It must stink to have so many armchair quarterbacks.  Actually, Texas Miracle or Mirage wasn’t so bad. Even Gov. Perry will tell you no governor is ever the entire catalyst for economic growth.

If you list external factors which helped the Texas economy, it is only fair to list external factors which hurt economic growth.  Shall we?

·         $5 billion in lost crops and livestock and job loss effected the economy.

·         So did the moratorium on offshore Texas after the BP oil spill.

·         Some drilling in southern Texas has slowed due to drought. Fracking takes water.

·         Texas has a high unemployment rate, and the highest population growth. Many agriculture and

        construction jobs stopped when heat went over 100 degrees

·         After wildfires burned 3 million acres, Gov. Perry tenaciously sought national disaster assistance

        for 6 months.

·         Don’t some people need minimum wage jobs?

Despite all this, 37% of jobs created were in Texas. External factors work both ways.  I look forward to seeing ABC discuss both.

My point is.....  The Texas economy is not an easy A.  Some of the stories along this theme, in HuffPo and MSNBC, act like Governor Perry getting a good economy in Texas is an easy A. 

To be fair, the Texas economy faced from being the state with the fastest growing population, and the state with the 2nd largest foreign-born population.

In the last 13 years, the Texas economy had an estimated  $13.1 Billion in drought losses.  In 2006, From December 26, 2005, to April 3, 2006, Texas suffered 11,048 wildfires which burned 4,903,851 acres.  Plus, there was over 5 miilion acres burned this year.Indeed the spending on social services was cut in the past, but very few of the other states have had to wage a $330 million fight against international drug cartels.

Not an easy A at all.