Posts Tagged ‘WILLisms’

Texas vs. California Update for May 21, 2015

Thursday, May 21st, 2015

Time for another Texas vs. California update:

  • “March marked a phenomenal run of 99 consecutive months when Texas’ unemployment rate was at or below the national average.” Also: “Texas employs an impressive two and a half times more people since December 2007 than the rest of the nation combined.”
  • The Texas state legislature is on the verge of passing an actual conservative budget.
  • Will Franklin looks at local bond debt in Texas. It’s creeping up, partially due to big government advocates scheduling off-year bond elections when fewer people are voting. Even so, voters seem willing to reject big-ticket bond items.
  • San Bernardino’s bankruptcy plan: CalPERS gets theirs, bondholders get screwed.
  • And San Bernardino is planning to outsource their firefighting operations, not least of which because the fire department sucks up $7 million worth of overtime a year. And the fact their union stopped participating in bankruptcy talks didn’t help… (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • How a few wealthy California environmentalists give the illusion of a mass movement.
  • How retroactive pension increases destroyed California budgets. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • California is a victim of repeated short-sighted thinking.
  • Los Angeles joins the minimum wage hike bandwagon. Expect another wave of small business closure stories over the next few months…
  • Why public employee unions are the elephant in the room for California’s debt crisis. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
  • California’s majority Democrats shelve legislative transparency bill written by Republican. This is my shocked face.
  • Compton teachers get laid off, Do-Da, Do-Da…
  • “In another corporate exodus from Torrance, California, to North Texas, Kubota Tractor Corp. and Kubota Credit Corp. announced Thursday that they will move their headquarters to Grapevine from the Los Angeles area.”
  • “The number of young adults admitted to California hospital emergency rooms with heroin poisoning increased sixfold over the past decade.” (Hat tip: Cal WatchDog.)
  • The Weinstein Company hit with $130 million lawsuit. File under: Hollywood Accounting.

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Regulation, Texas, unions, Welfare State | No Comments »

    Red States Produce Jobs, Blue States Produce the Homeless

    Friday, March 28th, 2014

    Will Franklin has a detailed piece up correlating homelessness with Democratic Party rule.

    “It turns out that when it comes to mitigating homelessness, the blue state model is just as deeply flawed as the failed blue state model for job creation and economic growth.”

    Substance abuse, broken families, or mental illness– tragedies all– often drive people to homelessness, but long-term unemployment and a general lack of economic vitality play a critical role in pushing people out of their homes (and keeping them out). Indeed, when it comes to reducing homelessness caused by economic hardship, we can chalk up another win for Texas and the red state model.

    Snip.

    California, with just under 12% of the nation’s population, has 22.43% of the nation’s homeless population, giving it a homelessness quotient of 0.88. Quite high, in other words. Almost double the number of homeless people one would predict, given its population.

    Texas, which has roughly 8.2% of the nation’s population, only has 4.85% of the nation’s homeless population (meaning: Texas has a quite low homelessness quotient of -0.41).

    Read the whole thing.

    Tags:, , , , , ,
    Posted in Economics, Texas | No Comments »

    Even More on Wendy Davis Failure

    Monday, March 17th, 2014

    Will Franklin has dug even deeper in to the primary voting statistics and they are, if anything, actually worse than previously reported (which were already plenty bad).

    A few examples:

  • Her vote totals were down in the Rio Grande Valley when compared with Bill White.
  • Bill White’s two Hispanic opponents in 2010 received 2.83% and 4.95% of the statewide primary vote, compared to Davis Opponent Ray Madrigal pulling in just under 21% despite no fundraising and minimal campaigning.
  • “Despite Wendy Davis’ massive, hyped, well-funded, all-star staffed voter registration effort with Battleground Texas and millions of dollars from out-of-state, today there are 45,000 fewer Texans registered to vote than in November 2012.”
  • “In Texas’ 5 most populous counties, there were 12,897 fewer total Democratic votes than in 2010 and 62,469 fewer than in 2002.”
  • “In a practically uncontested primary, Wendy Davis spent more than Bill White in a contested primary, to achieve poorer primary results.”
  • The total vote margin Greg Abbott received in Harris County alone is almost double the vote margin Davis earned in the five largest counties she won more votes than Abbott in.

    • Read the whole thing.

    Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »

    WILLisms Breaks Down Democratic Turnout Failure

    Wednesday, March 5th, 2014

    Will Franklin has an interesting piece up detailing just how poorly Democrats did in primary turnout on Tuesday, noting that both the Democratic Party total, and Wendy Davis’ numbers compared to Bill White, were down significantly from 2010. By contrast, “Abbott received 1,219,831 votes, or 91.50% in a four-way primary race. 1,333,010 Republicans voted in the 2014 primary.”

    For all the money BattleGround Texas is pouring into the state, Democrats are doing worse than they did in 2010.

    Although Franklin doesn’t go into the 2012 numbers, I’d also like to note that overall Democratic votes are down from 590,164 in 2012 to 546,480. Normally a presidential election year will have higher numbers, but there were no big-money, hotly contested races at the top of the Democratic ticket that year. Turnout should have been up this year. It wasn’t.

    More Will Franklin:

    In short, there is a partisan enthusiasm gap in Texas, and Republicans are winning it. Democrats have years of soul searching and retooling to do before they’ll even sniff winning their first statewide race since the early 90s. Anointing someone known almost exclusively for filibustering on behalf of elective late-term abortion post 5 months of pregnancy may have set the Democrats’ plan back at least one full election cycle, if not more.”

    Read the whole thing.

    Tags:, , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Texas vs. California Update for May 9, 2013

    Thursday, May 9th, 2013

    Time for another Texas vs. California update!

  • “It’s time for public employee unions to wake up and take a look around. Government services are shrinking, cities are crumbling, and they’re enjoying pay and benefit packages that many in the private sector would kill for. They need to give a little back…Because up and down the state of California, and beyond, public officials foolishly negotiated contracts they can’t pay for without taking a cleaver to basic services, including police and fire protection, park maintenance, street repair.”
  • California’s total government debt, at all levels, is estimated between $848 billion and $1.126 trillion. Funny how the word “trillion” crops up in reference to debt when Democrats are in charge of things…
  • ObamaCare is going to hit California harder than most states.
  • A group of California teacher’s has filed suit against the California Teachers Association for using their money for political purposes. You don’t say.
  • More on Compulsory California union “agency fees.”
  • The New York Times all but comes out and says that the LA Times is an extension of the Democratic Party. Which is why both the MSM and the Left are panicking that it might be sold to the Koch Brothers.
  • Average employee pay at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power rose 15% over the last five years, despite an economic slump that ravaged the city’s budget, records released Tuesday show.
  • In a rare spot of good news for California, their revenue are running just far enough ahead of schedule that they no longer need to make do with internal borrowing between state agencies. But I would suggest that this windfall will prove to be temporary…
  • Texas once again named the best state for business by CEO Magazine. And California was once again named the worst.
  • A tale of two oil states.
  • Raytheon moving HQ from California to Texas.
  • Texas doctors open up a new front against ObamaCare.

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Economics, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Texas, video | 3 Comments »

    Texas vs. California Roundup for February 6, 2013

    Wednesday, February 6th, 2013
  • CalPERS: the pension fund that ate California. A tale filled with lies, waste, and outright corruption that’s even worse than I thought (and I thought it plenty bad).
  • Via the indispensable Will Franklin comes this eye-opening comparison of welfare in California vs. Texas. “As you can see, California is practically in a quadrant unto itself, indicating a lot of people receiving a lot each in welfare benefits. Meanwhile, Texas is situated precisely in the opposite corner of the graphic, indicating that a low percentage of Texas’ residents are receiving welfare, and among those who are receiving welfare, they’re receiving smaller benefits than those living essentially anywhere else in the country.” Read the whole thing. And get a gander at the chart.
  • Jerry Brown gets voters to approve a measure that cuts California public employee union pensions a tiny, weensie bit. The result? “California Public Employees’ Retirement System is essentially going to defy the order that pensions will be calculated based on base pay by declaring enhancements and bonuses are part of base pay.” And some unions are suing to opt out. And Brown isn’t even willing to defend the reforms in court.
  • “The highest-paid 10 percent of Southern California Edison employees earned at least $418.8 million in combined total compensation during 2011, and charged at least $11.8 million to their expense accounts, according to a report the public utility filed with the state. SCE’s most recent annual report showed 19 executives and other SCE employees received more than $1 million in total compensation during 2011, and at least 130 others received $300,000 or more in total compensation.”
  • Judge in Stockton bankruptcy: Sure, it’s OK to screw bondholders. Go right ahead.
  • Professional athletes are leaving high tax states like California for low-tax states like Texas and Florida.
  • At least Texans know how much they owe.
  • Here’s the official Texas state document on local debt. Texas cities, alas, haven’t been nearly as frugal as the state legislature has been.
  • Speaking of not being as frugal as they could be, here’s the place to search Texas pension funds. I might delve more into these two links when I have time.
  • Texas Public Policy Foundation on keeping Texas competitive.
  • And if you haven’t kept up with Dwight’s updates on the Bell corruption trial, you really should.

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    The Case for Rick Perry

    Monday, January 2nd, 2012

    Ace of Spades makes his case for Rick Perry here.

    Since that piece came out December 19, it’s hardly cutting edge news. But I’ve been ruminating on it for a while to try and figure out if I have anything more to add. I think I do. And with the Iowa Caucuses looming, I probably should.

    I haven’t covered much of the 2012 Presidential race, mainly because I’ve been focusing on the Texas Senate Race and everyone and their dog was blogging every twist in the POTUSA race.

    OMG! Ron Paul is up 3 points!

    Plus I don’t have cable, so I wouldn’t be able to watch the interminable numerous debates.

    Finally, a baseball team the Astros can beat

    Which is why I didn’t see Perry commit his brain freezes, of which there were many. (My theory is that he was still hopped up on goofballs from his back operation.)

    Percocet makes me see tiny little Jim Hightowers, and I have to grab and crush each and every one of them

    Having lived in Texas for the entirety of Rick Perry’s tenure as governor, I can attest that he is not a perfect candidate. There have been times (Gardasil, the Trans-Texas Corridor) when he’s strayed from conservative principles. And he’s not as polished as Mitt Romney or as articulate as Newt Gingrich.

    But Perry isn’t running against the second coming of Ronald Reagan, or even Sarah Palin. Every other major Republican contender is not only at least as flawed, they’re considerably more so.

  • Despite cheer-leading from the likes of Kathryn Jean Lopez and Jennifer Rubin, Mitt Romney has always struck me as a phony without any real core convictions except that he should be in charge; sort of the Republican answer to Bill Clinton, without the charm or adultery. Pick an issue and Romney’s been on both sides of it at one time or another. He seems the most likely of all the major candidates to be praised by The New York Times and The Washington Post for “growing” in office. Romney is most likely to disappoint me in caving in to D.C.’s usual free-spending, pork-barrel log-rolling.
  • I could get behind voting for the Newt Gingrich of 1994, the one whose laser-like focus on the holding the Democrats accountable for their misdeed and promoting the Contract With America helped Republicans take the House and Senate, set the stage for a welfare reform and helped (temporarily) balance the budget. Sadly, that Gingrich is not up on offer. We have to deal with the idea-a-minute-and-many-of-them-bad, ex-lobbyist, “Big Government Conservative” Newt Gingrich of 2012, the one so devastatingly and accurately skewered by Mark Steyn in this week’s National Review. (As Bruce Sterling once said at a Turkey City Writer’s Workshop, “Cruel, but fair!”) No matter how many times he tries to sound like Reagan, there are all those other times when he sounds like everyone from Al Gore to Faith Popcorn. I imagine that I would be disappointed many times in a Gingrich Presidency. Unlike Romney, I’m sure Gingrich would find entirely new and innovative ways to disappoint me.
  • I could almost get behind Ron Paul, based on his absolute, rock-steady position on the biggest problem facing America: out-of-control government spending and ever-increasing size and power of the federal government. The debt bomb is an existential threat to American prosperity, and If we don’t shrink government and get the deficit under control, none of the other issues really matter. And I lean heavily on the libertarian side of the spectrum. But even given that, there’s just too much weirdness (what Kevin Williamson called “his Ronness”) about the rest of Paul’s policies: the newsletters, the footsie with racism, the conspiracy theories, the weirdness about gays and wishing Israel didn’t exist, the running against Reagan. Being just one of 435 House members was a great place for Paul to be, since he could bring up conservative and Libertarian issues without any chance that his wackier ideas would ever end up in legislation, but the Presidency is a different kettle of fish. Plus there’s the problem of his electability, or rather lack thereof. With all his diverse baggage, I believe that Paul is the GOP candidate Obama would have the best chance of defeating. Ignore all the hard-left liberals talking up Paul as a better choice than Obama; it’s just a smokescreen that would evaporate at the first excuse to jump back on the Obama bandwagon. William F. Buckley always said conservative should support the right-most viable candidate. I don’t think Paul is a viable candidate.
  • Michelle Bachmann’s star has faded even more than Perry’s, and she doesn’t have Perry’s executive experience or record on job creation. The fact she’s neither dumb nor crazy doesn’t mean the MSM won’t pull the Full Sarah Palin Treatment on her (Andrew Sullivan womb-diving optional) were she to get the nod.
  • Rick Santorum: Too little, too late, he lost his last election, and his strengths don’t lie in the economy and job creation.
  • Jon Huntsman: Which part of “Republican” was unclear?

    • By process of elimination, that leaves Perry. As I said before, Perry isn’t perfect, but he has a record on holding the line on government spending and enabling job creation that puts Romney to shame. One again, let’s go to the charts that the indispensable Will Franklin of Willisms has provided on Texas job creation:

    And the case for Perry over Romney (again thanks to WILLisms) is even more stark:

    More on the Texas job success story here.

    While I have criticized Perry’s campaign budget proposals for being too timid, Perry insisted on balancing the Texas budget without tax hikes. I assure you that California would love to have Texas’ budget. Indeed, adjusted for inflation, population growth, and federally-mandated spending, the Texas state budget has actually gone down under Perry. His guiding principle has been “don’t spend all the money,” and it’s one that Washington desperately needs.

    One final, very big reason to support Perry: He can win. Perry’s never lost a race, because he’s a tough and tenacious campaigner who’s not afraid to hit his opponents hard. Everyone thought Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to cream Perry in the 2010 governor’s race, and he beat her like a rented mule.

    Or maybe a rented donkey.

    In the general election against Bill White, he ran an ad featuring a police widow talking about how her husband had been killed by a multi-arrested illegal alien while White was touting Houston as a “sanctuary city.”

    Even professional MSM Perry hater Paul Burka says that Perry is a hard man. “He is the kind of politician who would rather be feared than loved.” Perry will have absolutely no fear of taking the fight to Obama and going negative early and often, and he won’t let political correctness cow him into treating Obama with kid gloves.

    Will the media savage Rick Perry for his flubs? Of course they will. But, as Ace noted, they’ll always find a way to crucify any Republican candidate to make Obama look better. They’ll use the same “he’s an idiot” line of attack they used on Reagan and Bush43…and you saw how far that got them.

    If you’re still undecided on Perry, this video should at least give you a more rounded picture of him:

    For those who think Perry is already out of the race, remember that at this point in 2004, the consensus was that Howard Dean was going to be the nominee. There’s a reason Americans actually get to vote, and they frequently prove the pundits wrong.

    One final reason to vote for Perry: he’s a pretty good shot.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Elections, Guns, Obama Scandals, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »