Free Republic

Critics charge that Texas’s growth depends on the oil and gas industries and is weighted toward low-wage jobs. But in fact, Texas’s low-tax, light-regulation policies have produced a highly diversified economy that from 2002 to 2011 created nearly one-third of the nation’s highest-paying jobs. In those years, its number of upper- and middle-income jobs grew 24 percent.Where are Americans moving, and why? Timothy Noah, writing in the Washington Monthly, professes to be puzzled. He points out that people have been moving out of states with high per capita incomes -- Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland -- to states with lower...

CORPUS CHRISTI — On Saturday, Gov. Rick Perry acknowledged what many Texans have known for two years at least — that he's running for president. To buy into the notion that he finally gave in to the urging of his legions of supporters (especially his wife), or heeded a call from a higher power, requires a suspension of reality that would overtax the truest of his believers. And Perry doesn't like to tax. It has been pointed out that now Perry is in for some serious scrutiny — the inferences being that it hasn't already happened here in Texas and...

.......The conventional wisdom has been that a sizeable portion of the party’s base wants to defeat Romney. Rather, the Republicans interviewed said, many in the party are satisfied with Romney but waiting to see if a stronger candidate emerges. “People are for him in the same way they were for Bob Dole” in 1996, said Tom Perdue, a longtime Georgia strategist. “They’re for him, but they’re looking far over their shoulder hoping somebody else is going to step up.” He said that some major Atlanta donors backing Romney have told Perdue privately that they would “jump ship really fast” if...

EXETER, N.H. - Texas Governor Rick Perry has telephoned influential Republicans in early-voting New Hampshire and Iowa in recent days as he weighs whether to enter the race for the GOP presidential nomination. “He was looking for my thoughts in terms of what the presidential field looked like and what might happen if someone came in and shook things up a little bit,’’ New Hampshire Senate President Peter Bragdon said yesterday.... The conservative Texan also called several GOP leaders in Iowa, which will hold the first contest in next year’s GOP presidential race. Among those contacted, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds.......

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., talked broadly about health care Monday when he visited Rocky Mount, reprising a familiar call for medical liability reform and sounding an alarm about prescription drug costs to the public. But standing in front of the Rotary Club microphones, he didn't talk about what might be his most important job in government ? his role as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health. While serving in Congress, Burr sponsored the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, a set of laws to provide money to train first responders and stockpile vaccines, along with a...

New state senator will be back up at bat again soon Thursday, February 19, 2004 Democrat Paul Sadler made up a lot of distance in Tuesday's runoff election in Senate District 1 in Northeast Texas, but he couldn't overcome former Tyler Mayor Kevin Eltife's huge lead in Tyler and Longview. With about 51.9 percent of the votes, Eltife won the remaining three years of the four-year term of former Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant. He quit in January. In the West Texas runoff, former Amarillo Mayor Kel Seliger's lead in the northern end of Senate District 31 more than offset...