The Big Two, Or Is That Three?

I can't blame Rick Perry. The governor of Texas, once and future Republican candidate for president and public speaker of some renown has recently taken two states to task for their job growth: New York and California. "If you rent a U-Haul to move your company, it costs twice as much to go from San Francisco to Austin than the other way around," joked Perry. "Because you can't find enough trucks to flee the Golden State. And New York has got this new advertising campaign," he continued. "The new New York. But they're implementing the tired old recipe of back-breaking taxes and yeah, you guessed it: regulations that are larger than a thirty-ounce big gulp."
First of all, this is right in the governor's wheelhouse. It doesn't require him to remember more than two specifics. Three is a lot to ask, as we recall from his assertion that he would close three government agencies if he were elected president, but could only recall two of them, Education and Commerce. Some time later, he remembered that it was the department of Energy that he was going to shut down, but the damage was already done. This time, he decided to keep it simple: the two biggest, bluest targets on the map and never mind how factual his pithy commentary was.
Since it wasn't. The third state in this mix is, of course, Texas. Governor Rick wants us to see his state as the model of efficiency and effectiveness, but evidence tends top suggest otherwise, at least when compared to California. Not everyone buys into The Texas Miracle. The Washington Monthly's Phillip Longman is one of them. "In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, children who grew up in families in the bottom fifth of the income distribution had only a 12.2 percent chance of rising to the top fifth as adults. Those who grew up in or near San Diego or Los Angeles had even lesser odds—only 10.4 and 9.6 percent, respectively. It’s depressing that for so many Californian children, the chances of realizing the American Dream are so slim. But California looks like the land of opportunity compared to Texas." What does it look like in the Lone Star state? "In the greater Austin area, children who grew up in families of modest means had only a 6.9 percent chance of joining the top fifth of earners when they became adults; in Dallas, only 7.1 percent; in San Antonio, just 6.4 percent. Yes, Texas offers more chances for upward mobility than places like Detroit and some Deep South cities like Atlanta. Yet the claim that Texas triumphs over the rest of America as the land of opportunity is all hat and no cattle. Children raised in the postindustrial wasteland of Newark, New Jersey, during the 1980s, it turns out, had a better chance of going from rags to riches than did children born in Houston, which was the best city in Texas for upward mobility during that time."
And so we see the problem. If the governor had to hold on to all those facts and figures, and make it cute, we might all still be waiting for the punch line. Nobody wants to take a swipe at Detroit these days, and Atlanta is not the easy target that New York is. On that issue, I'll let the Daily Show's Lewis Black have the final word. Or two. Or is that three?