With the Connecticut job losses from the recession estimated at about 90,000 — and the growth estimates on how many of them will come back in the next year or so consistently awful — what are we going to do about Texas?
We’ve been afflicted for months now by Connecticut Democrats trying to sound like Republicans, chanting “jobs, jobs, jobs,” as if they’re talking about jobs that don’t involve joining a state employee labor union.
We’ve all been afflicted for months now by Connecticut Republicans trying to sound like Democrats, blaming sluggish job markets on overregulation and high taxes and the power of the unions, but promising to retain our social services Garden of Eden
Sure, sure. OK. But what about Texas? Nobody has the courage to stand up to Texas.
Why do you think the only thing that Democrats and Republicans in Connecticut actually agree on is the importance of sponsoring really cool cocktail parties in the cities, so that our young people stop getting bored and discouraged and moving toˆ Texas — where there are lots of high-tech jobs, no personal income tax, little zoning to speak of and, thus, cheap housing — and a cool university-town state capital full of bars and vegetarian/lesbian coffee shops.
Quite aside from the theft of our young, Texas (with one of the most vibrant state economies in the country, with population growth to match) has devised a plan to discourage any of its productive, home-grown citizens from leaving the state to move to Connecticut.
Texas citizens have sworn an oath of allegiance to God, Man and the oil industry and, oh, of course, to the State of Texas.
You know that ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ to the United States stuff that we inflict on school kids, so that they all don’t move to New Hampshire and create an independent Libertarian country?
Well, Texas has its own pledge. It goes like this: “Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.” This has been on the books since 1933; the “under God” thing was added in 2007, just to stick a thumb in the eye of some ACLU lawyer who probably lives in Connecticut and doesn’t even like God very much.
The inevitable lawsuit challenged the ‘God’ stuff, but a federal appeals court panel last month said the whole pledge thing was just fine, because it was a patriotic exercise intended to ‘inculcate fidelity’ to Texas — including its ‘religious heritage.’
Did you get that? Even if Connecticut were ever ‘lucky’ enough to snare a bunch of Texas workers, we would be awash in people who, since they were little kids, have been pledging their fidelity to Texas, which probably includes the Dallas Cowboys and, to be sure, promises no particular affection for or loyalty to Connecticut — wherever that is.
Texas is one of the few states with a prospering economy (and growing population) in part, because Texas employees shipped out-of-state usually send back most of their wages to Texas — to which they have declared ‘fidelity.’
How is Connecticut to compete with such a menacing competitor? Most of our rich folks live in Fairfield County, which many of the residents believe is located in New York. We’re never going to trick those kids into pledging fidelity to Connecticut.
The Conference Board’s ‘Consumer Confidence Index’ for New England bordered on the suicidal this fall — no surprise, given that Texas, for example, is not in New England.
When asked to explain the gloom, Conference Board researchers replied: “Remember the Alamo.”
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
