Reading Tim Carney’s Cowboy Corporatism column today does give me flashbacks to the worst parts of the Bush presidency. But I still welcome Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entrance into the race. Texas’ job growth record offers a stark contrast to the direction Obama is taking the United States.
Take The Washington Post’s Harold Meyerson column, “The sad facts behind Rick Perry’s Texas miracle.” Meyerson writes:
What Meyerson fails to mention is that all of those poor results are driven by Texas’ large illegal immigrant population. Texas has second largest illegal immigrant population in the nation. These immigrants often do not have high school diplomas and do not speak English. They take low-wage jobs that almost always do not offer health insurance.
But what about the state with the highest illegal immigrant population, California? California does have lower rates of poverty and health uninsurance than Texas does. But Californiaonly accomplishes these numbers by spending vast sums of government money. California’s Medicaid and welfare systems are far more generous than those in Texas.
But that welfare state isn’t free. California’s tax and regulatory burden’s are much higher than Texas’. But high taxes and invasive regulations are also why businesses are fleeing California in droves.
This contrast offers America’s a good clear choice: California’s high-tax, low-growth, generous welfare state? or Texas’ low-tax, high-growth economy?
As Milton Freidman famously said: “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.”
