Like an aging rocker, Texas Governor Rick Perry is currently on the 2013 I’m Coming For Your Jobs tour across America. His first stop: California a couple months ago. This week he’s in Illinois, where he got a nasty reception from public officials. The trips are part of an effort to get businesses from highly taxed and heavily regulated states to relocate down South — but his efforts may fall flat, if recent history is any indication.
Texas has arguably become one of the few true economic success stories since the recession. The state has an unemployment rate of around 6% and a $9 billion budget surplus, even as many states struggle with 8% and 9% unemployment and severe budget deficits.
The state is run by pro-business Republicans in the state legislature, along with Gov. Perry, who supports low regulation and low taxes. Texas doesn’t have an individual income tax, either. Its minimum wage is lower than other left-leaning states, which keeps labor costs down. Prices for land and housing are low. And the oil and natural gas boom in recent years has kept jobs from leaving the state. The tradeoff for all this, of course: Texas’s relatively flimsy social safety net.
But Perry still isn’t satisfied with business in Texas. The governor sees even more potential if he can just lure corporations away from states that aren’t as friendly to business. The two states he’s visited so far, California and Illinois, rank 50th and 48th, respectively, in a survey of best states for business, according to a recent poll in the Wall Street Journal.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.time.com ...
