Rotarians Receive Summary of Economy

Weatherford Telegram

Lance Winter

State Representative Phil King (R-Weatherford) brought before a packed house of Rotarians last week, a summary related to the Texas economy. His comments concerned the state’s budget, the ever-pressing school finance system and the economy as a whole.

King told the group that Texas had the largest 10-year growth in private sector jobs in the country and that in pre-recession 2008, more jobs were created in Texas than all of the other 49 states combined.

But with the good also comes the bad, he said, noting that the nation is experiencing the worst economy it’s seen in the last 75 years.

“I sit in on a lot of economic briefings and I would suggest that the economy will go further south in the not-to distant future,” he said. “The biggest reason is that you can’t have an economy prosper if it’s based on debt, social services and the re-distribution of wealth.

“You’ve got to have job creation in the private sector not the public sector [and] you have to have consumers spending money and having money to spend.”

He went on to suggest that everything the federal government is doing, in most of the states, is in the opposite direction of that.

“I don’t know how many times government needs to try Keynesian economics and socialism for you to be able to look at history and say, ‘You know, those just don’t work,'” he said.

On the bright side, King said the Texas economy is holding its own and that the 8.2 percent unemployment rate for the state remains below the national average of 9.7.

“Our unemployment rate has been at or below the national average for 41 consecutive months,” he said.

When it comes to the budget, King said Texas is set up on a two-year budget cycle and is currently without a debt balance.

“We don’t have a massive debt like the state of California does,” he said.