There is a direct connection between public policy and the opportunity for general prosperity. Where government suppresses entrepreneurship, stifles innovation and burdens the people with high taxes, prosperity dies. According to the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, Texas’ economic success proves how important public policy really is.
Richard Fisher on CNBC told stunned interviewers in a roundtable program that public policies make all the difference.
“Since the recovery began, 38% of all the jobs created in America have been created in the state of of Texas,” he said. He said in the region of the Dallas Fed bank (96 percent of which is Texas) there is “more employment now than it had before the crisis began.”
It’s not oil, but public policy that is making the difference, Mr. Fisher said.
“It’s technology driven, it’s trade driven,” he said. “We’re the largest trading state in America. We passed California seven years ago.”
Then Mr. Fisher added, Texas is “highly entrepreneurial.”
That entrepreneurship is encouraged by right-thinking public policies. A CNBC host asked what the tax rate is in Texas: “We don’t have an income tax.”
Mr. Fisher said that the “most important” economic development tool Texas has going is “tort reform.”
But, he said, it isn’t the only thing.
“But we have so many other factors at work, a limited amount of government, a limited amount of regulations and rules,” he said. As a result, “money and people and production is moving to our state.”
