Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 881 -- Dependence On Government Grows.

Record Highs-

We're creating a dependency culture, a society with government as father figure. This is no good. No good at all:

The number of Americans who pay taxes continues to shrink—and the United States is close to the point at which half of the population will not pay taxes for government benefits they receive. In 2009, 64.3 million Americans depended on the government (read: their fellow citizens) for their daily housing, food, and health care. Starting in 2015, the Social Security program will not receive enough taxes to pay all the promised benefits—which will be hard for all job-holders, but devastating for roughly half the American workforce that has no other retirement program. Add in last year’s preposterously named American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, spiraling academic grants, flat-out farm socialism, the swelling ranks of Americans who believe themselves entitled to “free” government benefits—and now the government takeover of the nation’s health care system—and the very nature of this country’s republican form of government is called into question.

Blech. The nation is on the wrong track.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: It May Take Ten More Years Just To Return To Peak Employment Levels.

Posted by Will Franklin · 14 October 2010 04:12 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 880 -- It May Take Ten More Years Just To Return To Peak Employment Levels.

U.S. Won’t Recover Lost Jobs Until March 2020 At Current Pace-

America is in trouble:

The U.S. economy lost 95,000 jobs in September, far worse than expectations for no change in employment. More Census-related temp jobs ended, as expected, but state and local governments slashed staff far more than predicted.

So far in 2010, the U.S. has added just 613,000 jobs — for a monthly average of 68,111.

Employment bottomed in December 2009 at 129.588 million — two years after peaking at 137.951 million. At this year’s pace, the U.S. won’t recoup all those 8.36 million lost jobs* until March 2020 — 147 months after the December 2007 high.

That would obliterate the old post-World War II record of 47 months set in the wake of the 2001 recession.

The current jobs slump also is the deepest of any in the post-war era, with payrolls down as much as 6.1%. They are still 5.6% below their December 2007 level.

No wonder the Chilean miner situation is so compelling. We need some freaking good news.

Not-so-incidentally, Texas has bounced back best toward pre-recession employment levels, of all the states, according to the good folks at Texanomics:

We need more Texas-style free market solutions and fewer socialist edicts from Washington, D.C.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Congress Spending Too Much.

Posted by Will Franklin · 13 October 2010 03:46 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0)

Early Voting Locations In Texas.

Guide to All Texas Early Voting Locations provided by RickPerry.org

Find your early voting location by county or city. Remember, you can vote at any location in your county during early voting (October 18-29). On election day itself (November 2, 2010), though, you'll have to vote in your specific precinct.

Posted by Will Franklin · 13 October 2010 09:57 AM · Comments (1) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 879 -- Congress Ratchets Up Spending.

Spend, Spend, Spend-

In just two years, Democrats have ratcheted up spending 21.4%:

Spending rolled in for the year that ended September 30 at $3.45 trillion, second only to 2009's $3.52 trillion in the record books.

....

Once again domestic accounts far and away led the increases. Medicaid rose by 8.7%, and unemployment benefits by an astonishing 34.3%—to $160 billion. The costs of jobless insurance have tripled in two years. CBO adds that if you take out the savings for deposit insurance, funding for all "other activities" of government—education, transportation, foreign aid, housing, and so on—rose by 13% in 2010.

As for the deficits, the 2010 total was $1.29 trillion, down slightly from $1.42 trillion. That's a two-year total of $2.7 trillion, or more than the entire amount during the Reagan Administration, when deficits were supposed to be ruinous. Now liberal economists tell us that deficits are the key to restoring prosperity.

Republicans were thrown out for spending too much. Democrats cranked up that spending into overdrive. There is a clear choice in 2010. Vote Republican.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Democrats & Republicans Are Different On Spending.

Posted by Will Franklin · 12 October 2010 09:44 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 878 -- Democrats Propose Only One Dollar In Spending Cuts For Every Fifty Dollars In New Spending.

Spend, Spend, Spend-

Congress keeps spending, without requisite offsets.

The National Taxpayers Union has the details:

In the 22 months since the 111th Congress first convened, NTUF has read, reviewed, and researched nearly 10,000 pieces of legislation. We've developed cost estimates for 2,418 of them - this means that they could increase, or decrease, federal spending by at least $1 million on an annual basis - while the others had no cost or a cost estimate has not yet been obtained.

As the accompanying graph shows, NTUF scored 1,413 House bills as spending increases and 103 bills as spending cuts. In the Senate, there were 859 bills to increase spending and 43 bills to cut it.

There is a difference between the parties, however. Republicans have proposed far more spending cuts than spending increases-- more than two times more trimming than new spending-- while Pelosi's Democrats have only proposed one dollar of cutting for every 50 dollars in new spending:

Both parties together, the House looks like this:

* Number of increase bills for each decrease bill: 13.7 to 1
* Spending increases per dollar cut: $6.21
* Percent of increases offset by cuts: 16.1%

The Senate is where Republicans could improve. In the Senate, Republicans are proposing more cuts than Democrats, yes, but their proposals would still result in net spending increases:

There is a clear difference between the parties on fiscal responsibility. Senate Republicans, however, need to follow the lead of House Republicans when it comes to spending.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Global Warming.

Posted by Will Franklin · 11 October 2010 11:16 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 877 -- Global Warming?

Texas Data-

Headlines across Texas this week warned of doomsday global warming, but what do the data actually say?

Not exactly conclusive of a great warming trend:

...over the last 100 plus years Texas temperatures exhibit a cooling trend equal to a minus 0.10 degree Fahrenheit per century. For the second graph below, the temperature trend for the last 15 years is a minus 2.7 (-2.7) degrees Fahrenheit per century. What about the warmest decade "evaaar!", ending on December 31, 2009, you may ask? Welllllll.....Texas temperatures declined during that time span declined at a minus 7.3 (-7.3) degrees per century rate.

Okay, why does the USA Today headline say otherwise? Unfortunately, the climate scientists the "objective" reporters quote base their Texas "temperatures" on the fictional, speculative, computer climate model predictions, not the actual Texas temperatures.

Read more here.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Leads Nation.

Posted by Will Franklin · 8 October 2010 12:09 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 876 -- Has Texas ALWAYS Grown Faster Than Rest Of America?

Texas' Growth Accelerated When Republicans Took Over-

Liberal trial lawyer Bill White has acknowledged out on the campaign stump that, economically, Texas is performing better than the rest of the country. His comeback, basically, is that Texas has ALWAYS performed better than the rest of the country, since Texas has existed.

The facts say otherwise.

For example, on jobs, Texas has now had a lower unemployment rate than the United States as a whole for 44 consecutive months. Before that, not usually:

Indeed, it was rare for Texas to have a better unemployment rate than the rest of the country until after Republicans in Texas took not just every statewide office, but the legislature (finally, in 2002), as well. Notice how-- other than the late 1980s/early 1990s-- the differential is at its worst just as Republicans finally took over the Texas legislature in January of 2003. Notice how it improves, improves, and improves, until it really accelerates in favor of Texas as soon as Democrats took over the U.S. Congress (and Republicans maintained big leads in the Texas legislature).

Jobs, while important, are not always the single best metric to use, though, for judging the actual health of the economy. So what about overall economic growth?

Yes, Texas has been growing for decades, as Bill White says. But it is just not true that Texas has always had higher economic growth than the rest of America. Let's look at some more Texanomics graphs of gross state product from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s:

1980s-

Texas certainly grew in the 1980s, but not nearly as fast as many other states, including Ohio, Michigan, and California.

1990s-

In 1994, Republicans won every single statewide elected office in Texas and have held them ever since.

2000s-

In 2002, Republicans finally took over the Texas legislature and elected a Republican Speaker.

It's not just the partisan breakdown. It's what Texas did in the 2003, 2005, and 2007 legislative sessions. Sweeping tort reform, cutting government spending by billions, big tax relief, and unprecedented transparency in what government spends. Huge Rainy Day fund surpluses, one of the lowest debt burdens per-capita in America, the highest bond rating in state history, four new Congressional seats in this Census, one of the lowest bankruptcy and foreclosure rates in the country, and the healthiest job and housing markets in America followed.

The conservative Texas model is beating the liberal California model, and it's not even close; but it wasn't always that way, and it didn't happen by accident.

We don't need a liberal trial lawyer like Bill White to reverse tort reform, raise taxes, and otherwise make the Obama agenda easier to ram down our throats. We don't need the most mysterious liberal in the world running our state:

Texas is America's last best hope. Why ruin that?

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Government Growth.

Read More »

Posted by Will Franklin · 7 October 2010 11:29 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 875 -- Government Growth.

Ticking Upward-

Government at all levels just keeps growing. We need a fundamental shift in how we approach revenues and expenditures.

Downsizing Government has the numbers:

We've got to get this under control.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Midterms.

Posted by Will Franklin · 1 October 2010 03:30 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 874 -- Midterms.

It's Rare That Presidents' Parties Add Seats-

The odds are already stacked against Obama. Historically, the party in the White House loses lots of seats in midterm Congressional elections. Below is the entire list of those who bucked that trend, and either lost a small number of seats, or actually gained seats:

More than two dozen midterm elections have been held over the last century. In only three has the president’s party gained House seats and in only three others have their House losses numbered eight or less. That includes President John F. Kennedy’s only midterm election, in 1962, which was colored by the Cuban missile crisis in late October.

We still have work to do to keep Obama from making this list, but it doesn't look good for the President. November is coming.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas To Gain Four New Congressional Seats.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 September 2010 01:11 PM · Comments (1)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 873 -- Texas To Gain Four New Congressional Seats.

Success Begets Success-

More Texanomics (click through to see this graph larger):

What's interesting about these numbers is that California has continued to gain population, even as its net domestic migration has been an outflow. Texas, meanwhile, has (like California) also grown due to foreign immigrants, but Texas has seen the highest number of Americans moving from other states.

The result? According to Election Data Services, Texas will pick up four Congressional seats in the upcoming reapportionment, at the expense of states like Michigan (-1), Illinois (-1), Massachusetts (-1), New Jersey (-1), New York (-2), Pennsylvania (-1), Ohio (-2), Missouri (-1), and Louisiana (-1) that are all losing seats and Electoral College Votes:

Notice what most of those states losing seats have in common. Notice what most of those states gaining seats have in common. People have voted with their feet. They have fled from Democrat-leaning states and instead chosen Republican-leaning states.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Bragging On Texas.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 September 2010 12:17 PM · Comments (2)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 872 -- Bragging On Texas.

Texas is PAC-MAN-

From Texanomics, August 2005 to August 2010:

Another look at Texas versus the other top 25 largest states:

Texas had added more jobs since 2001 than 15 states have total jobs:

Texas owning it. It's proof positive that conservative Republican ideas work.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Is A National Leader In Cleaning Up Air.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 September 2010 12:01 PM · Comments (2)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 871 -- Texas Is A National Leader In Cleaning Up Air.

EPA Overreach Threatens Texas Progress-

Texas is the number one wind energy producing state in America. If Texas were its own country (don't get any ideas), we'd be among the top 5 or 6 wind energy producing countries. Texas also produces a fifth of the nation's crude oil, a fourth of the nation's fuel supply, a fourth of the nation's natural gas, roughly 60% of the nation's chemicals.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation elaborates:

Over the last decade, as the Texas population grew by over 4 million people and the state economy grew by a rate of 40 percent, Texas air quality dramatically improved—thanks in large part to the FPP. The Houston region, in years past vying with Los Angeles as the most ozone- polluted part of the country, reduced ozone levels from 119 parts per billion (ppb) in 1999 to 84 ppb in 2009. The home of the nation’s largest petrochemical industrial complex, Houston, TX, met the still legally binding 85 ppb federal ozone standard.
In spite of the evidence that it is working, EPA decided that the Texas Flexible Permitting Program violates the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA).

Texas has become a national leader in effective and innovative environmental programs. From 2000-08, Texas lowered nitrous oxides (NOx) levels by 46 percent and ozone levels by 22 percent. Over the same period, national NOx levels fell by only 27 percent and ozone levels declined by only 8 percent.

The EPA needs to stop messing with Texas. We're adding 4 new Congressional seats. Our economy is the most robust of any large state. More jobs. Fewer bankruptcies and foreclosures. And one of the best improvements in our air quality.

For federal government bureaucrats, process and control matter more than results.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Do Primary Votes Translate Into General Election Energy?

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 September 2010 04:19 PM · Comments (2)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 870 -- Do Primary Votes Translate Into General Election Energy?

Spend, Spend, Spend-

In the 2008 election, we heard again and again that the Democrats' robust turnout in the primaries and caucuses would translate into higher turnout in the general election.

The 2010 story is nearly the inverse:

Virtually every leading political indicator points to a midterm election this November that could range anywhere from difficult to disastrous for Democrats.

The nation’s high unemployment rate, the declining approval ratings for President Barack Obama, and the Democrats’ lingering deficit in the generic congressional ballot all paint a dark picture for the ruling party.

And now, it appears, the Republicans have another indicator going in their favor – the “battle of the primary ballots.” Two years ago, the Democrats had a big edge in presidential primary turnout, a reflection of the “enthusiasm gap” that benefited them from the start of the year to the end. This time, however, it is the Republicans who have the most energy. This is evident not only in polling data but also in the GOP’s lead of more than 3 million votes over the Democrats when comparing the number of ballots cast in each party’s primaries through the end of August.

I am not completely sold on being able to universalize the "more primary voters means more general election voters" effect, since some primaries are just more competitive than others, but there could be something to it. Here are a few reasons:

1. Campaigns have to gear up for a tough primary fight, so they figure "it" out sooner than campaigns that coast through easy primary battles. This goes for mechanical campaign activities such as distributing campaign paraphernalia, signs, etc., but it also goes for messaging, staffing, and a variety of other internal campaign things.

2. If you have a heavily contested primary, and the other side doesn't, you simply have more extremely likely voters you can target for the general election. Ever wonder why you started getting mail from certain candidates or organizations all of the sudden? It's probably because you voted in enough consecutive primary elections. Your vote is private, but the fact that you voted in a certain primary is public information.

3. Even in highly negative primary campaigns, you may gain a sort of inoculation advantage. You become vaccinated against attacks. If your primary is truly contested, your opponent will use up most/all of the attacks and desensitize voters to them when they pop back up in the general election.

4. Ultimately, hotly contested primaries can energize brand-new voters. Some of the TEA party folks are infrequent voters, typically, but the satisfaction of winning a primary over the establishment RINO candidate could very well turn that infrequent voter into a dedicated, consistent, reliable activist, for years to come. Your new voters, although far more rare than the media typically portray, are going to be among your most evangelical (in the non-religious sense-- more "marked by militant or crusading zeal"). They will fight your fights. They will recruit others. They will get in the trenches and go to work, because they are true believers who aren't yet jaded.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Winning The Recession.

Posted by Will Franklin · 14 September 2010 06:41 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 869 -- America's Recession.

Job Loss Visual-

The recession is not created equal:

So, who will lead the recovery? Texas:

The debate between Richard Florida and Joel Kotkin on the future of the U.S. economy proves yet again that experts usually have trouble agreeing on anything. But when it comes to predicting what place will lead the country to a solid economic recovery, forecasters are all on the same page: Nobody's messing with Texas.

Although the economy has slowed in recent months, the prospects for a robust recovery are still looking up for the Lone Star State. Texas gained 14,000 jobs in June even as employment fell in 27 other states, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That brought Texas's total for the first half of 2010 to 178,700 -- more than twice that of any other state.

....

High-tech centers in Austin and Dallas have created an economy ranging "from cow chips to computer chips," as the Fed's Phillips put it. A tech-heavy index of the best-performing cities in the country last year by the Milken Institute, an economic think tank, ranked Austin first and placed three other Texas locales -- Killeen and environs, McAllen, and Houston -- in the top five.

Obama could learn something from Texas.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Congress Doesn't Get It.

Posted by Will Franklin · 10 September 2010 01:17 PM · Comments (0)

iPhone 4.1: HDR Photos.

Yesterday, I downloaded the new iPhone iOS 4.1 software/firmware for the iPhone 4, and today I got to try out one of the new features, the automatic HDR (High Dynamic Range) feature built right into the camera. Apple explains it this way:

Take great photos that capture a wider range of light intensity using the new high dynamic range (HDR) setting on iPhone 4, which automatically combines multiple exposures into a single HDR image.

Apparently, the way it works is that it takes three photos in rapid succession (almost instantly) to create one HDR photo. HDR is really only useful when there are varying levels of light in one shot. Some of the best real HDR photography out there can be found at the Austin-based Stuck In Customs blog.

Having been a frequent visitor at Stuck In Customs for a while now, I was skeptical about the new iPhone HDR feature, but it seems to work pretty well so far.

You can select whether or not to have the HDR turned on:

Just tap that button that says "HDR On" if you want to turn "HDR Off." Easy.

When in HDR mode, the output in your iPhone camera reel folder is two photos. One "normal mode" and an HDR photo.

So this morning, I took some photos at an outdoor endorsement press conference in downtown Austin. The "normal" photo is on the left, and the HDR version is on the right (you can click on each image to see larger files):

This one is a .gif. I should also note that for the sake of bandwidth, I downsized this in Photoshop from more than 5000 pixels wide to 1500 pixels wide. I further downsized it into a clickable thumbnail. Keep that in mind. Notice how the sky becomes much less washed out. The clouds become far more defined. The colors become more vivid and bright.

Another angle. This one, I saved as a .jpg. Both the sky and the truck become more vivid, but if you look closely there is a little distortion in the tree branches and so forth. I think I could have possibly done a better job holding still, but I didn't really know it actually took three photos in rapid succession. As Gizmodo put it:

In HDR mode, the iPhone 4 captures three exposures to combine into an HDR photo: underexposed, normal, and overexposed. Even though it's shooting those sequence of pictures pretty fast, it's not instant. So, if you move the phone, or if your subject is on the run, you're going to wind up with some mutant friends with three arms or whispy ghosts when the phone tries to mix all the photos together.

I should also note that sometimes I like to focus on the sky or background when I take photos for a cool effect, but the HDR feature seems to work best when you just focus in on the foreground subject.

I also snapped these two of Governor Perry with some of the leadership of the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters:

See the difference?

In this one, I am pretty sure I never focused the shot on anything in particular:

The people look mostly the same, but in the HDR version, Governor Perry actually blends in more with the podium than in the non-HDR version. The HDR is a huge improvement, though, in terms of the washed out sky and bright, concentrated sun pouring over the building.

In this one, from roughly the same position and angle, I tap-focused on the sky, and here's what resulted:

Clearly, an improvement.

Finally, if your subject is moving and gesturing, as Governor Perry tends to do when he speaks, you may get something like this:

The HDR version looks much better, but the main subject looks like a hologram or someone from The Matrix.

Generally, I am a fan of the HDR feature on the iPhone 4.1 firmware. I like that it keeps the "normal" version if you are inclined to go in with Photoshop and do a more manual fix, but I also like that it does tend to help photos. You can either choose it or not. Not locked in either way. This is a feature that, with practice, can probably produce some cool shots.

Overall, the camera on the iPhone 4 is one of the most important upgrades over my old iPhone 3G. I shot this picture on my iPhone 4 before the HDR feature and messed around in Photoshop with the Dodge tool on the buildings and the water paper filter on the sky to create this effect:

This shot is not HDR, but I am digging the capabilities on the iPhone 4 camera, and the new HDR feature is a definite plus.

Read More »

Posted by Will Franklin · 10 September 2010 12:15 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 868 -- Congress Doesn't Get It.

Spend, Spend, Spend-

The National Taxpayers Union has scored bills for August, and it's not pretty. By an overwhelming margin, Congress is increasing spending, not trimming it:

House-

The 184 House bills scored during the month of August would increase spending by approximately $99.5 billion annually if all bills were enacted.

Senate-

The 96 Senate bills scored within the month of August would increase spending by approximately $62.9 billion on an annual basis if all bills were enacted.

Pelosi and Reid just don't get it.

Also worthy of note. NTU has analyzed past sessions of Congress, and Democrats really do introduce more spending bills than Republicans, although the post-1994 session of Congress (1995) was one of the very best, and Republicans did lose their way slightly and gradually over the next several sessions.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Exports.

Posted by Will Franklin · 9 September 2010 01:09 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 867 -- Exporting, Manufacturing.

Texas Exports Number One In America-

Another one from Texanomics. A look at Texas exports:

A couple of tidbits about Texas exports:

Texas is the number one exporting state in America, now 8 years in a row. Texas is one of only a handful of states to add manufacturing jobs every single month so far in 2010.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Unions.

Posted by Will Franklin · 8 September 2010 05:51 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 866 -- The New Face Of Unions.

Government Bureaucrats-

Quick. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "union"?

For me, I think of All Along The Waterfront with Marlon Brando, or Jimmy Hoffa being buried under that stadium, or the big union dude who assaulted me outside of the Norm Coleman - Walter Mondale debate in October of 2002 in Minnesota.

For many, the first thing that pops into their heads is blue collar, salt-of-the-earth folks in an auto factory somewhere in Detroit, welding metal together with sparks flying everywhere-- and Bob Seger playing in the background.

But for the first time in generations, the majority of union members work for the government:

Even as unions have fallen out of favor in the private sector, they dominate the public sector. The U.S. Postal Service employs three times more union members than the entire U.S. auto industry.

When someone says, "union member," you shouldn't think of Rosie the Riveter. You should think of bureaucrats who work for the government. That is the new face of the union movement in America.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama's Supporters Turning Away Because He is So Awful.

Posted by Will Franklin · 7 September 2010 04:34 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 865 -- Economy Opening Young Obama Supporters' Eyes.

No, He Can't-

Eventually this:

Friday's labor report is the latest confirmation that our economy is sputtering. A loss of 54,000 jobs and a 9.6 percent unemployment rate are bad enough. But a deeper look, at the little-known civilian employment-population ratio, presents what may be a more revealing and troublesome picture.

In contrast to the better-known unemployment rate, which measures the percentage of adult Americans who are actively seeking jobs but do not have one, the civilian employment-population ratio could be called the employment rate, measuring the percentage of adult Americans who have a job.

The August report, released Friday, pegged the employment rate at 58.5 percent, the same as June and only a tad higher than July's rate of 58.4. These numbers are approaching the dismal employment rates of the early 1980s, when the rate bottomed out at 57.1. Since the start of this summer, nearly 400,000 Americans have entered the labor force, but only 130,000 have found jobs according to the BLS release.

Will cause more of this:

The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama.

Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008.

Right?

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: States With Income Taxes Have More Budget Crises Than States Without Income Taxes.

Posted by Will Franklin · 3 September 2010 12:15 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 864 -- States With Income Taxes Have More Budget Crises Than States Without Income Taxes.

Income Taxes Not The Answer-

I keep promoting this Texanomics blog, and I've had people ask if it's me doing it. It's not, but so far so good:

Go check out the Texanomics blog to see a larger version (just click the graph). The green line is Texas. The orange line is other states without a state personal income tax. The blue line is the United States, and the red line is states with personal income taxes.

I've written about this plenty in the past. States without income taxes perform better economically than states with income taxes.

One of the arguments in favor of income taxes is that they help smooth things out and prevent budget crises when the economy turns downward. This is simply incorrect. States with income taxes have plenty of budget woes. Indeed, states with personal income taxes have more budget crises than states without personal income taxes. Far from smoothing things out and providing a "third leg of the stool" of stable revenue, states with income taxes have more volatility in their revenue collection than states without income taxes:

Just say no to an income tax in Texas.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama's Dropping Popularity.

Posted by Will Franklin · 2 September 2010 01:01 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 863 -- How Badly Will Obama Hurt Democrats In 2010?

Obama's Down-

Rasmussen:

The number of voters who Strongly Disapprove of the president’s performance held steady at 43% in August. At the same time, the number who Strongly Approve inched up a point to 27%.

Those figures generate a full month Presidential Approval Index rating of -16, a slight improvement from last month. From December 2009 to March 2010, the president’s approval index bounced back-and-forth between -14 and -15. In April, the index jumped four points to -11, the highest level of optimism measured since October 2009. That number, however, has steadily declined in the following months.

It's bad, but it has sort of stabilized.

How much will Obama's unpopularity harm the chances of Democrats in November?

How much will Democrats turn on Obama after the devastation?

Does Obama secretly want Democrats to fail in 2010, so he will have a better chance to succeed when he is on the ballot again in 2012?

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Obama's Jobs Deficit.

Posted by Will Franklin · 1 September 2010 02:19 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 862 -- Obama's Jobs Deficit.

Stimulus Has Failed-

The stimulus has failed:

Time for America to cut its losses on this disastrous regime.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: The Emerging Pension Crisis.

Posted by Will Franklin · 31 August 2010 06:07 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 861 -- The Emerging Pension Crisis.

Defined-Benefit Retirement Plans Unsustainable-

One day, some of us will be saying "we told you so." Pensions, just like federal entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are just not solvent. They overpromise, and one day, the reckoning will be very, very ugly:

Much bigger increases in employee costs are on the horizon. Thanks to huge unfunded pension and retirement health-care promises granted by past governments, and also to deceptive pension-fund accounting that understated liabilities and overstated future investment returns, California is now saddled with $550 billion of retirement debt.

The cost of servicing that debt has grown at a rate of more than 15% annually over the last decade. This year, retirement benefits—more than $6 billion—will exceed what the state is spending on higher education. Next year, retirement costs will rise another 15%. In fact, they are destined to grow so much faster than state revenues that they threaten to suck up the money for every other program in the state budget.

Nearly every governmental entity faces something similar, from local school districts and governments up through the federal government. It's not pretty.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Has America's Recovery Blueprint.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 August 2010 05:37 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 860 -- Texas, Germany, America, And Economic Experiments.

Which Model Works Best?-

A WILLisms.com reader Neville, from Oregon, writes in with a link to this David Brooks column which evaluates the divergent German and American responses to the economic/financial crisis:

According to Gary Becker of the University of Chicago, the Americans borrowed an amount equal to 6 percent of G.D.P. in an attempt to stimulate growth. The Germans spent about 1.5 percent of G.D.P. on their stimulus.

This divergence created a natural experiment. Who was right?

The early returns suggest the Germans were. The American stimulus package was supposed to create a “summer of recovery,” according to Obama administration officials. Job growth was supposed to be surging at up to 500,000 a month. Instead, the U.S. economy is scuffling along.

The German economy, on the other hand, is growing at a sizzling (and obviously unsustainable) 9 percent annual rate. Unemployment in Germany has come down to pre-crisis levels.

Neville also echoes the point Glenn Reynolds made this morning, which is that this is a "surprising indictment of everything the Obama administration has done since Inauguration Day."

As Professor Reynolds would say, "indeed."

In his email, Neville also brought up the point that Texas is in many ways America's "Germany" in this divergent set of examples.

Texas rejected huge portions of the federal stimulus-- the hundreds of millions of unemployment insurance dollars with strings attached. Texas has received the second lowest number of stimulus dollars per capita. Texas has one of the freest economies in the country, with one of the lowest debt loads per capita in the entire nation. Texas necessarily limits government by virtue of the legislature meeting for only 140 days every two years. Texas has relatively low taxes, keeps state government spending growth basically in line with population and inflation growth, and Texas has enacted among the most sweeping tort reform packages in the nation.

The result is that Texas' foreclosure rate is far below the national average and its bankruptcy rate is near the bottom. Texas has added far more jobs than all other states combined over the past few years, and income growth in Texas is far ahead of all other states.

Indeed, individual Texas cities (Austin, for example) have outpaced every other state in private-sector job growth over the past few years:

That green bar is the Austin metro area. The other bars are Utah, Delaware, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Nebraska, and Montana.

You could do the same graph for Houston and Dallas, and San Antonio would rank second if it were its own state.

Texas, just like Germany, is not completely out of the woods yet. Nor are Texas or Germany without their own shortfalls. Texas' economy was as turbulent as any in the 1980s, with bank booms and busts, oil booms and busts, and real estate booms and busts. While Brooks notes that "Germans have recently reduced labor market regulation, increased wage flexibility and taken strong measures to balance budgets," some serious long term structural issues remain in that country, in terms of over-promising on pensions and entitlements.

Still, the recent relative success of Texas and Germany, compared to the backsliding United States economic picture, offers strong evidence that Keynesian stimulus is a failed policy prescription, and market forces can best provide the kind of economic growth that political leaders covet.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Republicans Lead On Every Single Issue.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 August 2010 03:02 PM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 859 -- Republicans Lead On Every Single Issue.

Top Issue = Jobs, Jobs, Jobs-

New numbers from Rasmussen:

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on all 10 of the important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports.

The GOP has consistently been trusted on most issues for months now, but in July they held the lead on only nine of the key issues.

Republicans lead Democrats 47% to 39% on the economy, which remains the most important issue to voters. Those numbers are nearly identical to those found in June. Republicans have held the advantage on the economy since May of last year.

But for the first time in months, Republicans now hold a slight edge on the issues of government ethics and corruption, 40% to 38%. Voters have been mostly undecided for the past several months on which party to trust more on this issue, but Democrats have held small leads since February. Still, more than one-in-five voters (22%) are still not sure which party to trust more on ethics issues.

Government ethics and corruption have been second only to the economy in terms of importance to voters over the past year.

It is imperative that Democrats be sent a profound message this November that Americans will not tolerate the breathtakingly abuse of power and accelerated expansion of government we have seen over the past couple of years.

Americans voted Republicans out because they got too big government on us all. Then Democrats went and did the big government thing strung out on meth. Obama likes analogies about car keys and driving off cliffs-- and D and R standing for drive and reverse.

When Republicans turned the keys over to Democrats in late 2006, unemployment was 4.5%, GDP growth was robust, federal budget deficits were on track to become surpluses, and things were cranking along just fine, economically. It is Democrats who created market uncertainty. It is top-down Democrat housing micromanagement that created the foreclosure crisis. It is Democrats who canceled pending free trade agreements which were expanding markets for American goods and services and providing higher quality products to American consumers and lower prices. It is Democrats who twisted the throttle on the insolvency of entitlement programs like Social Security. It is Democrats who drove this country off a cliff, economically.

It certainly will not be Democrats to get us out of this mess.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Only State Among Largest Twenty To Gain Jobs Since 2006.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 August 2010 01:16 PM · Comments (0)