The Texas Red Model

Read more of this article at The American Interest here. This was originally published on August 11th, 2013. 

Preview:

Texas is challenging California for the right to be called the harbinger of the nation’s future. How does its claim hold up?

There are many, many songs about Texas, probably more than any of the other 49 states can boast. Most are fairly unassuming. One of the most famous is “T for Texas”, also called “Blue Yodel No. 1”, by the great Mississippian Jimmy Rodgers. Recorded in November 1927, the song is about a heartbreaker of a girl named Thelma, and it even has the graciousness to mention another state, Tennessee, in passing.

But the official state song, “Texas, Our Texas”, adopted by the state legislature just two years later in 1929, is hardly humble or unassuming. It is rather long on bravado, reminiscent of the land itself and the people who inhabit it. The chorus goes like this:

Texas, our Texas, all hail the mighty state.
          Texas, our Texas, so wonderful so great. 
          Boldest and grandest, withstanding ev’ry test, 
          O Empire wide and glorious,
          You stand supremely blest.

The pride and self-confidence of the Lone Star State may well represent concurrently its greatest strength and weakness. Texas appears to have soared recently to the historical apex of its influence and power, becoming something of a “red” model to rival California’s “blue” one in the polarized national imagination. But the challenges of explosive growth that accompany the state’s new influence and power may test its ability to maintain its dynamism and prolong its burgeoning prosperity.

Two writers are certainly singing the song, and at least one of them hears a skeptical theme rising from beneath the self-congratulatory chorus. In Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right Erica Grieder, a Texas native and magazine journalist, embraces the unenviable task of writing a survey of Texas history, past and present, encompassing politics, culture, religion and much more—all in less than 300 pages. Any one of her areas of inquiry could have easily required a longer work than that (Texas-scale, so to speak). Grieder does a reasonable job of tying scores of threads together in a short book to weave a diverse overview of what makes Texas both fascinating and unique. She’s proud, yes, but she balances her pride judiciously with a sober assessment of reality.

In The Texas Model Chuck DeVore, a recent transplant to Texas from California, where he served in the state legislature and ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for U.S. Senator, sets for himself a different objective. In just around 150 pages he extols the virtues of Texas state government, with its current framework of low taxes, light regulations and limited government. A senior fellow for fiscal policy at the Texas Public Policy foundation, DeVore has laser-like focus and backs up his argument with reams of data, leading to a highly convincing effort. Perhaps the contrast of Texas with highly taxed, highly regulated, big government, high unemployment California is enough to make a convert (or even a zealot) out of anyone.

DeVore’s focus is almost solely concentrated on state fiscal policy, its effect on economic prosperity, and the superiority of “the Texas way” of governing. His thesis is that limited government in Texas has worked spectacularly and must be defended as zealously as Colonel Travis defended the Alamo. But unlike Travis, he hopes this time Texans will triumph, avoiding the hailstorm of taxes and spending that would dent or outright demolish the Texas economy at some yet to be determined point in the future. DeVore is focused sharply on the fight to preserve the current system in Texas of low taxes, light regulation and as little state governmental spending as possible, and to avoid California’s current state of affairs—excessive proneness to debt (despite the current surplus), high taxes and debilitating levels of governmental spending.

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