Texas must be doing something right
to earn the ire of the WSJ editorial titled:
Texas Goes Sacramento
During his brief campaign for President last year, Governor Rick Perry boasted that he would bring the "Texas model" of lean government, low taxes and pro-business policies to Washington. Now Austin is borrowing from Washington's playbook as the Lone Star State embarks on its biggest spending spree in memory.
Call it the downside of prosperity: The Texas growth spurt has produced a near $20 billion gusher of new tax revenue, and the Republican-dominated legislature, with the support of seemingly every lobby in Austin, wants to spread the bounty. The biennial general-fund budget that awaits the Governor's signature is $102 billion compared with $84 billion two years ago.
(snip)
Republicans defend the budget by noting that Texas has urgent public-works needs. Two years of droughts make new water projects a necessity, and with nearly half the new jobs in the U.S. over the last four years springing up in Texas, roads and school funding are priorities too. But the Houston Chronicle notes that nearly everything from mental health to family planning to Medicaid to Mr. Perry's pet corporate welfare program—the Emerging Technology Fund—won fat funding increases.
(snip)
The danger is that Texas will repeat the fiscal mistake that California has made repeatedly: spend during the glory days and, once the economy slows, raise taxes to cover the deficit. The Texas oil patch is riding high on $95 a barrel oil and a doubling in production in four years. But Texans shouldn't forget the lesson of the 1980s and late 1990s that oil prices are volatile and a decline can be painful and prolonged.
More..
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324299104578527193464764384.html
(if you cannot open the story by clicking, copy and paste the title from the WSJ onto google)
