Redistricting: U.S. Census Bureau Releases 2010 County Level Counts

The U.S. Census Bureau this month started releasing 2010 Census details, including data on race, Hispanic origin and voting age data for multiple geographies within each state.

The U.S. Census bureau today delivered Texas' 2010 census details, including first look at race and Hispanic origin data for legislative redistricting.

Texas is a majority-minority state for the first time in a redistricting period, according to the just-released census data, a fact that could complicate Republicans’ hopes for a partisan gerrymander—and make the state competitive for Democrats in future years.

Anglos now account for just 45 percent of the state's population, down from 52 percent a decade ago. The Hispanic population is now 38 percent of the total population—growing by 42 percent—while the African-American population grew slightly and is now 12 percent of the total population. The voting age population is a little different: 49.6 percent Anglo, 33.6 percent Hispanic, 11.4 percent black and 3.9 percent Asian.

The decennial census for Texas totaled 25,145,561 people living in the state in the first half of 2010 for a 20.6% increase over the number of people living in the state in 2000, courtesy of the burgeoning Texas Hispanic and black populations. Almost 90 percent of the state's growth was from minorities.

The local level data released today will serve as the starting point for a lengthy political and legal battle over how to redraw the political boundaries around Texas. (Census data release | Texas redistricting information | View proposed redistricted maps at the Texas Legislative Council's district viewer | Brown's Census Viewer)

The Texas Legislative Council, which handles the mechanics of redistricting for the Legislature, will make the detailed census data available for download to Texas lawmakers’ computers in the coming days. Lawmakers can than begin to draw new district lines using redistricting software applications already provide by the legislative council. In recent weeks, lawmakers and their staff have been learning how to use the software using old census data.

A fair redrawing of new district lines must allow the minority groups, who accounted for 90% of the population increase, the opportunity to share in the four additional U.S. House Texas earned by Texas' overall population increase. When the legislature completes its redistricting task Texas will have 36 rather than 32 seats in the reconfigured 435-member U.S. House of Representatives.

Republicans under former Rep. Tom DeLay re-redistricted the state in 2003, gerrymandering and tearing apart districts held by Democrats to create new districts favoring non-minority Republicans. The plan was a big success for Republicans: The U.S. House delegation from Texas went from 17-15 Democrat earlier in the decade to 21-11 Republican in 2004. Republicans now hold 23 of the 32 House seats after picking up three districts in the 2010 election.

Republicans performed relatively well among Texas Hispanics in the 2010 elections. Gov. Rick Perry took 38 percent of the Hispanic vote last year, better than other Republicans in recent years, and the GOP picked up two majority-Hispanic House seats. While whites made up about 45 percent of the population in 2010, they accounted for about 68 percent of the turnout; Hispanics, with 38 percent of the population, accounted for only about 20 percent of the vote

State Sen. Kel Seliger, one of the Republicans in charge of the redistricting process, has suggested there would be one additional Hispanic district in the Rio Grande Valley. Democratic State Rep. Garnet Coleman predicts Republicans will draw two new Republican districts, one near Dallas and one near Houston, and "pack" heavily minority Democratic districts in the Rio Grande Valley and Houston.

Texas Democratic strategist and Lone Star Project Director Matt Angle believes the new congressional districts should clearly represent minorities. Angle believes one Hispanics district can be drawn in north Texas in the Dallas area, a second Hispanics district should be drawn in the San Antonio to Austin corridor, and the remaining two districts should be drawn elsewhere to represent the voting strength of minorities.

Now that the still growing Hispanic population makes up 38 percent of Texas residents Republicans must increasingly compete for the Hispanic vote in the future to win statewide as well as local elections. The Hispanic population is very young and trends progressive, and as more Latinos turn 18, become citizens, and register to vote, Texas could become a swing state sooner rather than later, if Republicans do not make strong inroads with the Hispanic electorate.

Based on the 2010 census count of 25,145,561 people now living in Texas, the ideal population count for each of the 36 Texas congressional districts is 701,901, the ideal Senate district is 811,147, the ideal state House district is 167,637, and the ideal State Board of Education district is 1,676,371.

Should the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature gerrymander the new districts to disenfranchise the larger minority populations, the gerrymandered congressional map would likely be challenged by the Obama Administration Justice Department, which under the Voting Rights Act must approve any changes affecting minority representation. The George W. Bush Justice Department all but ignored enforcement of the Voting Rights Act after Republicans gerrymandered the state in 2003. According to Matt Angle, "Texas redistricting plans will be reviewed by the Justice Department, and partisan Republicans will no longer be able to count on partisan operatives within DOJ to subvert the law. . . This puts harshly partisan Republicans on notice that they must respect and abide by the Voting Rights Act or face objection from the Justice Department."

Given Collin County's 60 percent population growth from 491,675 residents in 2000 to 782,341 residents in 2010, it seem likely the county will see some adjustment to some or all of the various district lines, including for the Congressional, Texas House, Texas Senate and State Board of Education districts.

It is, however, unlikely that Collin County will see a new congressional district or other major changes in the various district lines that crisscross over the county.

Collin Co. ranks seventh in population size after Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis and El Paso Counties. The county also has a substantial percentage of residents with Hispanic, Asian, and African American heritage. (U.S. Census Bureau 2010 Custom tables Excel)

Hispanics now make up the majority of Texas public school students. About 50 percent of the state's 4.9 million students are Latino, up from 40 percent a decade ago.

A little more than 20 percent of Plano ISD students currently are Hispanic, up from 10 percent a decade ago. Nearly 18 percent of Plano students are Asian students up from 13 percent in the 2000-2001 school year. The percentage of black Plano students has gone from 3 percent to almost 10 percent over the last decade while the percentage of white students has dropped from 91percent to 50 percent. The notion of "white flight" from Dallas to Collin Co. suburbs is no more.

Collin County currently holds most of Texas Congressional District 3, represented by Republican Sam Johnson since he first won election in 1991. The 3rd congressional district includes the county's densely populated southwest quadrant and a small corner of northern Dallas county.

The remaining three quarters of Collin County's more sparsely populated geographic area is included in Texas Congressional District 4, currently represented by Republican Ralph Hall. Hall's District 4 geographic area includes all or parts of Bowie, Camp, Cass, Collin, Delta, Fannin, Farnklin, Grayson, Hopkins, Hunt, Lamar, Morris, Rains, Red River and Rockwall counties.

Other districts in Collin Co. include State Senate Districts 8 and 30, State House Districts 66, 67, 70 and 89, and State Board of Education Districts 9 and 12.

County 2000 2010 Change Harris County 3,400,578 4,092,459 20.3% Dallas County 2,218,899 2,368,139 6.7% Tarrant County 1,446,219 1,809,034 25.1% Bexar County 1,392,931 1,714,773 23.1% Travis County 812,280 1,024,266 26.1% El Paso County 679,622 800,647 17.8% Collin County 491,675 782,341 59.1% Hidalgo County 569,463 774,769 36.1% Denton County 432,976 662,614 53.0% Fort Bend County 354,452 585,375 65.1%

Most of the state's other largest counties kept pace with the statewide population growth rate of 20.6 percent, but Dallas County's population only increased by 6 percent, from 2.21 million to 2.36 million residents. The city of Dallas' population increased less than 1 percent, a fact that's likely to cause Dallas to lose two of its 16 House seats during redistricting.

Suburban areas around Dallas County had strong growth throughout the last decade. Denton counties grew by more than 53 percent, and Rockwall County lead all counties in growth at a rate of 81 percent. Seventy-nine of the state's 254 counties lost population during the decade, most of them clustered in West Texas.

Another 97 counties grew less than 10 percent, and another 41 grew between 10 and 20 percent. The fastest growing 37 counties were clustered in the Hill Country, the Metroplex, the Valley and around Houston with growth rates that range between 20 and 82 percent for the decade.

1. Communities of color are driving population growth in Texas. Texas is one of five states in the country where people of color make up the majority of the population. Between 2000 and 2009 Hispanic population growth accounted for 63.1 percent of all growth in the state. Texas’s black and Asian populations—2.8 million people and 850,000 people, respectively—were the third largest in the country in 2010.
2. The majority of children in Texas are children of color. For children under age 5 in the state, children of color outnumbered non-Hispanic white children 2.2-to-1 in 2011. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, in 2009, 64 percent of the state’s children were of color.
3. Houston is the most racially and ethnically diverse metropolitan area in the country. According to a report from Rice University, the percentage of Latinos in the region increased dramatically from 20.8 percent in 1990 to more than one-third at 35.5 percent in 2010. This thriving racial and ethnic diversity places Houston at the head of the state’s rapid demographic changes.
4. Nearly a third of immigrants in Texas are naturalized—meaning they are eligible to vote. In 2010 immigrants comprised 16.4 percent of the state’s total population. That year there were 1.3 million naturalized U.S. citizens in Texas, approximately 32 percent of immigrants in the state.
5. Voters of color make up a growing portion of the Texas electorate. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinos accounted for 20.1 percent of Texas voters in the 2008 elections. African Americans and Asians comprised 14.2 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, of the state’s voters that same year.
6. Even more Latinos are eligible to vote but are currently unregistered. According to the political opinion research group Latino Decisions, there are 2.1 million unregistered Latino voters in Texas in 2012. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are an additional 880,000 legal permanent residents (green card holders) in Texas who are eligible to naturalize and vote for the first time. Put together, this means Texas has close to an extra 3 million potential voters this fall.
7. The Department of Justice blocked a Texas voter ID law that threatened to disenfranchise Hispanics. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, far fewer non-Hispanic voters—4.3 percent, compared with 6.3 percent of Latino voters—lack a proper photo ID, which voters would have been required to show under the law. Texas’s own state data listed 174,866 registered Latino voters without an ID.
8. Communities of color add billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to Texas’s economy through entrepreneurship and spending. The purchasing power of Latinos in Texas increased more than 400 percent from 1990 to 2010, reaching a total of $176.3 billion. Asian buying power increased by more than 650 percent in the same period to a total of $34.4 billion. And in 2007 Texas’s nearly 450,000 Latino-owned businesses had close to 400,000 employees, and sales and receipts of $61.9 billion.
9. Immigrants are essential to the economy as workers. In 2010 immigrants comprised 20.9 percent of Texas’s workforce. As of 2007, 21 percent of Houston’s total economic output and 16 percent of Dallas’s economic output was derived from immigrants.
10. Immigrants contribute to the state economy through state and local taxes. In 2010, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants in Texas paid $1.6 billion in state and local taxes.

Mouse over the state counties in the map tool below to view county level Census data.

2010 Interactive State and County Census Map

Additional Data: To access data from multiple geographies within the state, such as census blocks, tracts, voting districts, cities, counties and school districts, visit American Factfinder: http://factfinder2.census.gov.

The Census Bureau will deliver state data on a rolling basis through March. See what states are coming next.

Collin County Census Redistricting Data by Election Precinct
note: VAP = Voting Age Population

Voting District Precinct	Area Land in Sq Miles	Ave Age of Reg Voter	Housing Units	TL Pop	TL VAP	VAP Reg to vote	White alone	Hispanic Latino alone	Black or Af/Am alone	Asian alone	Am Indian or Alaskan Native alone	Two or More Races
1	1.0	51	1,549	3,521	2,661	1,526	1,609	764	221	20	8	35
2	2.3	44	2,949	6,409	4,635	2,719	2,568	1,250	592	126	31	54
3	5.5	47	1,771	5,991	3,887	1,815	567	2,434	807	21	9	37
4	23.2	51	469	1,068	836	743	725	75	10	8	9	8
5	1.8	53	577	1,450	1,119	958	925	110	52	8	14	9
6	1.6	42	2,702	8,866	5,623	4,400	3,452	612	580	874	10	80
7	0.5	44	807	2,051	1,543	1,521	1,054	227	143	96	8	14
8	16.1	48	1,881	4,977	3,613	2,394	2,744	736	40	29	25	34
9	25.2	47	2,609	6,954	4,922	3,370	3,771	771	223	54	34	65
10	10.8	50	231	635	489	393	416	59	0	0	3	8
11	54.6	49	2,570	6,632	4,841	3,575	3,660	816	260	28	23	50
12	1.3	48	2,274	6,025	4,181	4,043	3,624	248	141	99	20	42
13	19.4	46	1,445	4,006	2,756	2,228	2,153	276	216	63	19	26
14	1.4	42	2,634	5,662	4,163	1,768	1,950	330	412	1,351	1	118
15	0.5	51	1,545	3,659	2,762	1,434	1,373	782	204	351	6	45
16	20.6	46	2,140	6,061	4,077	3,394	3,294	501	161	28	34	54
17	16.7	43	1,764	5,284	3,512	2,432	2,555	586	265	26	27	48
18	26.7	51	613	1,516	1,118	757	947	138	13	1	7	12
19	0.4	50	782	1,981	1,575	1,608	1,311	76	50	108	6	24
20	28.6	49	550	1,345	1,040	966	925	91	11	1	2	9
21	1.5	50	2,138	5,405	4,277	3,641	3,101	343	246	499	9	66
22	57.7	47	1,936	5,514	3,830	3,146	2,918	700	127	16	23	39
23	3.5	44	1,462	4,120	2,781	917	696	1,263	615	170	1	30
24	0.4	41	2,565	4,119	3,546	2,097	2,002	560	618	250	16	75
25	2.8	45	2,641	9,429	5,797	4,709	3,339	422	542	1,346	22	113
26	1.2	49	1,162	3,129	2,249	1,397	1,220	711	170	108	9	28
27	1.7	43	1,572	5,062	3,306	2,611	2,308	452	342	139	15	43
28	0.8	47	1,824	3,842	3,067	2,292	1,993	267	256	494	7	44
29	19.0	45	1,517	4,656	3,030	2,454	2,435	422	88	30	18	36
30	9.8	45	2,718	7,680	5,101	4,111	3,610	839	344	211	23	54
31	0.6	51	977	2,607	2,044	2,012	1,732	109	61	120	4	15
32	0.7	50	1,258	3,071	2,383	2,395	1,966	169	97	113	15	22
33	23.4	47	1,532	4,254	3,047	2,279	2,490	360	118	29	28	17
34	1.1	45	1,988	6,679	4,208	3,380	2,068	156	114	1,791	7	64
35	41.6	48	1,896	5,023	3,711	2,748	3,134	427	50	26	35	35
36	0.7	49	829	2,294	1,761	1,957	1,464	66	50	164	1	13
37	79.7	49	1,454	3,504	2,624	2,028	2,340	210	9	2	18	36
38	6.3	42	4,442	10,302	6,985	4,274	4,780	721	738	599	36	97
39	0.8	46	1,885	4,871	3,564	2,641	2,253	655	370	210	10	63
40	1.0	48	1,521	4,094	3,138	3,099	2,624	248	142	67	23	26
41	7.7	49	894	2,792	1,878	1,869	1,646	142	23	39	11	11
42	10.8	45	555	1,722	1,140	697	777	281	53	9	9	10
43	10.1	42	2,768	9,392	6,339	4,075	3,772	1,199	1,016	218	34	90
44	0.8	49	1,507	4,096	2,925	1,730	1,580	1,177	108	20	9	27
45	2.8	49	973	1,885	1,422	1,045	1,007	156	117	122	4	16
46	1.1	49	2,639	6,515	4,850	2,396	2,034	2,217	372	140	15	47
47	0.9	48	1,387	3,643	2,783	2,358	1,887	517	217	103	14	40
48	1.4	51	2,101	4,504	3,524	2,867	2,718	227	191	310	16	54
49	0.9	55	1,364	2,672	2,177	2,029	1,884	148	43	76	7	17
50	2.7	42	2,392	6,304	4,610	2,202	1,591	1,359	619	894	13	115
51	0.8	46	1,291	4,167	2,842	1,305	893	1,557	272	87	13	19
52	1.8	43	2,049	6,281	4,266	2,773	1,554	782	533	1,275	21	98
53	0.7	51	1,056	2,767	2,155	2,076	1,784	161	72	94	11	33
54	1.8	45	2,187	4,921	3,750	2,608	2,078	613	503	466	9	74
55	1.9	47	2,333	5,389	4,748	2,106	2,919	407	249	1,055	17	90
56	5.3	45	3,135	8,735	6,061	4,240	4,204	1,041	457	260	24	64
57	2.8	46	2,685	6,945	4,844	3,735	3,142	962	520	140	32	46
58	1.4	47	2,409	5,346	4,205	3,167	2,706	296	380	729	10	76
59	1.1	43	1,892	5,946	3,956	3,325	2,817	400	253	403	33	45
60	5.3	49	809	2,484	1,710	1,555	1,328	206	48	102	9	16
61	1.0	50	797	2,142	1,658	1,564	1,266	162	112	89	7	22
62	0.7	49	1,404	3,637	2,785	2,422	2,073	387	172	103	15	32
63	0.6	50	920	2,398	1,909	2,006	1,642	87	40	111	7	19
64	0.8	47	1,877	4,207	3,205	2,641	2,244	259	188	452	9	45
65	0.4	50	795	1,996	1,499	1,146	1,000	259	107	96	15	20
66	0.6	49	1,324	3,505	2,564	1,966	1,651	549	153	153	13	43
67	1.3	54	892	2,046	1,676	1,587	1,379	86	43	143	4	18
68	0.6	52	1,263	3,524	2,591	1,888	1,510	757	196	73	17	35
69	0.9	50	2,066	4,884	3,853	3,596	2,875	244	172	501	14	42
70	0.5	51	923	2,380	1,856	1,739	1,481	154	56	124	9	24
71	0.6	51	1,000	2,246	1,835	1,602	1,417	152	77	159	9	20
72	0.7	49	1,204	2,786	2,166	1,446	1,193	583	98	260	8	21
73	0.3	44	1,922	3,074	2,630	1,538	1,502	269	367	443	6	38
74	0.7	48	1,299	2,802	2,159	1,646	1,486	227	189	192	8	52
75	1.1	54	1,018	2,184	1,777	1,799	1,500	83	20	147	5	21
76	0.9	49	1,948	4,894	3,753	2,982	2,784	244	253	408	12	41
77	0.8	45	2,003	5,164	3,835	3,312	2,339	406	382	617	11	69
78	1.9	50	1,004	2,373	1,912	1,721	1,425	112	69	256	0	43
79	0.7	46	3,597	6,580	5,283	2,542	2,239	1,292	693	933	13	97
80	0.9	44	1,751	5,065	3,530	3,200	2,496	351	329	285	21	47
81	0.7	46	2,134	4,472	3,472	2,539	2,330	371	251	433	12	66
82	0.7	47	1,734	4,573	3,290	2,524	2,139	693	255	144	15	41
83	4.5	45	2,498	7,241	4,950	3,912	3,795	656	314	74	37	64
84	0.6	47	2,126	3,825	3,139	2,215	2,069	402	397	216	11	35
85	0.7	46	1,711	4,532	3,456	2,867	2,188	400	240	546	6	65
86	0.9	48	1,667	4,175	3,097	2,564	2,054	212	265	493	9	53
87	4.6	43	1,400	4,923	2,906	2,447	1,980	163	124	570	13	46
88	0.5	39	3,044	4,161	3,463	1,720	1,584	516	1,062	213	9	65
89	1.3	46	2,687	7,334	5,345	4,375	3,009	274	306	1,611	16	116
90	1.3	48	1,432	4,053	2,841	2,696	2,136	168	97	393	6	35
91	0.7	47	1,432	3,704	2,706	2,151	1,996	271	174	201	17	43
92	2.0	46	2,115	4,869	3,527	2,264	1,939	1,124	292	103	6	54
93	9.6	49	180	449	346	281	314	29	0	0	0	2
94	2.2	47	1,779	5,767	3,766	3,207	2,024	195	193	1,276	9	65
95	0.7	44	1,441	4,420	2,959	2,617	1,911	244	327	402	8	53
96	4.5	38	592	2,487	1,803	935	821	438	481	32	4	19
97	0.7	53	582	1,549	1,182	1,244	1,099	35	13	15	7	12
98	3.1	70	930	2,135	1,591	800	847	690	31	5	4	9
99	0.3	49	610	1,610	1,171	655	615	468	77	1	2	8
100	1.4	54	20	48	40	26	34	5	0	0	0	1
101	1.8	44	1,521	4,476	2,958	2,615	2,196	226	134	339	12	44
102	1.1	49	1,085	3,207	2,227	2,277	2,004	98	24	69	12	16
103	0.4	48	912	2,810	1,966	1,179	921	800	159	44	16	25
104	0.4	40	3,112	4,839	4,021	2,296	1,875	659	1,028	338	14	84
105	1.6	49	889	1,918	1,583	1,020	1,110	135	112	188	9	20
106	0.4	44	1,016	2,912	2,039	1,785	1,505	200	180	124	8	22
107	0.8	47	1,611	4,633	3,343	3,040	2,276	167	128	698	7	61
108	1.1	46	1,989	4,788	3,555	2,551	1,896	332	266	939	12	102
109	2.7	46	1,749	4,697	3,210	2,813	2,235	221	210	473	10	53
110	0.8	51	1,558	3,550	2,995	2,521	2,000	163	168	624	5	32
111	2.4	45	2,512	6,665	4,605	3,410	3,156	794	293	283	30	41
112	0.7	48	1,349	3,971	2,809	2,335	1,785	131	54	781	9	43
113	0.8	44	1,992	5,626	3,932	2,505	2,583	694	402	167	12	64
114	13.2	47	1,702	4,620	3,261	2,213	2,419	703	54	35	20	26
115	0.8	49	1,825	3,585	2,924	2,589	2,138	268	189	274	2	48
116	2.4	46	1,984	5,598	3,800	3,502	2,683	184	142	728	7	53
117	1.5	43	2,848	6,624	4,732	3,360	3,106	581	425	511	20	74
118	1.1	45	2,237	6,130	4,150	3,839	3,314	316	139	300	25	53
119	1.2	47	2,256	6,952	4,889	4,632	3,178	197	203	1,211	11	79
120	2.7	46	2,727	8,142	5,300	4,584	3,747	319	244	881	19	85
121	1.1	45	2,109	6,626	4,333	3,169	1,971	214	183	1,849	11	100
122	1.6	47	1,886	5,663	3,696	3,557	3,112	221	148	153	14	44
123	1.0	46	1,454	3,038	2,273	1,974	1,594	169	186	286	5	29
124	0.9	47	2,787	5,505	4,288	2,656	2,302	296	318	1,267	22	77
125	2.0	46	2,528	7,178	4,899	3,666	2,525	316	497	1,445	18	86
126	1.0	43	2,176	6,932	4,429	3,835	3,072	463	516	287	23	59
127	1.1	44	2,082	5,554	3,963	3,089	2,747	428	279	428	17	59
128	15.3	48	1,607	5,009	3,366	3,281	2,947	157	119	86	21	33
129	1.3	46	1,674	3,637	2,646	2,105	1,994	248	268	77	9	43
130	3.5	45	2,844	8,093	5,391	4,260	3,565	365	239	1,119	14	80
131	2.1	46	2,770	7,467	5,078	4,553	4,139	349	272	215	32	61
132	0.6	47	2,022	3,914	3,195	2,588	2,276	260	292	307	9	49
133	2.4	44	1,644	4,416	3,036	1,941	1,958	500	366	141	22	48
134	13.9	42	4,324	13,151	8,423	5,539	4,749	967	1,147	1,339	19	171
135	1.1	44	2,369	6,057	4,218	2,970	2,442	359	360	958	10	78
136	0.6	52	1,504	2,719	2,275	1,762	1,574	280	275	103	12	27
137	0.9	47	1,250	2,827	2,116	1,787	1,410	135	118	395	6	52
138	0.4	52	558	1,467	1,174	1,166	1,049	55	11	36	9	13
139	1.5	45	3,462	7,693	5,568	3,436	3,457	494	612	866	22	109
140	2.6	46	3,668	10,338	6,723	3,820	5,464	446	418	270	29	91
141	1.6	48	1,284	3,801	2,793	2,519	1,914	226	233	370	8	36
142	0.9	47	2,232	4,504	3,634	2,525	2,256	205	280	814	11	63
143	1.5	48	988	2,282	1,766	1,672	1,389	86	68	183	4	33
144	1.7	47	1,236	3,881	2,676	2,326	1,734	133	299	462	13	35
145	0.5	42	701	2,207	1,481	1,223	928	154	181	186	6	21
146	1.5	43	2,441	6,978	4,766	3,870	3,130	553	480	470	18	100
147	1.5	45	1,227	2,950	2,036	1,346	1,222	237	238	299	13	25
148	0.1	49	34	97	77	66	59	2	3	9	0	4
149	2.5	44	1,236	3,805	2,467	1,989	1,665	299	296	145	15	35
150	16.7	52	217	539	412	345	379	26	3	0	2	0
151	0.4	42	677	2,232	1,448	990	755	143	231	276	6	26
152	0.2	43	339	1,174	889	62	35	834	9	6	2	1
153	2.5	44	1,271	3,814	2,621	1,961	1,629	251	294	407	3	32
154	0.0	37	126	434	213	133	51	33	114	8	0	7
155	1.2	45	1,528	3,367	2,205	3,622	1,756	177	160	80	8	22
156	1.6	44	2,257	6,651	4,469	3,784	3,185	529	447	228	21	53
157	3.5	45	1,848	6,145	3,832	3,028	2,342	223	243	922	15	81
158	1.9	46	852	2,654	1,869	1,310	823	144	245	615	7	33
159	2.0	43	2,602	8,349	5,376	3,496	2,762	1,027	839	644	12	82
160	0.2	57	7	12	10	14	10	0	0	0	0	0
161	0.2	0	4	10	9	6	9	0	0	0	0	0
162	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
163	4.5	41	3,923	10,764	7,142	4,954	4,608	1,034	897	446	24	116
164	0.6	81	450	467	466	444	448	4	0	8	2	3
165	3.7	50	324	936	676	653	536	29	23	65	3	20
166	1.5	44	1,378	4,606	2,992	2,044	1,467	255	344	866	7	47
167	1.4	45	2,507	7,146	4,882	3,718	2,508	308	295	1,645	7	116
168	0.9	45	668	2,329	1,433	1,390	1,150	70	59	127	11	13
169	1.0	41	1,387	3,837	2,571	1,860	1,619	335	299	264	14	37
170	0.6	44	975	2,466	1,713	1,355	1,259	165	147	112	5	20
171	4.2	44	2,748	7,062	4,854	3,181	3,420	308	296	737	21	63
172	22.4	45	1,628	4,570	3,144	2,395	2,404	523	110	28	31	45
173	0.9	46	944	2,964	2,004	1,761	1,626	149	101	103	6	16
174	6.4	44	2,125	6,280	4,204	3,055	2,893	602	418	194	21	66
175	2.3	44	1,145	3,792	2,527	1,928	1,746	256	271	208	8	33
176	3.2	39	3,717	5,136	4,655	2,129	3,056	455	451	550	13	111
177	4.3	45	3,200	5,528	4,527	2,343	3,121	424	476	381	28	80
178	8.8	46	2,316	6,137	3,920	2,987	3,280	262	211	96	21	45
179	7.7	58	2,100	4,940	4,003	3,910	3,685	152	31	67	29	33
Totals	841.2	46	300,960	782,341	557,664	421,386	368,136	72,370	44,429	61,146	2,320	8,164

Explanation of census/redistricting tables' headings and terms - PDF
2010 Census - Texas Redistricting Data

Matthews: Republicans are Becoming the Party of the John Birch Society

Chris Matthews in a "Let me finish" segment states the obvious; the Republican Party has become the party of the John Birch Society.
MATTHEWS: "Let Me Finish" tonight with this unbelievable presidential campaign that’s about to begin.

Watching President Obama today explaining and defending his budget, both the substance and the politics, I was struck by the question: could any of the possible Republican candidates out there do this?

Does any one of them have the precision of mind, the command of recall, the orderly process of thinking and evaluating, the reasonable moral compass?

You can play this game, too. Think it through. Throw those names and faces onto your mental viewing screen and think deep. Romney, Huckabee, Palin, Bachmann, Barbour, Santorum, Gingrich -- is there one of them we think could do what Obama can do?

I’ve been in close quarters with the president twice. The first time I came to the conclusion that this guy ought to be president of the United States. There’s a peace to his presentation, a calm understanding of the information, of his values, of the world.

A look at the Republican field, with all its negatives, I look at Nate Silver’s numbers and see the problem that the party has in finding someone to field against the president -- someone who can stand up on the same platform, talk the issues with this competence and wonder -- then it come to me, that they may not be in the business of looking for something with the match to Obama, simply someone to attack him. I’m talking about a protest candidate -- someone who is -- who yells at the government, mocks the country’s condition, is clever, sarcastic, and when it works best, cute in their cutting.

A look at the joke-telling at last week’s Conservative Political Action Convention, a look at the new poll showing a majority of Republican voters don’t believe the president was born here, even though it was announced in the newspapers at the time. I look at the strange wackiness that echoes through the one stable party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, and Ike, and wonder if they accept any of those guys today? Do you think they’d take a guy who wanted to take away states` rights? Who wants to fight for conservation of our wilderness lands, who wants to build an interstate highway system or create a federal system of loans and grants for higher education?

Forget about it, they’d never pick those guys. No, The Republicans aren’t that party anymore. They’re becoming more and more the party that doesn’t believe in science, whether it’s evolution or climate change; doesn’t believe in government; doesn’t believe the president is an American.

It’s veering off to being the party of the John Birch Society, adhering to the white parchments of that society’s latter day apostle, Glenn Beck. That’s right -- the John Birch Society that said Ike was a communist; the apostle who now believes that President Obama is an avatar of a burgeoning world-dominating caliphate.

That’s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.

The Birch Society has long been considered wacky and extreme by old guard conservative leaders. William F. Buckley famously denounced the John Birch Society and its founder Robert Welch in the early 1960s as “idiotic” and “paranoid. ” Buckley’s condemnation effectively banishing the group from the mainstream conservative movement. Welch had called President Dwight D. Eisenhower a “conscious, dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy” and that the U.S. government was “under operational control of the Communist party.” Buckley argued that such paranoid rantings had no place in the conservative movement or the Republican party.

Two years after Buckley’s death, the John Birch Society is no longer banished; it is listed as one of about 100 co-sponsors of the 2010 CPAC.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed the John Birch Society as a group that “advocates or adheres to extreme anti-government doctrines.”

Right-wing conservatives align themselves with the banking oligarchy, which has facilitated massive transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich.

They are for no taxes on business or the wealthy, elimination of Medicare, privatization of Social Security, abolition of unions, elimination of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, elimination of all regulatory agencies, including those that guarantee food, product and banking safety and abolition of social programs of any kind, which they believe are socialistic.

MSNBC Rachel Maddox expose on the Birchers

Those spending billions to fund the Tea Party, like the billionaire Koch Brothers, are aligned with John Birch Society. JBS advocates the abolition of income tax, and repeal of civil rights legislation, which it sees as being Communist in inspiration. They want to eliminate the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education and most of the Federal Government, with the exception of those parts of the government funneling $670 billion into defense spending annually, which includes $117.8 billion dollars to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

What is the John Birch Society

Texas on the Brink

Perry won re-election last year by touting the strength and health of Texas under conservative governance, a familiar strategy he has consistently repeated since taking office in late 2000. Perry again used that theme for his State of the State address to the Texas Legislature in early February. Perry's bottom line assessment of the state of the state is that it's all good. Contrary to Perry's rosy superlatives, it's not all good in Texas, according to the fifth edition of "Texas on the Brink," an annual review by the Legislative Study Group that ranks the state on dozens of factors ranging from health insurance to voter turnout. (PDF)

Texas on the Brink 2011: Blessed with land, rivers, oil, and other abundant natural resources, early Texas welcomed everyone from cattle ranchers to braceros, from cotton farmers to Chinese railroad workers. These pioneers built a great state, and together we fulfilled a destiny.

From humble beginnings, we built a state with the firm belief that every Texan might rise as high and as far as their spirit, hard work, and talent might carry them. With education and determination every Texan might achieve great success – home ownership, reliable healthcare, safe neighborhoods, and financial prosperity.

In Texas today, the American dream is distant. Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the nation. Texas is dead last in the percentage of residents with their high school diploma and near last in SAT scores. Texas has America’s dirtiest air. If we do not change course, for the first time in our history, the Texas generation of tomorrow will be less prosperous than the generation of today.

Without the courage to invest in the minds of our children and steadfast support for great schools, we face a daunting prospect. Those who value tax cuts over children and budget cuts over college have put Texas at risk in her ability to compete and succeed.

Perry's office released a 2011 budget plan (PDF) that largely resembles those put forward by the state House and Senate in recent weeks. Those plans cut $31 billion in spending from the Texas budget, which will result in the firings of tens of thousands of teachers, closure of community colleges, eliminate tuition support for 60,000 college students, closure of correctional facilities and firings of correctional officers and drastic cuts state services for the poor, elderly and young and those with mental health problems.

The Texas Tribune pulls a few facts from the report to give a look at how Texas compares to other states, before the $31 billion in spending cuts called for by Perry and Texas Legislature:

At the bottom:

• Tax expenditures per capita (47th)
• Percent of population 25 and older with a high school diploma (50th)
• Percent of poor people covered by Medicaid (49th)
• Percent of population with employer-based health insurance (48th)
• Per capita spending on mental health (50th)
• Per capita spending on Medicaid (49th)
• Percent of non-elderly women with health insurance (50th)
• Percent of women receiving prenatal care in first trimester (50th)
• Average credit score (49th)
• Workers' compensation coverage (50th)

Near the top:

• Number of executions (1st)
• Public school enrollment (2nd)
• Percent of uninsured children (1st)
• Percent of children living in poverty (4th)
• Percent of population uninsured (1st)
• Percent of population living below poverty (4th)
• Percent of population with food insecurity (2nd)
• Overall birth rate (2nd)
• Amount of carbon dioxide emissions (1st)
• Amount of toxic chemicals released into water (1st)
• Amount of hazardous waste generated (1st)

Republicans Push To Defund Planned Parenthood

A new Republican bill defunding Planned Parenthood would cut millions of dollars in funding for contraceptives, reproductive health counseling and cancer screenings.

The measure would eliminate all $327 million in funding for Title X, a family planning program that began 40 years ago under President Richard Nixon. And while Planned Parenthood receives millions of dollars from the program, Title X funds cannot be used for abortion services.

"Unbelievably, the House Leadership has set its sights on abolishing a program that provides lifesaving and preventive care to millions of women and saves taxpayers money by helping women plan their families," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. "This is an extreme proposal, and the new leaders of the House are pushing it forward at great risk to women and at their own political peril." (Another statement by Richards on Elimination of Title X Family Planning Program)

Take Action Web Page Here | To find the U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative to contact for your home district - click here.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), framed it as an effort to deny government funding for abortions.

"The time has come to deny all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America," Pence said. "I've authored the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would deny Title X funds to Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider and Congress must act and act now to move this important legislation."

Jodi Jacobson, editor-in-chief of the reproductive health news site RH Reality Check, reports that "Title X provides millions of women across the country with access to basic primary and preventive care, such as lifesaving cancer screenings, contraception, STI testing and treatment, and annual exams."

The pro-abortion-rights group NARAL said the legislation would lead to more unwanted pregnancies by cutting funding for contraceptives.

"The new anti-choice House leadership now wants to take away birth control and cancer screenings from millions of American women and men," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL. "While these politicians attack abortion coverage from every angle, they now want to deny funding for birth control, even though that’s the best way to prevent unintended pregnancy. Americans will not stand for this blatant hypocrisy."

The "Sting" That Wasn't: Right-wing Media Hype Bogus Version Of Planned Parenthood Video Story

Following right-wing group Live Action's first release of a video allegedly "exposing" Planned Parenthood's "cover-up of child sex trafficking," conservative media have rushed to accuse Planned Parenthood of engaging in criminal activity. In fact, at least two weeks before the video of the sting operation in a New Jersey Planned Parenthood was released, Planned Parenthood reported to the FBI a "potential multistate sex trafficking ring" and later fired the employee behaving improperly in the video.

O'Reilly Forgets To Report That Planned Parenthood Contacted Authorities After "Sting"

While promoting Live Action's latest undercover video from a Planned Parenthood office in New York, Bill O'Reilly claimed that Planned Parenthood employees "aren't interested" in reporting "statutory rape." However, O'Reilly never acknowledged that Planned Parenthood contacted the Justice Department after visits from Live Action, and he also falsely claimed that Planned Parenthood profits from performing abortions.

National Wireless Initiative

In a speech outlining his new National Wireless Initiative to expand wireless access and innovation, President Obama compared the effort aimed at connecting 98 percent of Americans to "next-generation, high-speed" wireless to past infrastructure projects such as building railroads and highways that also were aimed at advancing the nation's economy.

"This isn't just about a faster Internet or being able to find a friend on Facebook," Obama said during a speech at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Mich. "It's about connecting every corner of America to the digital age."

His National Wireless Initiative calls for generating funds from the auction of spectrum that would be provided by federal government users and through a proposal that would encourage broadcasters to give up some of their spectrum in exchange for a share of the proceeds from the auction of those airwaves.

In this White House White Board, Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, explains the National Wireless Initiative.

Some of this funding would go to help build a national interoperable broadband network for public safety and to help provide wireless broadband in rural areas. The plan also contemplates that $9.6 billion would be left over for deficit reduction.

"Now, access to high-speed internet by itself won't make a business more successful, or a student smarter, or a citizen more informed. That takes hard work. It takes those late nights. It takes that quintessentially American drive to be the best," Obama said. "But we have always believed that we have a responsibility to guarantee all our people every tool necessary for them to meet their full potential."

President explained how this initiative will benefit rural America in his speech given in Marquette, Michigan:

For our families and our businesses, high-speed wireless service, that’s the next train station; it’s the next off-ramp. It’s how we’ll spark new innovation, new investment, new jobs.

And you know this here in Northern Michigan. That’s why I showed up, in addition to it being pretty and people being nice. For decades now, this university has given a new laptop to every incoming student. Wi-Fi stretched across campus. But if you lived off-campus, like most students and teachers here, you were largely out of luck. Broadband was often too expensive to afford. And if you lived a bit further out of town, you were completely out of luck, because broadband providers, they often won’t build networks where it’s not profitable, just like they wouldn’t build electrical lines where it wasn’t profitable.

So this university tried something new. You partnered with various companies to build a high-speed, next-generation wireless network. And you managed to install it with six people in only four days without raising tuition. Good job. Good job, Mr. President. By the way, if you give me the name of these six people there’s a whole bunch of stuff in Washington I’d like to see done in four days with six people.

So today, this is one of America’s most connected universities, and enrollment is near the highest it’s been in 30 years.

And what’s more -- and this is what makes this special -- you told nearby towns that if they allowed you to retrofit their towers with new equipment to expand your network, then their schools, their first responders, their city governments could use it too. And as a result, police officers can access crime databases in their cars. And firefighters can download blueprints on the way to a burning building. And public works officials can save money by monitoring pumps and equipment remotely.

And you’ve created new online learning opportunities for K-12 students as far as 30 miles away, some of whom some of whom can’t always make it to school in a place that averages 200 inches of snow a year.

Now, some of these students don’t appreciate the end of school [snow] days. I know Malia and Sasha get really excited about school [snow] days. Of course, in Washington things shut down when there’s an inch of snow. But this technology is giving them more opportunity. It’s good for their education, it’s good for our economy. In fact, I just came from a demonstration of online learning in action. We were with Professor Lubig and he had plugged in Negaunee High School and Powell Township School in Big Bay.

So I felt like the guy in Star Trek. I was being beamed around across the Upper Peninsula here. But it was remarkable to see the possibilities for these young people who are able to, let’s say, do a chemistry experiment, and they can compare the results with kids in Boston.

Or if there’s some learning tool or material they don’t have immediately accessible in their school, they can connect here to the university, and they’re able to tap into it.

It’s opening up an entire world to them. And one of the young people who I was talking to, he talked about foreign policy and what we were seeing in places like Egypt. And he said, what’s amazing especially for us is that now we have a window to the entire world, and we can start understanding other cultures and other places in ways that we could never do without this technology.

The initiative to extend high speed internet connectivity to the entire nation will also stimulate job growth and thereby, the economy.

MOMocrats Blog Talk Radio - 02/09/2011

MOMocrats muse on the continuing drama in Egypt, the effect of the Tea Party on the GOP, and the assault on women's health in the Federal and state legislatures. With panelists Cynematic, Jaelithe Judy and Donna Schwartz Mills. The program follows a short commercial message. Listen to internet radio with MOMocrats on Blog Talk Radio

What Republican Economic Policy Has Done

Another excellent by Ted McLaughlin at Jobsanger: This is what the Republican "trickle-down" economic policy has done to income growth in the United States. As you can see, between 1948 and 1979 the bottom 90% of the population got 67% of the growth in income while the top 10% got about 33%. That's a little unbalanced, but not outrageously so, and the result was that the economy worked for everyone -- which is what it's supposed to do.

But then Reagan was elected in 1980 and he started to institute the era of "trickle-down" economic policy -- the idea that if the rich are allowed to make enormous profits they will share that money with everyone else. It was a stupid idea, and nothing trickled down to anyone -- it just went into the bank accounts of the rich and sat there.

By the time Bush was president the full effects of the "trickle-down" economic policies were being felt. And they had a devastating effect on income growth for most Americans. During the Bush years (2000-2007) the top 10% had ALL of the growth in income (and about 3/4 of that income growth went to the top 1%), while the bottom 90% of Americans actually had their income drop.

This is the primary cause of the current serious recession being experienced by most Americans (the financial bungling on Wall Street was just the trigger -- not the cause). So what do Republicans think is the solution to this mess. Well, more of the same. They just forced a massive tax giveaway to the rich which increased the deficit by nearly 50%. Now they say the deficit must be cut, and of course, they want the burden of those cuts to be born by the bottom 90% of the population.

I can't believe anyone can think this is fair. Allowing all income growth to go to the top 10% is simply indefensible. "Trickle-down" economics must be discarded (and never tried again), and the richest 10% of Americans must be asked to shoulder their share of the burden by paying more in taxes. This must be done to fund education and job creation to help the bottom 90%.

Some will scream that this is "income redistribution". Americans have been propagandized into thinking that the redistribution of income is a bad thing (and synonymous with socialism). What they don't realize is that all economies redistribute income, including capitalist or "free enterprise" systems. The "trickle-down" economic policy of the Republicans redistributed income away from the bottom 90% of Americans, and put it all into the hands of the top 10%.

It is time to reverse this trend and institute policies that will insure a more equitable distribution of income for all Americans. Continuing current economic policy will only make the country's economy worse.

Nancy Pelosi: Women's Rights Face Greatest Threat 'In Our Lifetime'

Huffingtonpost: Women's reproductive rights are being seriously threatened by the Republican Party, according to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who said she is worried that many women are complacent about the possibility that they will lose the right to make their own reproductive choices.

"They're advancing extreme legislation," Pelosi said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. "It's dangerous to women's health, disrespects the judgment of American women -- I don't know if they even gave that a thought -- and it's the most comprehensive and radical assault on women's health in our lifetime. It's that bad."

There are three pieces of legislation that U.S. House Republicans are currently trying to advance to limit abortion access. Arguably the most high-profile of those is H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act, introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.). Current law already bars federal money from being used to directly pay for abortions, but H.R. 3 would also deny tax credits and benefits to employers who offer health insurance to their staff if that coverage includes abortion access.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) has introduced H.R. 217, which would deny federal family-planning funds under Title X to groups that offer abortion access -- a measure that would devastate groups like Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, a bill introduced by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), H.R. 358, would allow hospitals to turn away women who need to terminate a pregnancy in order to save their own lives. Federal law currently requires hospitals receiving Medicaid or Medicare funding to provide emergency care to all individuals, regardless of the patient's ability to pay. If the facility can't provide the necessary care, it must transfer the patient to someone who can. Under Pitts' bill, hospitals would not have to perform abortions or even transfer the pregnant woman.

Pelosi said Pence's bill could come up for a vote in the House as early as next week. While it's likely that Republicans, who are now in the majority, will have enough support to pass the three measures, she said there might be some Tea Party-affiliated members who will realize that abortion access is different than access to family planning and contraception.

Texas: Last month Gov. Rick Perry placed on his list of emergency items for lawmakers to fast-track legislation requiring women seeking an abortion to watch a sonogram image and hear the heartbeat. Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, who admits he is adamantly pro-life and would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned, filed Senate Bill 16 requiring women to watch and hear the sonogram heartbeat.

Patrick isn’t hiding his hope that if the bill passes, it will prompt some women to change their minds, “My belief is that some women, when they see that sonogram and see that baby and hear that heartbeat, if they choose to do so, may change their minds and say ‘You know what? That’s my baby.’”

Opponents of Patrick's bill, including several doctors, said this morning that the bill is an overreach that would erode the relationship between a patient and a doctor. They said it's a potential waste of resources if the patient has already had a sonogram performed by her primary care physician. The ACLU of Texas in a statement said: “If ever there was an example of government overreach, here it is. If this bill becomes law, government will essentially be in the doctor's office with the women of this state.”

While Republican lawmakers seek to force women to have unwanted children, they turn their backs on those children once they are born. As Republican lawmakers cut $31 billion from the state budget this session they are giving little thought to children in need.

Foster children in Texas could have trouble finding placement in foster care because of budget cuts proposed by Texas lawmakers, the commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services, told Senators Tuesday.

The Senate's current draft budget does not provide funding for caseload growth and would force investigative caseworkers to take on 15 percent more cases, Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein, said. The proposed budget also would cut funding to the Relative and Other Designated Caregiver program and reduce CPS units by 66, which means the department may not be able to offer financial assistance to families adopting children under the proposed Senate bill. Heiligenstein said these subsidies have historically been a good tool for encouraging families to adopt.

Texas State Republican lawmakers also plan to cut education by 10 percent and health and human services by 7.7 percent. Lawmakers will also cut 13 percent from spending on higher education and cut funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program and food stamps.

"We have to make this issue too hot to handle," said Pelosi, adding, "I would like to make the fight in the House and see where some of these Republicans are -- maybe we could win it on Title X. I can't believe that everybody who is anti a woman's right to choose is anti-birth control and contraception and family planning. But we don't know that, and we don't have any idea -- or I don't, anyway -- where the Tea Party people come down in all of this."

The minority leader said educating the public about the proposed legislation is important, "because win or lose in a given day, they'll be back, because this is their cash political cow for certain aspects of their constituency. So I think what we have to assume is they'll pass whatever they want in the House. We have to make it easier for the Senate to reject all of this because we know how masterful Republicans are at misrepresenting."

Both Pelosi and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, stressed that they believe H.R. 3 amounted to a tax increase on women and small businesses, given that a large majority of employer-based plans currently offer some coverage for abortions.

"We've been hearing from many businesses who say, we are struggling right now to provide insurance policies for our employees," DeGette said. "The last thing we need is to have our tax benefits taken away because it's a tax increase and it's going to cost us more."

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) rejected that argument in an interview with The Huffington Post at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday. King said that businesses should just offer health care without abortion, and cost increases won't be an issue.

"They save premiums, and they can deduct them," he said. "So I would say no, that's a specious argument from my view. Maybe they [Democrats] have got some more detailed way to make that argument. Here's something I have discovered around this town: Human beings have an infinite capacity to self-rationalize. That's what the Democrats are doing. If that's the best argument that they have, the next thing they'll do is just start calling names."

King argued that the Pence bill wasn't a distraction from the GOP focus on spending and the economy. "It is an economic and a moral issue, so anytime you can kill two birds with one stone, we ought to do that," he said. "And if we can kill the whole flock with one rock, we ought to do that."

New U.S. Claims For Unemployment Benefits Dropped To 2-1/2 Year Low

Reuters:

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a 2-1/2 year low last week, offering assurance that the labor market was strengthening despite January's poor jobs numbers.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 383,000, the lowest since early July 2008, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims slipping to 410,000. The prior week's figure was revised up to 419,000, from the previously reported 415,000.

According to Reuters, the rolling four-week average is now at 415,500, a drop of 16,000. Overall, 9.4 million Americans are receiving assistance from unemployment programs.

All told, the economy added roughly 1.3 million private-sector jobs in 2010. For comparison purposes, note that the economy lost nearly 4.7 million private-sector jobs in 2009, and lost 3.8 million in 2008.

With that in mind, here is a chart, showing monthly job losses/gains in the private sector since the start of Bush's Great Recession through January 2011. The image makes a distinction -- red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration. (Chart from Washington Monthly)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Rachel Maddow: The Bikini Graph on Job Gains April 2010

A Strategy Of Giving Republicans Enough Rope?

"If the president is willing to do what I and my members would do anyway, we’re not going to say no," McConnell said at a breakfast hosted by Politico's Mike Allen on January 26th.

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) seemed to say If Obama Acts Like A Republican, We Can Negotiate With Him.

Last December President Obama and Republican leaders in Congress compromised on what to do about Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires that had been set to expire this year.

The compromise was to extend Bush's tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires to 2012 - the Presidential election year.

President Obama caught a lot of flack caving to the right, particularly from his progressive base, for the tax deal he cut with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts in exchange for, among other things, an extension of unemployment benefits. (Under Obama Taxes Reach Lowest Level Since Truman)

On Wednesday President Barack Obama and Republican leaders in the House had a lunch meeting at the White House to find some more common ground compromises. Obama considered the meeting with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and his top two deputies "constructive" and cited general agreement with them on the need to reduce spending and the deficit, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, said the lunch discussion was "fairly robust" and that the meeting demonstrated general agreement on the need to seriously cut spending -- a top priority of House Republicans.

The day following Wednesday's meeting between GOP House leaders and President Obama’s the top news item is that Obama's proposed 2012 budget will cut several billion dollars from the government’s energy assistance fund for poor people, officials briefed on the subject told National Journal. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, would see funding drop by about $2.5 billion from an authorized 2009 total of $5.1 billion.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that a Republican proposal to cut home heating oil counted as an "extreme idea" that would "set the country backwards." Schumer has not yet reacted to Obama's proposed cut. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., declared: “The President’s reported proposal to drastically slash LIHEAP funds by more than half would have a severe impact on many of New Hampshire’s most vulnerable citizens and I strongly oppose it." A spokesman for Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., declared similarly: “If these cuts are real, it would be a very disappointing development for millions of families still struggling through a harsh winter.” In a letter to Obama, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wrote, "We simply cannot afford to cut LIHEAP funding during one of the most brutal winters in history. Families across Massachusetts, and the country, depend on these monies to heat their homes and survive the season."

Billion of dollars must be cut from the government’s energy assistance fund for poor people in large part because Bush's big 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires were extended to 2012.

But one (perhaps unintended, perhaps intended) consequence of extending Bush's tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires for two more years seems to be emerging as Democrats start to hammer the jobs message.

The December deal seems to have taken away one of the GOP’s main talking points on the jobs and unemployment issue according to a US News Op-Ed, "Obama Tax Deal Left GOP Without Jobs and Unemployment Answers," by Robert Schlesinger:

Congressional Democrats have started lashing House Republicans about their lack of focus on jobs, noting that the new majority’s first few acts have been sops toward the base like healthcare repeals and a raft of abortion-restricting provisions. Wednesday Democrats launched a “When Are the Jobs?” website. [Read Robert Schlesinger: GOP Falling Into the Same Healthcare Trap That Snared Democrats]

But what answer could the GOP have? Tax cuts have become the alpha and omega of GOP economic policy, but they played that card even before they took control of the House when Obama agreed in December to extend Bush's tax cuts.

Having more or less gotten what they wanted with the Bush tax cuts they’re not in an especially strong position to go back to the tax cut well--especially in this fiscal environment. Still it's surprising that with an economy that remains soft they are not even making a pro forma rhetorical attempt at cutting the individual tax rate.

Instead House leadership is faced with a rank-and-file [Tea Party] uprising on the right demanding more spending cuts. While the GOP has tried to decouple tax cuts from the budget deficit, even they can’t with a straight face make a new tax cut pitch in the face of the dreaded "Obama deficits" ... not that the party can credibly claim new status of deficit hawks after their tax deal added hundreds of billions of dollars to the budget deficit.

What they’re left with is a “cut-and-grow” program that even Republicans admit isn’t selling.

Here’s the GOP’s problem: the idea that cutting government spending will necessarily lead to job growth might be a given in conservative ivory towers, but its logic isn’t obvious to most Americans.

And if they want to know how easy it is to sell notions that require more than one bumper sticker to explain, they can ask the Democrats how the healthcare reform debate turned out.

After 30 years of trying, cutting taxes to stimulate the economy and create jobs, has never worked.

But, during the Bush years Republicans cut taxes while at the same time more than doubling the size of the federal government. The Republican "cut and grow" approach to stimulate the economy turned budget surpluses to budget deficits and ballooned the federal debt to $13 trillion. Democrats are just as angry about Bush's $13 trillion federal debt as anyone marching in the Tea Party movement!

TX House Speaker Joe Straus Names Committees

Speaker Joe Straus announced appointments to House Committee positions today. With House Committees staffed the various committees can begin to consider legislation in earnest. Progress of the various House bills that have been filed can be tracked on the House Calendars.

The House Appropriations Committee chaired by Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, will immediately begin to consider a proposed 2011-2012 budget the Legislative Budget Board sent to House members last month. (available to the public online)

The Legislative Budget Board’s budget proposal released to House members last month will cut $31.1 billion from current spending, even before accounting for population growth.

The budget, drafted for the House, will slash education funding by $9.8 billion, while the student population is projected to grow by 80,000 students each year. Several primary and secondary education programs are recommended for elimination, including: pre-k early start grants; Texas reading, math and science initiatives; criminal history background reviews; and science labs.

Higher education is slated to lose $1.7 billion in funding including significant cuts to the Texas Equalization Grants and Texas Grants student aid programs.

Other budget recommendations include reducing prison populations through early release of prisoners, cutting Medicaid reimbursements to doctors, hospitals and nursing home by 10 percent, and eliminating family practice and rural public health physician rotations.

The Elections committee chaired by Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, and the Select Committee on Voter Identification and Voter Fraud chaired by Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, will take up the Voter Government Issued Photo Identification bill. Keying off Gov. Rick Perry's declaration that this legislation is an emergency, the Senate last month voted to bypassed the usual committee process and turned itself into a committee of the whole to pass voter identification legislation (SB14) on a party line vote. The Committees will consider the House's version - HB624.

The idea behind this legislation is that to combat in person voting voter impersonation fraud voters must present Government Issued Photo Identification to election clerks.

Any voter who does not have a photo ID, or who election clerks consider does not look like his or her ID photo will not be allowed to vote a regular ballot. Those voters will only be allowed to cast a provisional ballot. Those voters who do vote a provisional ballot must then present their Government Issued Photo Identification to the County Election office by the sixth day after the election or their provisional ballot will not be counted.

The Redistricting Committee chaired by Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, will take up the task of redrawing various district lines. The decennial census for Texas totaled to 25,145,561 people living in the state in the first half of 2010 for a 20.6% increase over the 2000 population count, courtesy of the burgeoning Texas Hispanic and Black populations.

Based on the 2010 Census count of 25,145,561 people, the ideal population of a Texas congressional district is 698,488, the ideal senate district is 811,147, the ideal state house district is 167,637, and the ideal State Board of Education district is 1,676,371.

Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution calls for a census of the nation's population every 10 years to apportion the U.S. House of Representatives seats among the states. The 2010 apportionment winner is Texas with four additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas also gains four more presidential electoral votes and will be eligible for a greater share of federal money for various services and programs.

While the Texas House Redistricting Committee will begin preliminary work this week, serious redistricting efforts can't take place until the Census Bureau releases its detailed census breakdown. The Census Bureau expects to release the detailed county and block level population data needed to redistrict in late February or early March. (Census data release schedule - Texas redistricting information)

Committee Chair Assignments:

Committee	Chair	Party	City
Agriculture &Livestock	Rick Hardcastle	R	Vernon
Appropriations	Jim Pitts	R	Waxahachie
Border &Intergovernmental Affairs	Veronica Gonzales	D	McAllen
Business &Industry	Joe Deshotel	D	Beaumont
Calendars	Todd Hunter	R	Corpus Christi
Corrections	Jerry Madden	R	Richardson
County Affairs	Garnet Coleman	D	Houston
Criminal Jurisprudence	Pete Gallego	D	Alpine
Culture, Recreation &Tourism	Ryan Guillen	D	Rio Grande City
Defense &Veterans' Affairs	Joe Pickett	D	El Paso
Economic &Small Business Development	John Davis	R	Houston
Elections	Larry Taylor	R	Friendswood
Energy Resources	Jim Keffer	R	Eastland
Environmental Regulation	Wayne Smith	R	Baytown
General Investigating &Ethics	Chuck Hopson	R	Jacksonville
Government Efficiency &Reform	William Bill Callegari	R	Katy
Higher Education	Dan Branch	R	Dallas
Homeland Security &Public Safety	Sid Miller	R	Stephenville
House Administration	Charlie Geren	R	Fort Worth
Human Services	Richard Peña Raymond	D	Laredo
Insurance	John Smithee	R	Amarillo
Judiciary &Civil Jurisprudence	Jim Jackson	R	Carrollton
Land &Resource Management	Rene Oliveira	D	Brownsville
Licensing &Administrative Procedures	Mike Hamilton	R	Mauriceville
Local &Consent Calendars	Senfronia Thompson	D	Houston
Natural Resources	Allan Ritter	R	Nederland
Pensions, Investments &Financial Services	Vicki Truitt	R	Keller
Public Education	Rob Eissler	R	The Woodlands
Public Health	Lois Kolkhorst	R	Brenham
Redistricting	Burt Solomons	R	Carrollton
Rules &Resolutions	Ruth Jones McClendon	D	San Antonio
Select Committee on Election Contest	Todd Hunter	R	Corpus Christi
Select Committee on Oversight and HHS Eligibility System	Fred Brown	R	College Station
Select Committee on State Sovereignty	Brandon Creighton	R	Conroe
Select Committee on Voter Identification and Voter Fraud	Dennis Bonnen	R	Angleton
State Affairs	Byron Cook	R	Corsicana
Technology	Aaron Peña	R	Edinburg
Transportation	Larry Phillips	R	Sherman
Urban Affairs	Harold Dutton Jr	D	Houston
Ways &Means	Harvey Hilderbran	R	Kerrville

For Complete Committee Membership Rosters, Click Here.

Gov. Rick Perry's State of the State Speech

Gov. Rick Perry boasted about the strength of the Texas economy and downplayed the $27 billion Texas budget deficit during his State of the State speech Tuesday.

Perry won re-election last year by touting the strength and health of the conservative Texas economy, a familiar strategy he has consistently repeated since taking office in late 2000.

"The mainstream media and big-government interest groups are doing their best to convince us that we're facing a budget Armageddon," Perry said in the speech in the House chamber to representatives and senators. "Texans don't believe it, and they shouldn't.".

But, away from the television cameras and microphones, Perry's office released a budget plan (PDF) that largely resembles those put forward by the state House and Senate in recent weeks.

Those plans cut $31 billion in spending from the Texas budget, which will cause layoffs for tens of thousands of teachers, close of community colleges, eliminate tuition support for 60,000 college students, close correctional facilities and lay off correctional officers and a drastically reduce state services for the poor, elderly and young and those with mental health problems.

In 2010 the state created only 230,800 new jobs to replace the 359,000 jobs lost in 2009. The Texas Workforce Commission reports the unemployment rate in Texas was 8.3 percent in December, up from 8.2 percent in November. Layoffs caused by the $31 billion cut in state spending will continue to deepen Texas' unemployment rate, which is already at 22-year highs. The state layoffs will also cause even more Texas families to lose health insurance coverage and Texas already leads the nation in the percentage of residents without health insurance. The state ranks last in the country in percentage of adults with a high school diploma and the cuts to education will lead to ever more students dropping out of school.

The governor also called on state lawmakers to quickly approve a list of "emergency" proposals. These include implementing stricter voter identification requirements, requiring women seeking an abortion to first view a sonogram, targeting cities that provide sanctuary to undocumented immigrants, strengthening the rights of property owners in cases of eminent domain and calling for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Perry's bottom line assessment of the state of the state is that it's all good.


Gov. Rick Perry State of the State Speech

Re-Framing The Climate Change Discussion

Last month Sudhir Joshi wrote an Op-Ed in this blog about Message Framing. This blog article continues the "message frame" discussion on the topic of Global Warming and Climate Change.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve seen snowstorms of historic proportions roll across the country from New Mexico to New York. Scientists think events like this, the heat wave in Russia, the floods in Pakistan and Australia and the unusually bitter European winters are troubling examples of the kind of severe weather that will continue, and likely get worse.

Every decade since 1980 has been warmer than the previous decade and every year of the last decade was warmer than the previous year as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to climb higher than at any time over the last 500,000 years. 2010 was not just the hottest year this decade, but the hottest year in recorded history. This is why the National Academies of Science found last year that “climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities.”

Military planners in the Pentagon have concluded that “global warming is now officially considered a threat to U.S. national security.” In its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, Pentagon planners reported that climate change could result in food and water scarcity, pandemics, population displacement, and other destabilizing events that could create conflict.

“The American people expect the military to plan for the worst,” says retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, a 35-year Navy veteran now serving as president of the American Security Project. “It’s that sort of mindset, I think, that has convinced, in my view, the vast majority of military leaders that climate change is a real threat and that the military plays an important role in confronting it.”

President Obama speaks about investing in clean energy technologies at Penn State Univ. to create new jobs, grow the economy. February 3, 2011.

Yet, as dire as global warm may seem, we have an opportunity to reduce the green house gas emissions that are disrupting our climate and at the same time put the pieces of our economy back together by investing in clean energy technologies.

Clean energy investment will help slow climate change while creating good-paying jobs for everyday Americans.

But to make that optimistic goal a reality we must learn how to re-frame the climate discussion.

Frames are interpretive story lines that set a specific train of thought in motion, communicating why an issue might be a problem, who or what might be responsible for it, and what should be done about it.

George Lakoff, a renowned cognitive linguist and political thinker, asserts that people reject facts that are outside the frame with which they see the world.

Audiences rely on frames to make sense of and discuss an issue; journalists use frames to craft interesting and appealing news reports; policymakers apply frames to define policy options and reach decisions; and experts employ frames to simplify technical details and make them persuasive. That frame, or framework, is often created by values that are instilled during childhood.

The frame ensures that we see the world, and only the world, that agrees with our values. In other words, we block out facts and reasonable arguments to ensure that our core values are justified.

Framing is an unavoidable reality of the communication process, especially as applied to public affairs and policy. There is no such thing as unframed information, and most successful communicators are adept at framing, whether using frames intentionally or intuitively.

Conservatives with a vested interest in making the public believe that burning fossil fuel does not contribute to global warming and climate change have "framed" the debate to their advantage. A framing that poll results indicate have had a negative impact on public understanding of climate change and recognition of the urgent need to address it. Those who dispute the science of global warming have financial ties to the oil, auto, electricity and coal industries that a vested interest in maintaining status quo in fossil fuel commerce. (PBS)

Frank Luntz, in a Frontline special "Hot Politics," explains his 1997/1998 memo that became the playbook for how conservatives framed climate change as really a matter of "scientific uncertainty" and "economic burden."

During the 1990s, based on focus groups and polling, Republican consultant Frank Luntz helped shape the climate skeptic playbook, recommending in a strategy memo to lobbyists and Republican members of Congress that the issue be framed as scientifically uncertain, using opinions of contrarian scientists as evidence.

Luntz also wrote that the “emotional home run” would be an emphasis on the dire economic consequences of action, impacts that would result in an “unfair burden” on Americans if other countries such as China and India did not participate in international agreements.

This framing strategy was effectively incorporated into talking points, speeches, white papers, and advertisements by conservative think tanks and members of Congress to defeat major policy proposals along with the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that would have committed the United States to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The communication campaign also promoted distortions in news coverage. As political reporters applied their preferred horse race frame to the policy debate—focusing on which side was winning, the personalities involved, and their message strategies—they also engaged in the same type of false balance that has been common to coverage of elections and issues.

In other words, by giving equal weight to contrarian views on climate science, journalists presented the false impression that there was limited expert agreement on the causes of climate change.

In fact, a survey published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal reveals that 97 percent of scientific experts agree that climate change is real and is caused mainly by human activity. That same study by Stanford University researchers also found that the small number of climate contrarians have a clear lack of scientific credibility.

U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), former chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has been the loudest voice of climate skepticism. In speeches, press releases, and on his Senate b log, Inhofe casts doubt on the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other major scientific organizations, selectively citing scientific-sounding evidence. To amplify his message, Inhofe takes advantage of the fragmented news media, with appearances at television outlets, such as Fox News, on political talk radio, and Web traffic driven to his blog from the Drudge Report.

In a February 2007 Fox & Friends segment titled, “Weather Wars,” Inhofe deceptively argued that global warming was in fact due to natural causes and mainstream science was beginning to accept this conclusion. Inhofe asserted, unchallenged by host Steve Doocy, “those individuals on the far left, such as Hollywood liberals and the United Nations,” want the public to believe that global warming is manmade. Similar frames of scientific uncertainty and economic consequences continue to be pushed by other conservative commentators, including influential syndicated columnists George Will and Charles Krauthammer.

Charles Krauthammer uses one of Luntz's frames

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer recently attacked a Nobel Prize winner by claiming that the scientific consensus that backs climate change is essentially a religious institution. "Look, if Godzilla appeared on the Mall this afternoon, Al Gore would say it’s global warming, ... Look, everything is - it’s a religion." Charles Krauthammer said on PBS’s Inside Washington Saturday.

Inside Washington's host Gordon Peterson had kicked off the discussion, quoting former vice president Al Gore in a recent interview with a New York Times columnist. “There is about four percent more water vapor in the atmosphere today than there was in 1970,” Gore told Gail Collins. Gore further explained that the extra water appeared because the warmer oceans and air returned to earth as heavier precipitation.

To the Gore quote Krauthammer exclaimed, "You find me a single piece of evidence that Al Gore would ever admit would contradict global warming, and I’ll be surprised," he said. BUT, conservatives will not accept a single piece of evidence that climate change driven by global warming does exist.

Climate Change Frames that Reinforce Partisan Divisions

What explains the stark differences between the objective reality of climate change and the partisan divide in Americans’ perceptions? In part, trusted sources have framed the nature and implications of climate change for Republicans and Democrats in very different ways.

Conservative think tanks, political leaders, and commentators continue to hew closely to their decade-old playbook for downplaying the urgency of climate change, which includes questioning whether human activities drive climate change while also arguing that any action to curb it will lead to dire economic consequences. The strength of the decade-old conservative frames on global warming and climate change linger in popular culture, political discourse, and the memory store of many audiences.

In contrast, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, many environmentalists, and many scientists have attempted to counter the scientific uncertainty and economic consequences frames by emphasizing looming “climate crisis.” To instantly translate their preferred interpretation, these advocates have relied on depictions of specific climate impacts, including hurricane devastation, polar bears perched precariously on shrinking ice floes, scorched, drought-stricken earth, blazing wild fires, or famous cities or landmarks under water due to future sea-level rise.

Publicity for Gore’s documentary on climate change’s effects, An Inconvenient Truth, dramatized climate change as an environmental Frankenstein’s monster, including a hurricane-shaped plume spewing from a smoke stack on its movie poster and a trailer telling audiences to expect “the most terrifying film you will ever see.” With an accent on visual and dramatic effects, the catastrophe strategy triggered similarly framed news coverage. For example, a 2006 Time magazine cover featured a polar bear on melting ice with the headline, “Global Warming: Be Worried, Be VERY Worried.”
One of the unintended consequences of this line of communication is that it plays into the hands of climate skeptics and further reinforces the partisan divide in climate change perceptions. Andrew Revkin, who has covered climate change for nearly 20 years for the New York Times, argues these claims are effectively countered by critics, such as Inhofe, as liberal “alarmism,” because the idea that mir mortals could cause warming and climate change on a global scale is simply silly crazy talk. For many it is a matter of faith that God created the earth and the climate that sustains us today about 6,000 years and only God has the ability to change the global climate.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the new head of the House energy committee, today denied that climate change is man made at a public meeting. Upton, who received $20,000 from Koch Industries in his most recent campaign, introduced legislation with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to overturn the scientific finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse pollution threatens public health. Upton was pressed by National Journal‘s Ron Brownstein as to why the Upton-Inhofe bill describes climate change as “possible.” After repeated attempts to avoid the question, Upton finally explained his stance: he accepts that the planet is warming, but not that the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are a cause.

Contrarians can easily exploit the perception of over-dramatization to dismiss climate change as a problem. Polls suggest that the conservative-leaning public is likely filtering information about climate change through their frame of a liberal media bias. Such filtering results in Republicans who not only discount the climate change problem, but who also agree that the mainstream news media is exaggerating its severity.

In Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, environmentalists Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger advocate a move away from the frame of dire environmental consequences if greenhouse gas emissions are not radically reduced. They offer an alternative communication strategy, which involves turning the economic development frame in favor of action, recasting climate change as an opportunity to grow the economy. The two authors argue that only by changing the message frames of “innovative energy technology” and “sustainable economic prosperity” can diverse coalitions be created across partisan lines for meaningful action on climate change. With this framing strategy, they seek not just to engage the wider public, but also catalyze a more diverse social movement — perhaps even engaging support for energy policies among Republicans, who think predominantly in terms of market opportunities, or labor advocates, who value the possibility of job growth.

The morality and ethics frame is also featured in Gore’s WE campaign, which launched in Spring 2008. The WE campaign to “Repower America” attempts to unify U.S. citizens by framing climate change as a solvable and shared moral challenge. For example, in television and print advertisements, the WE campaign attempted to break the gridlock of partisan perceptions by pairing unlikely spokespeople such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) with Republican and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and self-professed liberal and conservative clergymen, respectively, Reverends Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson.

Other WE TV ads featured actors as ranchers, construction workers, and autoworkers, stress the economic development frame, emphasizing job creation and growth. Importantly, these ads are placed during daytime talk shows and entertainment programming and in leisure magazines, which all reach non-news audiences who might not otherwise pay attention to coverage of climate change.

The Obama Administration continues to promote ideas to slow CO2 emissions and global warming through the frames of “creating green jobs and fueling economic recovery.” Yet the optimism of clean energy solutions is also open to the conservative counter-frame of uncertainty and more big-government tax and spend. In his State of the Union address, President Obama declared, "this is our generation's Sputnik moment" as he made the case for greater government investment in biomedical research, information technology, and clean energy technology. Sarah Palin was quick to respond to the president's speech, saying his proposal was misguided, and would lead to the kind of excessive centralized spending that doomed the Soviet Union.

E. O. Wilson offers another potentially unifying interpretation in his best-selling book The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth. Wilson frames environmental stewardship as not only a scientific matter, but also as one of morality and ethics. In writing the book as an open letter to a Baptist minister he shares a common value and respect for nature, what the Bible calls “creation.” In this manner, he engages Christian readers and media outlets that might not otherwise pay attention to popular science books or appeals related to climate change. Paralleling Wilson’s interpretation, an increasing number of Christian leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI and evangelicals, such as Richard Cizik and Rick Warren, are emphasizing the religious duty to be “stewards” of God’s creation. (Video: God and Global Warming)

The world’s leading economies and companies are engaged in a race to develop new 21st century technologies to support a global clean energy future. If we want to remain competitive in the global economy, the United States needs to lead this effort. Studies show that comprehensive clean energy and climate policies can generate a net increase of almost two million new American jobs — jobs that can’t be outsourced and that use the skills of today’s workers. Developing and using clean energy technologies would revitalize our manufacturing sector, providing a needed boost to the U.S. automotive industry and to states that are struggling from the loss of factories and mills during the recent economic downturn. Other countries are already taking those jobs away from American workers: General Motors uses a Korean company to supply the battery cells for the new electric Chevrolet Volt vehicle – because the most advanced technology of this kind comes from Korean manufacturers — not American manufacturers. With an eye towards the future, China has adopted the most aggressive energy efficiency program in the world, providing incentives and support to rapidly grow their own domestic clean energy economy.

America is founded on a spirit of optimism, ingenuity, innovation, and hard work. Americans should be leading the transition to a global clean energy future. But, climate change contrarians who continue to claim there is no need for America to even enter the global clean energy technology race, are letting those two million new energy technology are jobs are quickly slipping from the grasp of American workers and into the hands of foreign offshore workers. That is the correct frame for the global warming / climate change discussion!

LATimes: Texas' Finances Not As Rosy As They Seemed

Los Angeles Times: Texas prides itself as a model of conservative spending and responsible budgeting. But, the $27-billion budget gap undercuts Texas' image as a business-seducing, fiscally adaptive state.

The lecturing from Texas leaders about how California wouldn't be in such a budget mess if its politicians did business the way it is done in Austin has been relentless for years. Texas Gov. Rick Perry delights in telling tales of his California "hunting trips" — hunting for businesses ready to flee the Golden State. The $27 billion budget gap puts Texas in the same league as California among states facing financial meltdowns. The gap amounts to roughly one-third of the Texas state budget.

Texas has a two-year budget cycle, which allowed it to camouflage its red ink last year, thanks in large part to [Gov. Perry and conservative law makers taking] billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. Now, however, "someone just turned the lights on in the bar, and the sexiest state doesn't look so pretty anymore," said California Treasurer Bill Lockyer, with evident satisfaction.

In a place where government is already lean, there aren't many areas to make up that kind of cash. The Republicans who dominate the statehouse won't be closing loopholes that emerged in a recently enacted business tax change, costing the state billions in anticipated revenue. Instead, the budget blueprint Texas Republican lawmakers are mulling [that would cut $31 billion from state spending to cover the deficit] means layoffs for tens of thousands of teachers, closure of community colleges, and a severe reduction in state services for the poor and elderly and those with mental health problems.

The Texas budget crisis is prompting some experts to reconsider what had been dubbed the Texas Miracle. The state has much lower unemployment than California, but economists note that many of the jobs are low-paying. One out of three wage earners in Texas earns too little to keep a family of four above the federal poverty level, according to a 2009 study by the Corp. for Enterprise Development, a Washington-based nonprofit. That is double the percentage of similarly low-wage Californians.

Such figures call into question whether Texas' economy has really transitioned into a new 21st century model, or whether it has been buoyed by high oil prices and lots of loosely zoned land where construction of cheap houses endured through the recession.

"You have to separate out what your public policies have done for you and what God has done for you," said Scott McCown, executive director of the left-leaning Center for Public Policies and Priorities in Austin. "People shouldn't be fooled by what is going on here."

Some Texans question whether business leaders will tolerate the resulting deterioration of public infrastructure, particularly in the education system.

Read the rest of the story at the Los Angeles Times.

Texas' budget problems will not go away when legislators eventually sign a balanced budget later this year, senators heard on Monday. A $10 billion budget shortfall will reappear in future legislative sessions again and again unless lawmakers better align how much money comes in and how much goes out, said John Heleman, chief revenue estimator for Comptroller Susan Combs, in testimony before state senators last week.

Pressed by Democratic senators on the Finance Committee, John Heleman said the state will have a $10 billion structural deficit in future budgets.

That structural shortfall comes from a tax cutting "tax swap" measure that lowered property taxes and substituted, or swapped, a new business margins tax to offset the lost property tax revenue.

Even at the time, the swap was projected to be $5.9 billion short of balancing each biennium. That tax cutting measure ended up being at least $14 billion short because the new business tax produced less than half of the needed revenue and the property tax cut cost more than promised. Lt. Governor Dewhurst and others rightly say the 2006 tax swap created a structural deficit.

Up to now it Texas Republican lawmakers covered the shortfall with federal Recovery Act (stimulus) money—all of which is gone.

"We need to not fool ourselves that this is a one-time phenomenon," says state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who instigated the discussion at the Senate Finance Committee meeting. "We need to be grown up and deal with reality and make plans for the future of Texas."

Republican state leaders have attributed the state’s budget woes to the recession and have dismissed calls to raise taxes, or fix the 2006 tax swap mistake, to deal with the current budget shortfall, saying they can cut their way out of that hole.