Ted Cruz Could Cost Texas Billions as Business Execs Re-assess Moving to State

Ted Cruz May be Costing Texas Billions in lost Revenue

Last month yet another national survey ranked Texas number #1 for its favorable business climate. Texans probably yawned,  if they reacted at all.  After all, the Lone Star State has grown accustomed to being ranked at the top of  various lists identifying the best states for doing business based on such criteria as taxes, regulations and incentives.  However, in less than three weeks time, the cascading effects of the government shut down led by Texas Senator Ted Cruz has shattered that pro-business reputation into so many pieces that it may take years to glue the  shards back together again.


Senator Cruz is a hero among many Americans. A Pew Research Poll taken on the day the government shutdown ended, showed that the Texas junior Senator’s favorability rating among tea party voters had skyrocketed from 47 percent to 74 percent.   But sadly they are not the ones that decide  whether to relocate  multi-billion dollar, job-generating corporations to our state.  Among that more moderate segment of the electorate, the Texas Senator’s unfavorability rose by fifteen points.  For American executives, Texas has begun taking on the aura of an alien landscape.

Senator Cruz and other Tea Party leaders are quick to tout the fact that thousands of Americans have been moving to Texas every year, to take advantage of one of the healthiest job climates in the country.  But what drives the Texas economy is not anti-abortion activism and the constitutional rights of gun owners.  It is the business sector.  In shutting down the government and calling it a victory, the Ted Cruz-led wing of the Republican Party defied the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the  Business Roundtable and other commerce-related groups.  Humiliating the nation’s job-generators will not go without consequence.

Until now Texas, with its lack of income tax,  low cost of maintaining an executive lifestyle and stable social climate, has appealed to those occupying the nation’s top corporate suites. But being only human,  they are also swayed by the social milieu in which they travel.  The lack of cache they will derive, among friends and colleagues,  from considering a move to a tainted Texas, far outweighs whatever tax breaks may be dangled in front of them.

 When editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz of the ultra-pro usiness Wall Street Journal calls Ted Cruz a “false leader” and Tea Party members “deranged,” and “extremists,” that means it is time to reflect deeply on what Texans are really about and how we’re perceived outside our state.