Hacker News Reader

Comment by guelo | Hacker News Reader

Texas 2009: "The governor signed 1,656 bills and resolutions, vetoed 38 and allowed 12 to become law without his signature " http://www.txddc.state.tx.us/public_policy/txlegis.asp

California 2009: 675 signed, 257 vetoes http://gov.ca.gov/bills/#all

View on HN

That's like saying Amy's software project is better because it has fewer files than Bob's. Bob may just be better at keeping code in separate, logical units than Amy, who just crams everything into several large bills... I mean, files.

Anybody want to run a diff on the California and Texas legislation?

Tried but files were corrupted.

California's or Texas's?

This isn't a good metric for measuring government "productivity" at all. More information is needed like the size and scope of these particular bills, for just one example.

The parent wasn't talking about productivity, I was trying to rebut his claim of California's busybody-ness compared to Texas'. 1700 bills seems pretty busy to me.

Right, but we can't compare them to each other without more information, so I don't think your rebuttal works. Given the political differences between California and Texas, there is the possible scenario that these ~1700 bills in Texas were very small, relatively pointless pieces of legislation, while California's ~700 were enormous and relatively overbearing.

In case we're just debating the meaning of "busy"... Texans want their politicians to be busy doing relatively nothing, for the most part, and I think this is the general attitude expressed in the parent comment.

Exactly. Most of the Texan bills were probably along the lines of "This House believes that cattle-rustlers are no-good varmints". Whereas every Californian bill is manifesto of social engineering.

I mentioned "juice bills". These don't even have to pass; they exist just to shake the money tree of interests that want to stop them.

Remember the talking points:

If conservatives are running government and spendly recklessly on big projects "we can't afford" then government is GOOD (ex: military, tax cuts for rich, etc.). Also, laws regulating or limiting sexual activity or expression are GOOD.

If liberals do it then government is BAD (health care, social security, education, etc.). Laws regulating or limiting financial, banking, large/offshore corporate, military or oil company activity or expression are BAD.

-- this message brought to you by the Repub--oops, I mean--The Tea Party

oh the karma police, here we come. folks it's humor mixed with political insight. i was riffing on the recognition of the pattern of comparing a big Liberal state government's activity with a big Conservative state. Nobody in the thread seems to know exactly what bills the respective states passed. I was just riffing on a pattern I see in the messages that come from so-called conservatives when they argue their case. Humor + insight = good thing, just relax, it's ok really :)

I love how sibling posts by jfornear and nathanieljones take the raw data and apply opposite opinions: more is better vs more is worse :-)

Without delving into the details -- how many were minutiae or symbolic resolutions? -- the numbers aren't directly comparable. Also, since Texas only meets every other year, you'd have to include two years' of California's bills in any comparative analysis.

Some other Texas totals for the 2008-2009 two-year period:

Late budgets: 0

Debts paid with ad-hoc IOUs: 0

Credit rating downgrades: 0

State worker involuntary furloughs: 0

Oh I see, you're turning this into some kind of pride thing. How about these Texas stats

Children without health insurance rank: 1

Air pollution rank: 1

Teen pregnancy rank: 1

Adults without a High School diploma rank: 1

Innocent people executed: 1 (that we know of)

Radical religious boards designing curriculums: 1

Citations needed -- the sources I find don't match all your rankings.

Also, I live in California, and used to live in Houston and Austin. I admire Texas in many but not all dimensions. My criticism of California's budget and economic mismanagement is driven by the hope the legislature can be shamed into improving -- or that a consensus for more radical structural reform can arise. Otherwise in another 20 years Texas will pass California, even by your chosen measures.

I live in Austin and don't agree with the bulk of the modern 'conservative' movement but living here I see stark differences in the way business is conducted compared with California. First, the local banks are /far/ more conservative with loans. There is no rush to jump on the next big thing and they do not hand out loans, sometimes even when thy are well deserved. It is pretty old school. You have to really prove what you say, and if they don't understand it, no way in hell are they loaning any money to it. Frustrating at times and in some ways short sighted, but you don't have everyone scrambling to make a quick buck (and the banks financing it all) either. IOW, the position Texas enjoys is only tangentially affected by the state gov't. 2nd -- I personally don't like Rick Perry and I was foaming at the mouth when he cut education funding but, tough as the cuts were there and in other places, Texas has a surplus. There is wiggle room. I have to grudgingly admire that kind of discipline. It is not like the Governor or Legislators did not catch a lot of flak for their policies the last 10 years.

Contrast that with California where my brother in law got to take 8 weeks paid paternity leave at least partly on the State's dime and you begin to see the difference.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com