Texas vs. California: The Different Worlds of Trump and Harris
There are two visions of America, starkly contrasted in the clash between Texas and California.
Their economies are the largest (California) and second-largest (Texas) in the US, but from that point of similarity a chasm opens - a chasm as deep as the one between presidential rivals.
Trump is always praising Texas and holding it up as the example of what the Good Life could like under Republican rule. Texas for example adopted the abortion ban before the Supreme Court ruling.
Harris is from California, where progressive ideas lead to new solutions; California’s constitution explicitly protects the right to abortion.
Which one is winning?
Texas has the worst quality of life of any US state, says the CNBC report America’s States For Doing Business.
It considers factors like crime rates, health care, air quality and child care in its determination.
Texas’ low ranking came principally from its appalling health care numbers.
In addition to its low physician-to-patient ratio, it has the highest percentage of people without health insurance. Almost one-in-five Texans had medical debt and no health insurance. Yet Texas is one of 10 states that has rejected Medicaid expansion. By doing so, Texas is turning its back on more than $5 billion in federal money every year; the feds would have picked up 90% of the cost. The coverage gained brings in more money than the state would spend. Medicaid expansion is supported by more than two-thirds of Texans, but the GOP Governor is a one-man blocker.
Public opinion does not seem to make a difference, says an article in the Texas Tribune quoting an interview with Republican Lyle Larson: “Republican lawmakers in bright-red Arkansas, which passed a conservative approach to Medicaid expansion in 2013, tell him they “sort of laugh at Texas.” After expansion, their state’s uninsured rate dropped more than 10 percentage points within two years.”
It is not socialism that is ruining Texas’ economy, it is one-man Republican rule.
Another report from the storage company Pink Storage compared all 50 states across 16 key indicators, ranging from housing affordability and levels of violent crime to average life expectancy, to determine the worst and best states to live in. Texas, it concludes, is one of the worst states to live in.
Texas residents worked longer hours than every other state except Louisiana.
It ranked 12th for levels of violent crime and 10th for auto crime. Its gun death rate is 67% higher than California’s, even though it has about 9 million fewer residents than California. Californians are around 25 percent less likely to die in a mass shooting. California has more gun control laws than Texas, by a wide margin: 107 to 18.
The average American’s life would be 103.6 days longer if not for the prevalence of guns in the United States. The South, where gun laws tend to be most lax, is hit the hardest. The South lost an aggregate total of 5.7 million years of potential life for its residents due to gun violence.
In fact, Texas is going the other way: it has passed a law making it illegal for the state to do business with companies that “discriminate” against the gun industry. A new analysis shows that such ‘culture war’ laws passed by Texas Republicans will likely cost the state $100 billion in economic activity, and the number will almost certainly grow. The Perryman Group states:
“The loss of competitive bidding by excluding any company that wants to address gun violence at the source or invest in renewable energy is $821 million in lost gross domestic product annually. Compounded over 30 years, the cost quickly reaches into tens of billions.”
Data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research similarly shows that Texas’s near-total abortion ban is costing the state $23 billion in economic activity every year. Across the board, states with restrictive abortion laws lose GDP because of pregnant people leaving the workforce unexpectedly, loss of income, rising poverty, and other factors.
“This analysis underscores the incredible harm and destructive power of abortion restrictions—both on women’s lives and entire communities. The impacts of the restrictions are complicated and multifaceted, yet the solutions are often relatively straightforward. Among other policy options, states should end abortion restrictions and pursue legislative options to protect the right to abortion.”
Sadly, it’s impossible to determine exactly how much impact Texas refusing to do business with green-minded investment firms has on the overall cause to reduce carbon emissions, but it is significant and long-lasting. Extreme weather brought on by global warming caused droughts and storms that cost the state $1 billion in 2023, with another $20 billion in losses from droughts alone.
Texas Republicans seem to think that is a small price to pay for the continued support of a few oil and gas tycoons.
Governor Abbott might have been moved by the damage caused by the latest hurricane, but he was on a junket in Asia at the time.
All this is reflected in the different degree of tensions in the social climate in the two states. California has a lower homicide rate than 29 other states, including Florida and Texas. In fact, eight of the ten most violent murder states in America are red states.
If every state in America had California’s gun death rate over the past decade, 140,000 more Americans would be alive today.
For children, who are now killed by guns more than by any other single cause, if gun deaths could somehow be eliminated, all five-year-old children in the South would immediately see three years added to their life expectancy.
By almost every social measure, Texas is in the bottom of the bin.
There is a reason that rural Whites are increasingly dissatisfied with their lives.
They lead the nation in poverty, education, health service and employment. And they voted for each of those calamities, deliberately.
Texas was settled by southerners, from states such as Tennessee, Mississippi and Virginia; while California had a much more diverse mix of immigrants due to the Gold Rush.
Texas has a legacy of slavery, and in fact the ‘freedom’ that Texans sought from Mexico (‘the Alamo’) was the freedom of Whites to keep slaves (Mexico abolished slavery in 1837 – three decades before the American Civil War abolished slavery for the South).
Texas had a conservative, unambitious economy based on White Rule, agriculture and oil, while California industrialized and urbanized.
Maternal healthcare statistics in Texas are the worst in the nation; as one family doctor in West Texas said, “The lack of funding for rural healthcare—what we’re putting patients through because of this—to me, I think it’s unconscionable.”
Southern states, which have voted uniformly Republican in recent elections and mostly have Republican governors and legislative majorities, also have the lowest life expectancies in the country. People in U.S. states with more liberal policies can expect to live longer. If all states adopted the liberal policies found in most “blue” states, average U.S. life expectancies would be 2.8 years longer for women and 2.1 years longer for men, according to a study of life expectancy.
Texas has few legal protections against discrimination, and few worker protection policies. It has no law barring discrimination against disabled people, which is ironic considering that its Governor is handicapped.
The minimum wage is $7.25/hour – the federal minimum - lower than the amount needed to cover the expenses of a family. California’s minimum wage is $16/hour, and there is pressure to move it up. Fast-food workers now earn at least $20 an hour under a law that took effect on April 1, 2024. Healthcare workers will see a rise to $25/hour by 2033.
BTW, a higher minimum wage actually increased employment, according to a recent study of New York and California: “We find that these large minimum wage increases both raised pay for workers at the bottom of the earnings ladder and increased employment.”
And if a Texan loses their job, its unemployment benefits cover only 10.5% of the cost of living.
A red state like Texas taxes their lowest earners far more than California does. That is how Texas can cater to bug business…because the bottom half pays. You pay a higher percentage in taxes if you’re poor in Texas than you do if you’re wealthy in California.
Yet the top businesses prefer to locate in California. Four of the seven most valuable companies in the world are based there. The Bay area is the world’s top-ranked location for venture capital.
There are more business start-ups in California than in any other state. California is the birthplace of what’s called the Fourth Industrial Revolution — artificial intelligence.
It has record-breaking tourism and the population is growing.
There is no question about which of the policies grows an economy faster.
For the third year California ranks as the Number One “Best State For Business” . Its companies received the most venture capital investment in the US. The higher taxes and the exit of ‘special’ companies like Tesla have not stopped its acceleration.
Texas slipped to number three in the list.
Having a private enterprise company manage a vital public service like the provision of electric power has not been a brilliant move. The Texas companies have no responsibility for providing power in an emergency, according to Texas courts. They are ‘public utilities’ with no connection to the public…only to shareholders. The deregulated grid is in terrible shape, and the companies are letting it slide. The private grid is unprepared for the severe weather expected in years ahead. Making it more resilient will require utilities to invest money to strengthen the system over time. In the most recent instance, Hurricane Beryl knocked out power to millions of people and more than 20 Texans. Thousands remained without power for over a week after the storm as heat index levels reached triple digits in some areas.
Texas had 210 weather-related power outages — more than any other state — from 2000 to 2023.
Governor Abbott and his colleagues get huge donations from the power companies.
This is the way a Republican state cares for its citizens.
Private companies also interfered in California, but were restrained. A demand-supply gap was created by Enron in 2000 to push back against capped retail prices, but was rebuked. California rates higher then Texas for power performance.
The Biden/Harris policies beat Trump’s in every sector of job creation.
And they did it by adding less to the federal debt than Trump did.
The Texas’ Republican Party is pushing hard to go even deeper into the Red Zone, as it were. A few of its planks going forward are: That the Bible should be taught in public schools, with chaplains on hand “to counsel and give guidance from a traditional biblical perspective based on Judeo-Christian principles.” That noncitizens who are legal residents of this country should be deported if they are arrested for participating in a protest that turns violent. That name changes to military bases should be reversed to “publicly honor the southern heroes.” That doctors who perform abortions should be charged with homicide.
Its abortion ban is already the strictest in the US.
The state party’s funds are drying up and its donor base is shrinking.
It is following a federal leader who has been abandoned by every colleague who knew him when he was in office.
While attention has focused on Biden’s loyalty concerns, one in three Republicans today think that the Party has selected the wrong leader.
Trump’s attacks on immigrants would be better applied to himself: mentally unwell "terrorists" who are "taking over our country." Migrants are not the people who sent a violent mob to the Capitol to overthrow an election and install a dictatorship. Trump did that.
To paraphrase the English condemnation of the traitor Guy Fawkes:
Remember remember!
The time post-November,
The Capitol treason and plot.
I know of no reason
Why Capitol treason
Should ever be forgot!
California’s secret is growth with inclusion. Everyone can access community college education, for free. California’s public sector spending is about one-third higher than that in Texas, and provides a much better mechanism to transfer funds from high- to low-income parts of the state. While income tax is higher in California, property taxes are twice as high in Texas.
The public sector spending mentality in California leads to situations where 23 percent of hospital beds are in public hospitals, versus just 16 percent in Texas.
Don’t get sick in Texas.
State and local governments in California and Texas spent $638 billion and $291 billion respectively on their citizens. California spends about twice as much per capita on public safety, environment, housing and employee retirement programs.
As a result of this public spending, California’s growth in per capita income has increased from being 20% higher than Texas in 2015, to being 30% higher five years later.
Spending on infrastructure not only works but is accelerating.
And even though a larger fraction of Texans live in poverty, the Republican mantra withholds the amount of federal money Texas obtains for Medicaid. The fraction of Texans without health insurance is more than twice as large as the corresponding share of Californians (18.4 percent versus 7.7 percent). The life expectancy in California is more than two years higher than in Texas (80.8 years vs. 78.4 years).
Texas gets more population growth and California gets more in per capita income, GDP, help for citizens, healthcare and infrastructure provision.
The callous side of Texas really shows through with the abortion ban.
Women in Texas have been denied abortions even after their pregnancies were diagnosed with a litany of lethal conditions. Lawsuits to get some humanity to shine through the Texas laws have been turned down. Texas in fact was the precursor to the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe, which upset decades of liberal birth-control practice. Texas’ roads are closed to abortion seekers.
And Texas saw a significant increase in infant deaths — especially those caused by congenital conditions — in the year following the passage of the state law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
So much for pro-life.
California, of course, is respectful of a woman’s decision and treats women as if they were actual human beings with brains and rights.
And you can’t draw a better line than that between Trump and Harris.
Trump is a fierce authoritarian who worships overseas dictators and imposes death penalties on Americans.
In Texas he has a state where billionaires like himself don't actually make money from the jobs their company (not them) creates or the products they sell. They make money because they already have money, that they use to manipulate the markets and invest in shady hedge funds that don't create any real wealth. They make money from money. Not from goods, not from services, just from financial instruments. The people are left to carry the load.
Harris fights for people’s lives and tries to help them obtain better results for themselves and their families.
Which state would be best as the model for America?
I know where I would rather live. I’d rather have a Pacific than a Gulf. It’s bigger…and open to anything.