Speaking of Texas as a job creator...

There's not much doubt about the state's economic success story, but how much of that is the work of Gov. Rick Perry? "Some - but not too much," writes Joel Kotkin, who long has had a soft spot for the way the Lone Star state does business. From his piece at Forbes.com:

Perry has faced budget shortfalls based in part on an expanding state government that has grown through the recession: Texas, notes EMSI's Joshua Wright, is one of only 10 states where state and local government jobs have grown since 2009, rising by almost 30,000 positions. "These numbers don't exactly bolster Perry's small-government agenda claims,"says Wright. Free-marketers also point out that Perry clearly favored, sometimes with state funds, people who had the foresight to back his political career.

[CUT]

Most of the credit for Texas' success lies primarily in the state's economic culture. Rice University urban scholar Michael Emerson notes that Texas' pro-business tilt started well before Perry, and is not restricted to the GOP. Many of the state's most prominent Democrats -- including the man Perry beat for governor last year, former Houston Mayor Bill White -- have been strong advocates of economic growth and across-the-board energy development.

Kotkin does quote the CEO of Texas-based Forestar Group as crediting Perry with the state's business-friendly regulatory regime (another way of saying that companies in Texas get away with murder). Liberal rhetoric aside, the Texas economy has fared better than that of the nation as a whole (and certainly better than California). The more relevant question is at what cost.