by Gail Collins
155 “Nationally, all we are doing”: James Drew, “Report Says Texas Enterprise Fund Not Creating Jobs as Promised,” Dallas Morning News, January 28, 2010.
155 Reporters discovered: Mark Maremont, “Behind Perry’s Jobs Success, Numbers Draw New Scrutiny,” Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2011.
155 Texas Energy Center: Alec MacGillis, “The Permanent Candidate: What’s Driving Rick Perry?” New Republic, October 20, 2011.
156 whopping local incentives: Dan McGraw, “What Free Parking?” Fort Worth Weekly, January 9, 2008.
156 “I know I speak”: “Cabela’s Opening Buda,” press release, Office of Governor Rick Perry, June 29, 2005.
156 “But the property”: McGraw, “What Free Parking?”
157 The lure, said Hilmar: “Recession Pounds Perry’s Jobs Fund,” Texans for Public Justice, January 27, 2010.
157 When people in the Hilmar: Jane Kay, “Bad Water? It’s the Cheese,” Environmental Health News, September 13, 2010.
157 Water quality enforcers: Chris Bowman, “The World’s Biggest Cheese Factory Fouled Water and Air for Years,” Sacramento Bee, December 12, 2004.
157 Then came the fine: “Recession Pounds Perry’s Jobs Fund.”
158 Three years later: Ibid.
158 “The most important”: Rick Wartzman, “Texas, the Jobs Engine,” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2011.
158 “Here is what can happen”: Mimi Swartz, “Hurt. Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad!” Texas Monthly, November 2005.
160 McAllen: Atul Gawande, “The Cost Conundrum,” The New Yorker, June 1, 2009.
160 In 2010, Texas families: C. Schoen, A. K. Fryer, S. R. Collins, and D. C. Radley, “State Trends in Premiums and Deductibles, 2003–2010: The Need for Action to Address Rising Costs,” Commonwealth Fund, November, 2011.
161 “Where previously hundreds”: Terry Carter, “Insult to Injury,” American Bar Association Journal, October 1, 2011.
163 Texas’s population is also young: Gary Maler and Harold D. Hunt, “The Changing Face of Texas.” Texas A & M University Real Estate Center, July 2010, available at: http://recenter.tamu.edu/pdf/1938.pdf.
163 Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso: Andrew Rice, “Life on the Line,” New York Times Magazine, July 28, 2011.
163 The state has only two: “LSG Analysis and Recommendations on State of Higher Education in Texas,” Legislative Study Group, Texas House of Representatives, May 29, 2008.
163 All the four-year institutions: Laylin Copelin, “Should Perry Get Credit for Texas Economy?” Austin American-Statesman, July 17, 2011.
164 Counting in a different way: Ana Campoy and Sara Murray, “Public Sector Added to Texas Jobs Boom,” Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2011.
164 In 2008, the Texas comptroller: “Fort Hood Impacts Texas Economy by $10.9 Billion,” May 13, 2008.
164 6,000 more soldiers: Jeanna Smialek, “Ten Reasons Why the Texas Economy Is Growing That Have Nothing to Do with Rick Perry,” Texas on the Potomac (blog), chron.com (Houston Chronicle online edition), July 31, 2011.
165 “Government doesn’t create”: Campoy and Murray, “Public Sector Added to Texas Jobs Boom.”
165 “the key to prosperity”: Ibid.
166 Nearly 10 percent: Lori Taylor and Heather Gregory, “Low Texas Wages Are Mostly Good News,” Austin American-Statesman, July 16, 2011.
166 California, Florida, and Illinois: Ibid.
11: The Other Side of the Coin
Interviews: David Evans, David Lopez, Paige Phelps, Mark Strama.
167 Policy wonks: Copelin, “Should Perry Get Credit for Texas Economy?”
168 One of the high points: “Texas on the Brink: Fifth Edition,” Texas House of Representatives, Legislative Study Group, February 2011.
169 “This report makes”: April Castro, “Study Reveals Texas Has Low Tax, Expenditures,” Associated Press via LubbockOnline, February 16, 2011.
170 “the Texas state climatologist”: Neal Lane and Robert Harriss, “Climate Data Spark Battle in Congress,” Houston Chronicle, July 17, 2011.
170 In 2011, reporters from: “Former St. Luke’s Neurosurgeon Resigns from Texas Practice,” Duluth News Tribune, October 1, 2011.
170 During their investigation: Brandon Stahl and Mark Stodghill, “In Texas, Former Duluth Surgeon May Be Sanction-Free,” Duluth News Tribune, May 31, 2011.
170 If you’re poor and mentally ill: Polly Ross Hughes, “Mental Health Reform Plans Meet Resistance,” Houston Chronicle, July 5, 2004.
171 Senator John Cornyn: “Interview with Texas Senator John Cornyn,” National Association of Wholesale Distributors, August, 2008.
171 In 2009, the Department: Andrea Ball, “Years After Mental Health Overhaul, New Picture of Needs Emerging,” Austin American-Statesman, December 6, 2009.
171 Texans with mental illness: Patricia Kilday Hart, “Cop Drama,” Texas Monthly, August 2010.
171 “The largest psychiatric”: Ibid.
174 In Minnesota: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Health Insurance Coverage of the Total Population, States (2008–2009), U.S. (2009), available at: http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparetable.jsp?ind=125&cat=3&sort=a&gsa=2.
175 a $1.2 billion budget: Mike Morris, “Harris County OKs Leanest Budget in Years,” Houston Chronicle, March 8, 2011.
175 If you’re a young doctor: Emily Ramshaw, “Conditions, Health Risks Sicken Colonias Residents,” Texas Tribune, July 10, 2011.
12: We’ve Seen the Future, and It’s Texas
Interviews: Joaquín Castro, Henry Cisneros, Shella Condino, Rodney Ellis, Bill Hobby, Dennis McEntire, Steve Murdock, Richard Murray, Robert Sanborn, Lionel Sosa, Teloa Swinnea.
179 “They used to take us there”: Zev Chafets, “The Post-Hispanic Hispanic Politician,” New York Times Magazine, May 9, 2010.
182 “Rosie Castro’s son”: Ibid.
183 The Texas legislature actually passed: Ibid.
183 Dick Armey ran into: Michael Sokolove, “Dick Armey Is Back on the Attack,” New York Times Magazine, November 4, 2009.
183 During the 2011 state legislative session: Mariano Castillo, “Texas Immigration Bill Has Big Exception,” CNN, March 1, 2011.
183 There was a bill: Tim Eaton, “Many Immigration Bills Not Likely to Make It Through Legislature,” Austin American-Statesman, May 10, 2011.
184 “Illegal immigration is”: Rick Casey, “A Suicidal Circular Firing Squad,” Houston Chronicle, July 4, 2011.
184 “Voter fraud is a problem”: Ibid.
187 Then he was indicted: Lauri Apple and Mike Clark-Madison, “Dumb and Dapper,” Austin Chronicle, July 4, 2003; Guillermo Contreras, “Ex-Attorney General Morales at Halfway House,” Houston Chronicle, December 22, 2006.
187 But the big, whopping: Guy Gugliotta, “Regarding Henry,” Washington Post, October 12, 1994.
189 And all the trend lines: Stephen L. Klineberg, “Public Perception in Remarkable Times: Tracking Change Through 24 Years of Houston Surveys,” Rice University Department of Sociology Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life, 2005.
191 One was the legal limit: Ericka Mellon, “Class Sizes Grow Amid State Budget Cuts,” Houston Chronicle, October 18, 2011.
191 A district north of Fort Worth: Morgan Smith, “Fees for Students Redefine ‘Free’ Public School,” Texas Tribune, July 29, 2011.
191 Texas was already forty-seventh: “Texas on the Brink,” Texas Legislative Study Group, February 2011, available at: http://texaslsg.org/texasonthebrink/?p=1. See Appendix.
Bibliography
Books
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Brands, H.W. Lo
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Appendix
Texas on the Brink
A Report from the Texas Legislative Study on the State of Our State
“Texas on the Brink” is a measure of how the state stands up to the rest of the country, published at the beginning of every two-year session by the Legislative Study Group in the Texas House of Representatives.
When this 2011 version was produced, Representative Garnet Coleman was chair of the group. Its other officers were Representative Lon Burnam, vice chair, Representative Elliott Naishtat, treasurer, and Representative Rafael Anchia, secretary. The staff included Joe Madden, executive director, Phillip Martin, policy director, and policy analysts Jasie Boyd, Cappreese Crawley, David Kanewske, Lisa Mathews, Ashley Reeder, Kira Ruben, Mimi Tran, Rachel Watson, and Kimberly Willis.
Just spending money isn’t a sign of progress. If your state came in at the bottom on student achievement, you probably wouldn’t be comforted by the news that it had paid the most per capita on its students. And Texas does have a low cost of living. So the fact that it ranks forty-fourth in per pupil expenditures might not mean anything at all—if the high school graduate rate didn’t clock in at forty-third.
If you check out only one thing, look at the numbers on the environment—and then contemplate the fact that Texas members of Congress and Texas governors have spent the last couple of decades bitterly denouncing the Environmental Protection Administration for meddling in things that Texas can take care of for itself.
—Gail Collins
Texas on the Brink
Since 1836, Texas has stood as an icon of the American dream.
Blessed with land, rivers, oil, and other abundant natural resources, early Texas welcomed everyone from cattle ranchers to braceros, from cotton farmers to Chinese railroad workers. These pioneers built a great state, and together we fulfilled a destiny.
From humble beginnings, we built a state with the firm belief that every Texan might rise as high and as far as their spirit, hard work, and talent might carry them. With education and determination every Texan might achieve great success—home ownership, reliable healthcare, safe neighborhoods, and financial prosperity.
In Texas today, the American dream is distant. Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the nation. Texas is dead last in the percentage of residents with their high school diploma and near last in SAT scores. Texas has America’s dirtiest air. If we do not change course, for the first time in our history, the Texas generation of tomorrow will be less prosperous than the generation of today.
Without the courage to invest in the minds of our children and steadfast support for great schools, we face a daunting prospect. Those who value tax cuts over children and budget cuts over
college have put Texas at risk in her ability to compete and succeed.
Let us not forget that the business of Texas is Texans. To ‘Close the Gap’ in Texas, we must graduate more of our best and brightest with the skills to succeed in a world based on knowledge. If we invest in our greatest resource—our children—Texas will be the state of the future. If we do not, Texas will only fall further behind.
Texas is on the brink, but Texas can do better. The choice is ours.
State Rankings
State Taxes
(50th=Lowest, 1st=Highest)
•
Tax Revenue Raised per Capita1
46th
•
Tax Expenditures per Capita2
47th
•
Sales Tax per Capita3
15th
Education
(50th=Lowest, 1st=Highest)
•
Public School Enrollment4
2nd
•
Average Salary of Public School Teachers5
33rd
•
Average Teacher Salary as a Percentage of Average Annual Pay6
34th
•
Current Expenditures per Student7
38th
•
State & Local Expenditures per Pupil in Public Schools8
44th
•
State Aid per Pupil in Average Daily Attendance9
47th
•
Percent of Elementary/Secondary School Funding from State Revenue10
37th
•
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) Scores11
45th
•
Percent of Population 25 and Older with a High School Diploma12
50th
•
High School Graduation Rate13
43rd
