Texas Governor Rick Perry has been making the rounds lately–visiting states with high taxes that might cause businesses to take a look at Texas. Fred Barnes posted an article at the Weekly Standard about Governor Perry’s recent visit to Manhattan.
The article reports:
After his freshman year at Texas A&M in 1969, Perry sold Bible-related books one summer in rural Missouri. “It took weeks before I sold my first books,” he says, but he learned salesmanship. “I look at myself just like a businessman trying to sell a product,” he says. Perry told Trump he’s selling the “opportunity” for business owners to flee the “high tax, high regulation, high litigation” environment of states like New York and thrive in a free market state that lets them keep more of the money they earn. Texas has no state income tax.
Perry is never bashful. When touting Texas as a safe haven for American business, he’s doing what no governor has done before. And he’s doing it with as much fanfare and buzz as possible. Some governors send letters, urging companies to pick up stakes and move. When Perry spent a day in Connecticut last week, he bumped into Dennis Daugaard, the Republican governor of South Dakota. Both were on economic missions. The Connecticut media latched on to Perry and ignored Daugaard.
This is an example of how the United States is supposed to work. The states were set up to be independent laboratories for policies–then Congress would enact the programs that worked in the successful states and not enact the programs in the states with economic or social problems that were not being solved. Unfortunately, Congress has often chosen to do the opposite.
The advertising campaign in New York was noteworthy:
The killer line: “If you’re tired of the same old recipe of over-taxation, over-regulation, and frivolous litigation, get out before you go broke.” Perry delivered the closer. “Texas is calling,” he said. “Your opportunity awaits.” The ads made a splash.
Governor Perry’s trips and advertising campaign are paid for by a group called Texas One, a foundation that touts the state’s economy.
The article reports the goals of Governor Perry’s trip to New York:
Perry had three goals for his trip. He succeeded, partially anyway, on two. In time, he may on the third. The first was to attract businesses to Texas. Perry insists it takes nine months from his pitch to a company’s decision to move. So we’ll have to wait on that. But Perry says he expects to hear this summer that an untold number of California companies are Texas-bound.
The second goal was to stir a national debate on “blue state versus red states policies.” Perry thinks he’s set this in motion and he may have. It should shine a favorable light on the Texas model of low taxes, light regulation, and less litigation—small government that works.
Perry didn’t acknowledge the third goal. It was a test of his skill as a potential presidential candidate after his disastrous performance in last year’s race for the Republican nomination. He says he “parachuted” into that campaign both too late and unprepared. He knows better now.
I guess the primary season for the 2016 Presidential election has begun.
