Trump cabinet selections and appointments

It's a lot easier to improve oneself with decent schools and social safety net. Texas is requiring too many edcuated workers from outside of our state as it has been already mentioned.

There isn't anything wrong with working hard and not being successful/wealthy, but too many of those folks are requiring social benefits to supplement their income.

It's a balance, California is producing a lot of educated folks but the cost of living/regulations is making them leave while the converse is true of Texas. If you think UT and TAMU are top schools then you need to read up.

 

With the near $2 billion in subsidies we give companies annually, you could cover all current Texas college applicants college education while still having $500 million in surplus leftover for subsidies towards big business. I already pointed out why tax subsidies to entice companies to move here doesn't benefit the working class especially those native to Texas. I also pointed out that job creation programs like Capital IDEA, who covers college tuition at a community college and childcare for people that are low income are in fact just as important if not more so than tax subsidies to entice companies to come here. With a much smaller budget, they've developed a program with a rate of return interest of 10%, while improving the lives of local Texas natives by helping them get the necessary credentials free so they can qualify for competitive waged jobs in healthcare, IT and trades. No longer will you need to hire Johnny California or Kumar India to fill in those vacant IT positions because Billy Texas is now just as qualified too.

Graduates alone no longer need roughly a million dollars in government aid annually because their earning power is better. Graduates annually pay $3.5 million back in taxes after completing the program because of a higher earning power. That program alone with its measly budget has produced more jobs with an earning rate of $40,000 a year starting out per graduate than the Samsung Semiconductor power plant. Again it costs over $300,000 per job created in tax subsidies for Samsung to come here. Again, you have cities like Austin, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas outbidding each other for the powerplant with state tax dollars. Contrast that with the Samsung Semiconductor Power Plant in California, which costs Californian taxpayers roughly $45,000 per job created, because get this, their politicians didn't outbid each other like idiots so Samsung would choose their city to startup the plant. Our politicians in Texas suck so bad, they raise the price on each other just for a company to pick a city. Makes zero sense whatsoever. You're for a far more inefficient use of government funds but are against making it easier for native Texans to improve their earning power by getting a higher education they can afford; Free at an already more budget friendly community college.

I personally am tired of Congress being called Soco by people from California that have moved here. I get sick of seeing more Cali culture adopted in this city compared to what Austin once was. Not so much because I hate Californians. I just would like to see Native Texan culture improve with it's own innovation by at least creating more opportunities for native Texans to improve their financial livelihood. No one likes being poor. No one likes having to choose the crap health insurance option because you're poor. Or worse coming down with a critical illness that'll cost tens of thousands when you're poor and you find it's tougher to create a savings because your budget is so small for in case s-hit happens moments like getting deathly ill.

Contrary to what you may think, most poor people don't want to be dependent on government benefits in order to just get by. They'd much rather be able to afford the more expensive health care plans where you don't have to waits hours in a first come first serve city healthcare community center. They'd much rather be able to afford a mortgage in a safer part of town then settle where crime rate is likely higher but more affordable. They'd much rather be able to have enough money to put into savings for emergencies than go into crippling debt. I'm sort of being sarcastic here but I'm not really. Why do you not want to improve the lives of native Texans that are struggling? Why do you not want a Texas society that's less dependent on government aid to get by through higher education opportunities and job training? Why do you want all the innovation to come from other states like California and have their talent come here when we could be producing our very own? I mean Trumps whole entire platform was built on the premise of improving U.S. lives by putting citizens first and shunning opportunistic companies looking to turn a quarterly profit by locating elsewhere. What's the point of winning a bid for a production plant when you have to recruit talent outside the state and also outside the country in order to run it? How does that benefit Texas citizens at all? Where is all the outrage for dummy politicians that outbid each other with state tax dollars?

 

Do you think it's possible that the fact we have jobs here and they don't there is why we have educated workers coming here?

Holy wall of text batman.

 

California has been outpacing Texas in jobs since oil collapsed by the way. California has jobs but it's very competitive and the cost of living is high. California is the world's greatest innovation hub and creates some of the largest companies in the world. I would argue Texas needs to be more like California in that regards and develop more talent and develop more companies instead.

 

Time will tell. China has less citizens in manufacturing than a few years ago due to many of the same reasons the US lost jobs, technology and competition.

China is building up a lot of toxic debt keeping it citizens employed in manufacturing sectors that don't have demand, like steel production.

Lastly, tariffs will be retaliated against and I doubt you'll be able to get the business community behind them. For me, I will be very happy if Trump can do something about intellectual property. The TPP addressed that so a new framework will be needed.

 

Seems like you're content with the majority of Texans doing menial labor at low pay with zero benefits meanwhile the high paying jobs will go to people outside of the state and even the U.S.

 

Subsidies are another word for corporate welfare.

After a certain size, it'd be time for a company to wear big boy pants and quit sucking the government teat.

That states use the ploy is another instance of robbing peter to pay Paul

 

Seems like you're content with putting words into other people mouths. Your opinion is a lot of talk and generalities but not much reality...

I am content with the people that are interested in doing what it takes to make their own lives better getting the benefits of their efforts. If those people are Texans, fine, if not, that's ok too. I also don't think there is such a thing as menial labor. Labor is labor and for the most part in this country you get an honest wage for an honest days work based on the going market for the labor you are doing. I have done everything from food service to electrical to cleaning pig pens to industrial automation to management to factory work, etc. and not once did I ever consider it the fault of my employer or the government that my wages were not what I think they should be. I did however often question why the heck I was still doing a job where I didn't like the work or the pay.

 

I really don't think I'm putting words in your mouth. You think tax subsidies towards corporations are a good thing. I've shown you why they're not and why they're an enormously inefficient use of tax dollars. I'm not speaking in generalities. I gave you examples to demonstrate why they suck and why Texas politicians suck at even using them properly in that they outbid each other using the same pool of state tax dollars. I've demonstrated a successful program that gets a tiny almost miniscule fraction of tax dollars that actually benefits Texans and gets them off government aid like food stamps, welfare, and medicaid/medicare because they earn higher wages. Wouldn't this actually go towards the GOP platform of personal accountability without the need for government aid long term? You actually earn interest with your tax dollars by investing in Texan citizens. This just a fact. You said it was a wall of text without anything to back up anything other than your vague general opinion.

I'm not criticizing people that work hard jobs at low pay. I'm just saying no one likes doing those jobs and those jobs will go away as automation continues to improve. You made posts here that made it seem like being a poor working class citizen is something poor people are content with and that they really don't want to better their lives. I've given examples demonstrating that if you give low income people the opportunity to better themselves through higher education and job training, they will jump on that opportunity almost every time. As of now only a tiny fraction of Texans benefit from programs like Capital IDEA when it should be more mainstream and in more cities and in low populated rural areas as well. Again if you make it easier for people to become successful, they will jump on the opportunity almost every time. Why not do that?

You have states like Oregon and Tennessee covering college tuition for their citizens at community colleges because both states recognize that there will be a huge shortage of qualified applicants for jobs that require higher learning by 2025. Given that 99% of Texans do not benefit from the strong economy of Texas, it goes to show that tax subsidies are not the answer. I mean you wanted to slash the budget of the human genome project because you're concerned with how we spend our tax dollars yet you don't care about tax subsidies and still think they're a good thing without any evidence to back it up. You're the one speaking in generalities. Again, you could still give $500 million in tax subsidies to corporations annually and cover every college applicants tuition at the same time in Texas alone. This would benefits local Texans. Again why do you not want to make it easier for native Texans to become more successful? Why must they go the hard road or be lucky enough to have a family that's at least middle class and is able to help with bills while they pursue a higher education?

 

Again, you are putting words into my mouth. I never said that I want to slash the budget of the "human genome project". I do think that having that kind of research done by the DOE doesn't make much sense and that it could be done more effectively and efficiently in other ways.

You have NOT in any way proven that tax subsidies to corporations are bad and I think the Texas economy is every proof I need to say your are probably wrong. You spout off some bs stat about jobs costing $300,000 each for one example knowing full well that the impact on the economy in the area is there is WAY more than just those jobs. It's a lot like your 99% stat above... complete bs.

I do think programs like Capital IDEA are valuable if managed properly FWIW.

"Capital IDEA provides financial support and extensive professional guidance to motivated, non-traditional students who want to earn more and move up in a great career. With many community partners, like Austin Community College, we stand committed to providing individuals the opportunity and support they need to earn a degree and get started in a promising career."

I like the bolded parts.

 

I provided stats by the Ray Marshall Center from the University of Texas who conducts studies like these over 10 and 20 year periods. The stats are not BS. I'm not pushing a narrative of fallacies. Again you've provided nothing but your opinion on this matter. I agree the Texas economy is strong. Just not strong for the majority of Texans as I've shown.

Also your first two posts talk about Human Genome and cutting costs and cleaning house. You were concerned about the budget despite the arguments for why it exists within the DOE in the first place. Why concern over the budget for one program (which actually benefits U.S. citizens) despite evidence shown that tax subsidies are used inefficiently by our own politicians annually? I'm not against them to entice companies to work here but our politicians can't even negotiate properly to get Texan taxpayers a good deal when they build these manufacturing plants.

What I am for is making it easier for ambitious low income people to have access to achieving higher education and ultimately higher wages. There's not nearly enough programs out there that do that to benefit local Texans.

 

I'm quite certain you feel that you're a reputable source but, please read your own posts and see if you can determine exactly where your information comes from or what exactly you have proven or "shown". Referencing the Ray Marshall Center above has done nothing to improve my confidence in your stats.

I agree with you that helping people help themselves is a worthy use of tax dollars, the problem is determining who deserves assistance and who is just looking for a handout. Skilled trades people like electricians, welders and plumbers are going to be one of the largest needs in the coming years. I don't think people realize that there are really good ways to make good money and they don't all need a college degree. There are a ton of kids today coming out of college with degrees that are next to worthless, I have no interest in using tax dollars to pay for degrees that are not going to create more tax dollars.

 

Capital IDEA covers trades. Again they're not going to cover liberal arts degrees or communication degrees. They cover IT, healthcare, and trades. Jobs Texas has a lot of but lacks qualified applicants, thus the need to recruit talent outside of the state and even the country. You didn't even read or understand Capital IDEAs purpose. They even break the cycle of poverty for multigenerational families that have never gone to college or even lived middle class. So they got that covered too. I still don't see your outrage over poorly negotiated subsidies by Texas politicians for someone that was initially so concerned over wasteful tax dollars.

Also I see nothing of your stats. You have Texas Committees and even House Reps and Senators that turn to the Ray Marshall Center for statistics like the ones I've cited. So again these aren't some BS stats I'm pulling up from some liberal blog. You really need to get your facts straight.

Also if you doubt the stats from that part of UT, don't you think that department would be eliminated for pushing false narratives? Or are you in the camp that college is just a liberal breeding ground so you can't trust any college sources?

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http://www.workersdefense.org/wp-co...mise-of-the-Texas-Miracle-compressed-file.pdf

Start at Page 38 of the pamphlet. 82 sources from reputable institutions to collect this data. They do studies like this over 10 and 20 year periods. I was going to screenshot all the sources for you since I know you won't do the work but I realized its 5 pages of references to cover the material in that pamphlet.

Here's the first page of references.

Spoilered for size.

Spoiler

To explain the Samsung example I've used before, read this article or simply type Ctrl+F and then in the little search bar type in Samsung. It'll take you directly to the part of the article that talks about how they gave Austinites minimum wage jobs when they first came here while receiving millions in tax abatements. Companies pull stuff like this all the time just to try and get a little extra in quarterly profits but if affects real people who suffer because of it.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/1998-03-20/523054/

This is a real issue and you gloss over it like nothing. It just boggles my mind you had conspiratorial ideas of the government using the genome like the matrix and were in such an uproar over inefficiently used tax dollars there but you really don't care about it when it comes to poorly negotiated subsidies. I don't understand.

 

Great references, now, what stat that you posted do those references support?

 

You could go through the pdf. When you see a little number next to a statistic they mention, it means the source is from that number reference at the end of the packet. I didn't even mention the jobs promised vs jobs actually created discrepancies, the fact that only Austin seems to be transparent about where the subsidies are going but Houston and Dallas trail miserably in that respect. Also their belief that since Texas does not pay an income tax, it's home owners that end up footing most of the bill for tax subsidies through property tax every year. I know my friends have been complaining about property tax going up in Travis County with their homes but that's anecdotal.

I hate to break it to you but I can't read the packet for you. I already tried by giving the statistics in that pdf but you question the credibility of my own word. That's why I linked it to you. It's now on you to read it. And if you doubt the veracity of the statistics in the packet, you can again look at the little number assigned next to the statistics they mention at the end of the packet in References section. Find that reference number at the end of the packet, and copy/paste the title of the reference onto Google. Chances are you'll be able to find a link directly to whatever is pasted. Read the source material yourself and then decide if they're out to bamboozle you. You won't though. You'll keep touting that belief that you're right based on gut instinct which is a shame as it leaves nothing to debate in a Debate & Discussion portion of this forum. Just keep believing conspiratorial government matrix technology is what's wasting your precious tax dollars.

 

A great effort, London's Burning, but wasted on this guy. He can't wrap his head around the truth.

 

The fact is that you like to type a lot and have put actual statistics and numbers in this thread that you pulled out of your butt. That reference doesn't apply to the things you have stated as facts in this thread and you know it.

Let me reference the library at Alexandria as my source... everything I say is true... go check for yourself.

 

A weak and cowardly response. LondonsBurning directly answered you, and provided the actual source material as support. Your response, and the false equivalence at the end, shows you can't debate the facts.