Читать книгу Texas Got It Right! - Sam Wyly - Страница 17

Rio Grande—aka the Rio Bravo, if you live on the

Mexico side—is ludicrous. Why cut off all those good

businesses and friendships that have driven life in

our bustling border towns for years? And anyhow, we

are all immigrants here if you go back a few genera-

tions—that is, unless you’re a Cherokee or Choctaw

or Comanche. And heck, the Cherokee were new-

comers here, too, when they pushed aside the Waco

Indians around 1830.

I’ll be the first to say, and proudly, that Texas is

cowboy country. Ranching is still a big deal here, and

rodeos, too. But we’ve got a lot more than bronc

riders down here. We’ve got the fastest-growing tech

capital in the country; we’re home to the best inde-

pendent live-music showcase in the world; and out

west in the little town of Marfa, where Giant was

filmed all those years ago, we’ve got a contemporar-

yart scene like no other on earth.

Contrary to what some outsiders think, Texans are

not obsessed with money. We’re just good at earning,

investing, and spending it. And we’ve got legislators

and other public officials who know that the best thing

they can do for the well-being of their state is to

remove obstacles to building good companies that can

generate wealth to go around. Our state lawmakers

hold down full-time jobs outside the statehouse—as

shop owners, ranchers, veterinarians, you name it.

They know the true meaning of “business-friendly.”

And anyhow, lots of well-off Texans I know got into

business for the thrill of the game. Dollars are just a

way of keeping score. Most of us go to church on Sun-

days and read the high school football scores in the

Dallas Morning News on Saturdays, and we go to dance

halls like Billy Bob’s on Saturday night.

Texas is the most American of all the big states. Liberty

and freedom are rooted deep in our souls. We’ve got a

strong independent, secessionist streak, and we’ve

spilled blood to achieve self-determination. We’re a

melting pot in the truest sense of the term: We come

here from all over, from all cultures, and we become

Texans. We have an egalitarian sense of justice, and

our spirit is infused with the romance of the frontier.

We like wide-open spaces, and we’re not afraid to

speak our minds. And we get things done. In

California, if somebody sees a rattlesnake, he calls a

committee meeting to discuss what to do about the

rattlesnake problem. A Texan just kills the rattlesnake.

My son, Andrew, and I decided to write this book

because we saw America being pulled in two very dif-

ferent directions. On one side was California, where

taxation and regulation were squeezing the blood

right out of entrepreneurs and sending that once-

proud state to the very bottom of almost every major

entrepreneurial ranking—right down there with Cali-

fornia’s overtaxed partners in misery, Illinois and

New York. Leading America in the other direction is

Texas, where smart regulation, low taxes, right-to-

work laws, and tort reform are freeing entrepreneurs

to invest, take risks, and grow—placing Texas at the

very top of those same business and job-growth rank-

ings, year after year.

The best and the brightest people and greatest

companies are voting with their feet, abandoning the

Rust Belt and the now-dysfunctional Golden State in

unprecedented numbers to set up shop in Texas.

What they find when they get here is lots of afford-

able housing, a low cost of living, and thriving local

markets driven by everything from consumer tech to

agriculture to clean energy. They also find fewer

obstacles to building a career or a business than in

any other big states. Andrew and I see in Texas a

model for the other states and for Washington to

follow. That Place on the Potomac needs to shrink

itself and be less of a burden on Texans and the other

folks in America who work for a living.

Today, political, economic, and cultural influ-

ence in this country is shifting south, away from its

traditional seats of power in the Northeast and on

the Left Coast. For us the reason is as clear as day:

California, New York, and Illinois Got It Wrong.

Texas Got It Right.

TEXAS GOT IT RIGHT!

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