The Brief: Top Texas News for Feb. 7, 2013
The Big Conversation
The sparring match between the governors of Texas and California is starting to take on tones of a full-blown rivalry.
The sniping started Monday, when Gov. Rick Perry announced a new radio ad campaign in California intended to lure businesses to Texas.
"Building a business is tough, but I hear building a business in California is next to impossible," Perry says in the ad, which touts the state's "zero state income tax, low overall tax burden, sensible regulations and a fair legal system."
California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, responded on Tuesday with a colorful retort ...
Comments (32)
Justin Davis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Then those states such as California should worry about keeping companies and jobs instead of complaining about losing them partially due to their high taxes. Texas has an ability to be job friendly so we can have more jobs to grow our economy.
Eric Bittner
So, Gov. Good Hair wants to attract wealthy, liberal, California millionaires to Texas. Good idea.
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Got to love the really high class reply about passing gas And just what does football have to do with any of this? Liberals just demonstrating why Texas is on top and they are childish losers. Too funny.
Debbie Spencer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Texas offers lots of tax incentives to bring businesses here and the cost is merely a donation to his ongoing campaign. Oh yes, we have jobs in Texas, most of them pay minimum wage.
Patricia Long Turner via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Loving my state, I'm pretty hurt by the harshness of the Scto Bee article, but can't find any untruths in it, except perhaps the diploma claim. Truth hurts sometimes.
Jalapeño Schwartz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Spot on!
Benjamin Collins via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Sounds like very sour grapes to me.
Kathy Kennemer Genet via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The tax incentives given to businesses to relocate to Texas are a way for Perry to take Texans' tax money and shunt it off to his cronies. I'm not sure attracting millionaires who like getting state handouts, but don't like paying taxes is actually a plus for the average taxpayer.
Linda Smith via Texas Tribune on Facebook
he's a joke, but he has the machine behind him, so we're probably stuck with him
Kipling Oren via Texas Tribune on Facebook
He can steal jobs from other states because the regulatory and tax climate in those other states is not conducive to growth. Good for him.
Jason Holmes via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Call it what you will, but California is proof that liberal policies do not work.
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
They know him all too well.
Marie Jones Collins via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why California? I
Joseph Lippert via Texas Tribune on Facebook
He uses tax money to stimulate the economy by giving tax and land breaks to businesses, who then pay inadequate taxes to maintain an education system that can't maintain a system and curriculum to graduate the students businesses need...who then...
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Jerry Brown actually governs, RIck Perry is just an empty suit, a tool for lobbyists and an embarrassment to the state. Texas continues to be a leader in air pollution and a failure in educating kids. These jobs are mostly fracking, manual labor & service jobs and business is going to high-tail it out of Texas as the water runs out. Only idiot governors sue the EPA!
Margaret Metcalf via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Haha..CA, that great liberal progressive thinking state...worried about little old backwards Texas?
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
California is doing just fine, but Texas is still the biggest (lobbyist) whorehouse in the USA
Nora Moss DeKreek via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We should ALL be worried about TX....at least until this pathetic excuse of a leader is out of office. Our schools need our tax dollars...not big businesses in other states.... Companies that will leave once they realize no one is educated well enough to employ!
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
LOL Lusia, Jerry Brown Governs? That is a laugh. The state who can not balance it books and issues IOU's. A State whose school district and cities are on the verge of bankruptcy due to fiscal irresponsibility. Yeah, California is the paramour of good governance.
If California is so great then why is it that Texas emerged from the recession the quickest? It is because businesses are moving here and people are being employed with jobs well above minimum wage. The fact that Texas is not a welfare state helps. Those who are whining about businesses coming here just do not get it just as California does not get it. They do not realize when you over regulate and over tax business they will leave.
Katie Martinez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
1996, what a year. That was the good ol' days.
D W
i suppose that California will start running adds in Texas to try and poach Texas businesses. can see them now, why stay in a state where water will become expensive and rare, where electricity prices tend to stay high and will go even higher. and where you will have to transport almost all of your goods because the local residents can't afford to buy them. and then there is high price of insurance, but hey will a little lower taxes 9not much) made up for by higher fees. and property taxes. but we have low (really low) cost labor.
Arthur M. Thomas IV via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No politician can create jobs other than government jobs paid for by theft from the market.
And apparently the Bee rants like a youtube commentor.
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I love all the rants about CA and it's politics by people who have probably never crossed the Texas border.
CA is doing just fine, especially since getting rid of Arnold.
Property taxes in TX are ridiculous. They are much higher than CA. Plus the people actually get real services for the taxes they do pay.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
LOL, I see Stanley admires a state that can not pay its bills and its cities are going bankrupt.
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Once again, you write about things you have no clue about.
Ron Blancarte via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What did Perry expect? When you start slinging mud at one state, expect for people to sling it back. What is even worse, while Perry made a few claims on California, this article lays bare a TON of Texas flaws.
I said it yesterday, I will say it today - we are in this together - in case he missed it UNITED States. We need to work together, not try to crush everyone else.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wow I guess you can not read. The Papers have been writing about the unfunded liabilities that California has. The papers have written much about California not having. California cities are going bankrupt like Duarte, San Bernardino, Stockton and Mammoth Lakes . School district in California are not far behind them. So please go educate yourself first.
eyeswideopen
California is broke. Their schools under perform even ours. The cost of living is outrageous. Compare the cost of a 3000 sq ft house in the two states. Compare the cost of a gallon of gas....and there is the personal income tax thing out there. I lived there for four years as a kid and again for a year as an adult. It sucked. I quit a great paying job and moved back to Texas.
This being said, our goofy governor is stupid to whore around for Californians. It is just a low rent thing to do. No class whatsoever. If they grow tired of the fiscal irresponsibility and the heavy tax burden they are asked to take on, they will find their way here without King Perry whistling and waving his hands in their faces.
We, on the other hand, when we grow weary of the cronyism and embarrassment Perry offers, don't have to leave...we can just send him away. I, personally, can't wait for that day.
Merryl Redding via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Who cares what Sacramento Bee says? Of coarse they're going to mock Gov Perry, don't you remember 2nd grade? My daddy can beat your daddy......
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Those are conservatve towns, that were mismanaged. (surprise) Just like Orange County--the largest concentration of Republikkkans in Amercia-- went bankrupt last decade. Those are not liberal enclave.
By the way California, has balanced it's budget under Governor Brown. And once again--Californians get service for the taxes they pay-- unlike TX. Also the property taxes in Tx are ridiculous.
"educate yourself first"? What the hell does that suppose to mean. I live in CA. numbnutz. I lived in TX 50 years before moving to CA.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Stanley, you must be blind, deaf and dumb. Because the liberals have run that state into the ground. The Democrats run and control the state house and they were unable to pass a budget. They were the ones having to pay using IOU's.
The cities listed were predominately democrat controlled. As for Orange County, yes it is Republican but it was the DEMOCRAT treasurer Robert Citron's whose investment strategies caused the problem.
Texas gets services for the taxes it pays. While we have property taxes the difference in tax burden is not that much different. We do not have that onerous Income Tax and the sales tax is lower.
Like I said, educate yourself first!!
Debra Uetz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
California is losing population, the population that pays taxes. And Texas is gaining the tax paying population. What does that tell everyone? Also, no state income tax in Texas; I wish Iowa could copy Texas in this regard.