Does Rick perry have a plan to fix the US economy?

[CAC1001]

This seems to support the idea that tighter regulation would have avoided the housing debacle.

Not really though, because it wasn't so much a lack of regulations on home loans that led to reckless loan-giving, it was perverted incentives that did so, along with some regulations requiring banks to make a certain number of loans to low-income people. If there were no regulations whatsoever on banks and home loans, no bank in their right mind would have given loans to people who could likely not pay them back, unless they could sell the loans to some other entity (which is part of what happened).

 

[mege]

In Texas, government employees account for 1/6th of the workforce.



http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/08/21/rick_perry_s_texas_jobs_boom_comes_from_big_government.html

That's a bit misleading - there's no qualification that the entire 1/6th of the Texas work force are state workers (which I think you're trying to imply given the discussion about government size). That's all levels of government. And being that the bulk of those are likely federal workers, then why isn't there an employement rebound in other states because of the Federal government bloat that's happening? That type of reasoning should wash out when compared to other states.

http://www.ccsce.com/PDF/Numbers-oct08-govt-employees.pdf - a survey done by the state of California a few years ago lists state employees per 10,000. The national average for non-education state workers is 143 and Texas has 122. definitely not big government when compared to other states.

Also, on a different note - I think the argument that 'Gov Perry hasn't done anything to change his economy' is generally a good thing. He had the power and knew when to ride out success. He didn't come into a crisis and start blasting his ideology all over the place like are many of the indictments. I think his plan for the economy is to allow it mostly to heal naturally. He'd reduce the regulations and not dangle QE-eleventybillion in front of everyone creating a sense of uncertainty. Will he be the President to magically clean the sewers, roads and crumbling infrastructure? Na (neither will the current President), but I believe that his fairly predictable mindset will go a long way in easing the fears of many in the economy.

I think the important thing to do is look at this relativistically: ask all of these same questions about President Obama's few years in office. After all, that is really what this election will be about. And if you claim that Governor Perry just inherited his situation from former-Gov. Bush... you're partially absolving President Bush of wrongdoing (he's had success in the past) in the current crisis which further places the onus on President Obama to actually present policies (or lack of) for recovery. Campaign speeches and class-war rhetoric don't fix the economy, I think we've learned that already.

 

[Evo]

I'd say the growth in Texas has a lot to do with Perry considering he's been its governor for eleven years now.

I guess you missed this.

Perry's record is part of a long-term trend. Texas has done well in the jobs department for decades. "This point goes neglected," says Bernard L. Weinstein, professor of business economics in the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "Yes, Texas has created more jobs than any other state" in the last two years. "But that’s been true since 1970. For the last 41 years Texas has added more jobs than any other state, and in most years, has led the nation in job creation," Weinstein told us. "So Gov. Perry can claim that these jobs were created on his watch, but they were created on everybody else’s watch too."

Perry didn't sink Texas, but hasn't improved it either, Texas actually did better under Bush.

The San Antonio-Express News recently pointed out that past Texas governors have done well in terms of job creation, too. The state did even better when George W. Bush was governor; jobs went up 20.3 percent, though Bush's 1995-2000 term also came during prosperous times. "A lot of what we’re doing is growing like we always grew," Dick Lavine, senior fiscal analyst for the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, a think tank that advocates for low- and moderate-income families, told us, referring to both jobs and the state's burgeoning population. "It’s a longer-term trend in Texas that’s just continuing."

http://factcheck.org/2011/08/texas-size-recovery/

 

[WhoWee]

Perry didn't sink Texas, but hasn't improved it either, Texas actually did better under Bush.

Some might attribute that to Ross Perot and Clinton (NAFTA)?

 

[CAC1001]

I guess you missed this.

Not at all. That's part of my point. A lot of times, a politician will make the argument: "We are one of the strongest economies, therefore there is no reason why we cannot enact (insert various regulatory, tax, and spending proposals that said politician has in mind)." The long-term effect of doing that, oftentimes, is to begin sinking the state or country economically, this is what happened to California. So far, Texas has remained smart enough to not start doing this (although they probably will given enough time).

 

[WhoWee]

Not at all. That's part of my point. A lot of times, a politician will make the argument: "We are one of the strongest economies, therefore there is no reason why we cannot enact (insert various regulatory, tax, and spending proposals that said politician has in mind)." The long-term effect of doing that, oftentimes, is to begin sinking the state or country economically, this is what happened to California. So far, Texas has remained smart enough to not start doing this (although they probably will given enough time).

When the economy is strong - these things aren't as noticeable - are they - maybe we're too busy to notice? However, when the economy is weak - we start questioning every detail and try to determine the cause of our problems.