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logo    Think Tanks or Stink Tanks?


Journalists need to be careful when reporting on studies carried out by so called Think Tanks which are privately funded in order to grind axes. When these groups come across evidence that counters their beliefs, they merely ignore it. In this way these Think Tanks become mere Propaganda Purveyors whose intent is to mislead the people.

The Tax Foundation, for instance, regularly publishes its State Business Tax Climate Index. Texas always scores high on this index and the index is widely reported in Texas as though this ranking were a feather to be placed on our coonskin cap. However, if anyone takes the trouble to compare the index's rankings to the rankings of states by per capita income, not only do the data not support the view that business-friendly tax policies improve the economic well-being of the citizens of the states that adopt such policies, it contradicts that view. Generally speaking, the states with the least friendly business tax policies enjoy the highest per-capita incomes and those with the most friendly business tax policies have the lowest per-capita incomes.

Now the DBJ has reported on another Think Tank studyTexas nabs top spot in national tort liability study (12/8-14, 2006). This study, done by the Pacific Research Institute, lists Texas, Colorado, North Dakota, Ohio, and Michigan as the top five states and Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont as the bottom five. A look into my latest 2007 Time Almanac reveals that the average per capita income in the five top states is $33,479.40 while that of the bottom five is $37,328.80, and four of the bottom five states have higher per capita incomes than all but one of the top five states. Furthermore Texas' poverty rate, averaged over the past three years, is 16.4 which is almost twice as high as the poverty rates in either Maryland (8.6) and Vermont (8.8). So although Texas may have policies that are favorable to business, it is clear that business does not have policies that are favorable to Texas. And Texans may want to ask, When will these friendly policies benefit them?

The piece also states that the study's authors claim that this allowed Texas to make great strides in growing its economy and providing jobs and accessible health care to its citizens.

Well, thats not true either, especially the last part about health care where Texas ranks last with almost 25% of its citizens uninsured while Vermont ranks fourth with a rate of 10.3% behind Minnesota, Hawaii, and Maine, none of which are on any list of business friendly states either.

Texas is a poor state  by any standard. That's why the states unofficial motto is, Thank God for Mississippi. Yet there in nothing physical in Texas that can be looked upon as an affliction that causes this condition. So the affliction must be mental. The majority of us holds beliefs that we refuse to test with evidence even though the evidence that proves those beliefs to be false lies right before our eyes. As long as that refusal persists, Texas will be remain at the bottom of America's economic barrel. (12/9/2006)