Keep the taxes low and under control. Have regulations that are fair and predictable so business owners know what to expect from one quarter to the next. And reform the legal system so that frivolous lawsuits don’t paralyze employers who are trying to create real wealth.”
If there is on issue which Perry has made a personal crusade, it is lawsuit reform. Working with the legislature, he has helped pass curbs on frivolous lawsuits, implemented a first-in-the-nation system under which loser pays all court costs in many lawsuits, and reformed medical malpractice law.
Dick Weekley, the co-founder of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, says Perry showed genuine political courage in resisting calls for watered-down reforms that wouldn’t have addressed the core problem. He recalls that in 2002 Perry vetoed a bill strongly supported by doctors that would have required them to prompt payment from health maintenance organizations. In the eyes of the tort reform advocates, the bill was a Trojan Horse compromise negotiated between doctors and trial lawyers. “There was a huge response from physicians [against the veto],” Kim Ross, the former top lobbyist for the Texas Medical Association, said. TMA went so far as to endorse Tony Sanchez, Perry’s millionaire Democratic opponent in the 2002 election. “Perry sent a signal that he wanted real reform and would stand his ground,” Weekley told me. “Soon the medical lobbyists playing footsie with the trial lawyers were gone and the obstacles to real reform started falling.”………………..
Why Rick Perry’s Energy Plan Might be a Game-Changer “Bryan Preston -October 14, 2011
The United States of America is in a bad way fiscally. The US Treasury reports:
that the U.S. deficit for the fiscal year ended September 30 is $1.29 trillion, the second largest in history (after 2009).
The national debt is $14.8 trillion. Our GDP is $14.9 trillion.
The financial crisis of 2008 reached critical mass almost precisely three years ago. And in Washington, the band plays on.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The band in Washington isn’t really playing on; they took their hands off their musical instruments and put them around the country’s economic throat years ago. We are by talent and resources among the richest nations on earth, and by our political freedoms, far and away the greatest. But for going on 30 years now, while we have spent more money that we take in, we have chosen to put much of our natural wealth off limits. That choice has led in direct and indirect ways to the straits we find ourselves in now, at the mercy of some of the world’s worst actors to fuel our economy, and on the precipice of bankruptcy. The current president has taken just about every negative fiscal trend and choice and accelerated them. The best line about Obama is simple: He made it all worse. He has made it harder for us to exploit our natural wealth, by making more of it off-limits and by using regulations to make it either too difficult or even illegal to tap. Whether he believes he had noble reasons or not is irrelevant; the effect of Obama’s actions is that everything is more expensive, jobs are more scarce and America is less secure.
In his energy plan, Perry shows that he understands all of this, and will fix the problem.”…………………
Oct 14, 2011 CSM: Rick Perry jobs plan: Make rest of America more like Texas -- Working ........."Not all economists would put domestic energy production among their top five priorities for job growth. But many do see significant potential in this field, as the Perry campaign does.
For example, economist Peter Morici at the University of Maryland, in a recent analysis of the nation's employment crisis, wrote that "shutting down US oil and gas development is costing the US economy millions of jobs."
His view: An emphasis on domestic production could create jobs by dramatically reducing America's trade deficit, thus recycling more consumer dollars in the domestic economy. Promotion of energy production would also spill over into job creation in other industries, Mr. Morici says, as a need for refineries and pipelines boosts demand for construction workers, steel, and heavy machinery.".......
Gov. Rick Perry delivers Energizing American Jobs and Security
Source speech at the United States Steel Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pa
October 14, 2011..........Gov. Rick Perry: "The plan I present this morning, Energizing American Jobs and Security, will kick-start economic growth and create 1.2 million jobs.
It can be implemented quicker and free of Washington gridlock because it doesn’t require congressional action. Through a series of executive orders, and other executive actions, we will begin the process of creating jobs soon after the inauguration of a new president.
There is, of course, an important role for Congress to play. And in a matter of days I will offer to the American people a broader package of economic reforms that I will take to Congress when I am elected President. My complete economic growth package will tackle tax reform, entitlement reform and real spending reductions in order to address our growing debt crisis."............
Governor Rick Perry’s plan is based on a simple premise: Make what Americans buy. Buy what Americans make. And sell it to the world.
Sections: [ Policy Recommendations with each section]
Energizing American Jobs and Security
Our Conservative Philosophy
ENERGIZING AMERICA
The Failed Current Approach
BARACK OBAMA’S INCOHERENT ENERGY POLICY
Our Approach
AN ALL-AMERICAN ENERGY POLICY
American Energy, American Jobs
DEVELOPING AMERICA’S DOMESTIC RESOURCES IN THE GULF
American Energy, American Jobs
PENNSYLVANIA’S MARCELLUS SHALE
Maintaining Reliable and Affordable Energy
POWERING AMERICA’S ENGINES OF COMMERCE
Renewable Energy
THE VIRGINIA CASE STUDY
Maintaining Reliable and Affordable Energy
EPA REFORM
Energizing America: Jobs and Security
A NEW PRESIDENT, A RENEWED AMERICA