Who would have thought an anti-business environment would have resulted in a stagnant economy? Doh! Census finds hundreds of thousands leaving California for Texas
I cannot imagine trying to run a business in California. Obviously a lot of great businesses originate there, but it seems awfully tough.
I'll welcome the Cali people but ONLY if they leave their blue politics behind and STOP trying to turn TEXAS into Cali
I cannot imagine trying to be an employee in CA let alone a business owner. 9% state income tax, property taxes, sales tax, high cost of living, high gas and food prices. What a nightmare! I say that as someone who loves visiting CA and may one day retire there. But no way would I ever accept a job there unless they significantly increased my salary.
I'm one that made the move, from San Diego to Dallas. I did it for love, but I know others who have moved for economic reasons. It really comes down to your priorities. If you spend a lot of time outside, CA is worth the premium for beautiful weather, ocean, etc. If you want to live in a big house without spending a million plus, TX is probably the place. Personally, I find the property tax here much more burdensome than the income tax in CA. As for the politics, I have been suprised by the strength of the Democratic Party in TX, which is usually discussed as being solid red. In 10-15 years, this state could be blue.
I think if you spend a lot of time in both places, you will find some of the stereotypes to be misleading and for politics to be a city by city thing. For example, Austin (the jewel of Texas, and home to the greatest university on the planet) is much more liberal than San Diego.
Having lived in the great state all my life, I can understand anyone wanting to move here....but I wish they'd all stay where they are, regardless of politics. Higher prices, more traffic, fewer real Texas accents.
I recall the property tax rate in CA being many times lower than TX. I could be wrong, but I believe TX (its counties) has among the highest rates in the land.
As the Latin population grows and becomes a productive memeber of society they will leave the womb of the Democratic party for a more conservative approach. Texas will be Red for a very very long time. Even when Texas was a Democratic state, they were some of the most conservative members of Congress.
WTF are you calling me racist? Typical, your stupid *** assumptions. As the majority in this state which are Latino's grow and become of age, they like everyone else in society becomes more and more conservative. You are fricking such a troll.
North Dakota's economy is kicking Texas' *** and it's got the 12 highest tax burden in the nation ---- one sport lower than California's.
North Dakota? WTF? You are comparing a 35bil dollar economy to a 1.2tril dollar economy. They are really kicking our ***. LOL!
Guys- when you make fun of a high cost of living what you're really saying is that the amount of money people make in place X is so strong that the local population bids up the prices of housing and other goods to a place where it supports those prices. E.g.- The salaries of people in Manhattan support thousands of apartment units that cost $800,000, whereas the jobs/salaries in Kansas do not- thus the lower prices, lower demand etc. Then, as a consequence- the cost of getting goods and services to the higher rent areas also goes up as it makes more sense to build condos than it does grow food or other infrastructure that a place like Boerne Texas has plenty of. So, not to be an economist or anything, but high cost of living has little to do with politics and a lot to do with local jobs. It is a function of the success of local companies. What several idiots here haven't figured out is that the more successful your companies, the higher the cost of living you will have. You can look to Austin, Houston and Dallas as exhibits A, B and C- where COLI have grown much faster than the other Texas cities. Taxes are a separate issue, and as BI pointed out, there are places with higher tax rates than Texas that have lower unemployment rates and vice versa. Taxes are not a perfect correlation with employment rates. But, sorry to get information in the way of a good red state blue state pissing contest.
It is ridiculously dumb to compare two economies that differ by a factor of 35. If you do not understand the reason then i will not waste my time explaining it to you.
Uh no. I never said that a bigger economy is a better economy. Comparing Texas and California is far more even handed than comparing Texas to North Dakota. Is it really that difficult of a point to understand? And another thing, high taxation does not in itself equate to anti-business. Predictability in governance and lower regulations are also very important factors.
This is a mostly arid to semi arid state and is rapidly running out of water. Not that anybody seems to notice. Revelling in the fact that people are moving here is vast numbers is like celebrating that your King just took another of the opponent's pawns. The arid lands institute at Tech has been churning out reports for years about the future we face and nobody reads them. Lake Texana near Victoria provides water to numerous small towns in my area and it is nearly dry. Corpus gets its water from two lakes that are drying up fast and are fueled by rivers and aquifers that are being depleted. A couple of years ago the Rio Grande stopped running short of the Gulf for the first time in millions of years. We need to build fences on the Red, Sabine and Canadian Rivers and start shooting people coming in on I 10. Austin used to be a great place and now it is a traffic jam where you have to stand in line an hour to have a good time after you get there. The wide open spaces are disappearing and some of our brain dead millionaires built a golf course at Lajitas so people wanting to enjoy the greatest wilderness area around could play golf. And our good business climate is leading to bad schools, illiterate kids having babies when they are fourteen and deteriorating infra structure. This just sucks.
Comparing state to state can be difficult, but comparing a big, sunny border state with a long coast like California to a big, sunny border state like Texas does make a lot of sense. Comparing North Dakota, one of the very smallest, coldest, agriculturally-focused states in America, to Texas or Illinois or Florida is pretty difficult. Yes, North Dakota's growth rate is high, but Texas has still added three times more new private sector jobs than all other states combined over the past five years.
