Citing an ‘unfavorable regulatory climate’, Amazon.com announced today that it will be closing it’s fulfillment center in Irving scrapping plans for additional centers in Texas which would have brought tens of millions in capital investment and more than 1,000 jobs to the state. Combs has demanded they pay $269 million in sales taxes but has not, to date, provided anything to Amazon to justify that amount.
Perry is, of course, doing absolutely nothing about it since he’s in DC right now. Last week when we lost power, he was in California. Why the hell is the Governor of Texas everywhere BUT Texas? He’s all the time talking about all these businesses moving to Texas but NONE of us have seen them. Meanwhile, we’re hearing about companies leaving Texas because our Comptroller is a moron (not to mention others, like Countrywide, which Governor Perry GAVE taxpayer dollars that they didn’t return when they reneged on their agreement). How much longer until we start hearing about companies not moving here because of our lack of investment in public infrastructure? Or Education?
This is all a wonderful backdrop to the reality that things in California are actually not any worse than they are in Texas. In fact, in terms of innovation and preparation for a global economy, California is far ahead of us. In terms of wages, Californians grossly out earn Texans. The AWESOME economy Perry and the Republicans have created is good at creating very low wage jobs. In Texas, a third of the population is below the poverty line; In California that percentage is around 15%.
Perry needs to stop comparing Texas to California. HIS Texas can’t compete. We need to compare Rick Perry’s Texas to Nigeria or some other badly run third world dump.
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