Back a few decades ago when Clean Air regulations came into play (Texas was not on the national grid at the time) Texas used their control of the Texas grid to allow grandfathering in of most of the dirty coal generation plants with no requirements that they meet federal standards. Texas mined lignite for many of their plants and bought coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin for others. New plants under construction had to meet the new standards but old plants could keep on rocking along spewing their ash and pollutants all over the state and everyone downwind. Supposedly it was allowed because utilities argued that it was too expensive to bring them into compliance.
What a joke. This is the same state where a chicken billionaire walked the floor of the legislature passing envelopes of cash to representatives and at the time said that this was just the way to do business here.
And after last year's winter break-down they crafted a handy way to pass all the costs of electricity related to their failures to do simple maintenance and upgrades on to Texas taxpayers while at the same time lobbying and winning property tax reductions which conveniently enough, finances a large part of the state's operations. People keep voting for the same old losers and then griping when it bites them in the ass.
So many parts of Texas are broken and dysfunctional that it is sad but funny to hear someone say they want to move here for any reason. We used to be great but the clowns are driving the short bus here now and everyone wants to ride since it's cheaper than the last place they lived, maybe.
What you may not have considered is how closely aligned their philosophies are with libertarian values as they would apply to businesses and entities operating within the state. It is difficult to apply Christian morals to business operations and they default to libertarian values of minimal government oversight and minimal accountability to the state or to individual citizens.
Businesses are free to do as they please and should a business need some government assistance, cash doesn't even need to be under the table. Legislators also are not in session year-round so it is perfectly acceptable for businesses to author the legislation that they would like to see passed in the next session and as long as they can minimize the public's opportunity to shoot it down, it will likely pass.
About those libertarians, it was actually quite funny to see so many libertarians fall in behind progressive policies that they would never support during the pandemic's worst days after they saw the impact that it had on the economy and the ability for businesses to continue operating. Some of these libertarians left the states for Puerto Rico where they could pay a pittance for large private tracts of land, dodge tax obligations they would've had to pay or work around back home, and make sure they got their "share" of the PPP monies that were thrown out onto the streets with no oversight. They can now tweet about the delicious food options on the island, the great climate, etc while ignoring the plight of real Puerto Ricans, many of whom are still rebuilding after the last major hurricane.
Hypocrisy is one of the under-reported attributes of a true libertarian.
Those of us that actually prioritize preservation of liberty for future generations and leaving the management of said reprobates to the community to do with as they wilt was what I understood the libertarian cause to be about.
I may just be co-opting the label though. Not that it makes much difference, there is no room for an "I reject the two major parties for being two sides of the same idiot" party in the U.S.
That being said, the Texas government of late is... Not at all an example of what I'd consider "how it should work", but as I'm frequently told, I'm a madman for having standards and expectations.
That seems to be a bit of an oxymoron to me.
They want a libertarian-style business environment where businesses are free to operate with few restrictions and the businesses get to define those restrictions and control the processes that could limit or monitor their operations. For private citizens they also prefer individuals be free to make their own choices about how they conduct themselves up to a point.
Past that point, they become authoritarian, using religion as a basis for state-enforced mandates to control individual's rights to make what should be private decisions between an individual and qualified professionals.
They want the state to control every aspect of an individual's life that they feel doesn't fit their own morals while at the same time allowing businesses free reign to operate within the state even if their operations harm the citizens of the state, the state's natural resources, or the state's economic interests.
Hopefully it is more clear now. It still doesn't make much sense since their philosophy is riddled with contradictions or outright hypocrisy. They would impose restrictions on people they wish to control while ignoring the same behavior of people who otherwise publicly support them.
Anyway, I'm probably wrong since I am not a political science expert. I'm just a native Texan.
Political discussion is fraught with danger when it is partisan based, however, we should encourage more of it here on the nature and impact policies promoted and enforced.
Businesses should not be burdened by bureaucratic harassments, but the answer is not to remove the rules but to make those rules easier to follow.
Side note: my take on libertarians is that every single one I've encountered has been white, male, and financially secure. It's a lot easier to want government out of the way when the world is your oyster.
For someone who hates the Fed, Rick Perry is a National Treasure.
Somebody didn't do their homework and gave this idiot the talking point to abolish the dept that's in charge of the fucking nukes.
That's like Defund the Police on steroids.
Ironically, he ended up running it from 2017-2019.
I didn't realize that. I laughed out loud. He couldn't remember the third 'E' department he wanted to abolish.
It is not "political" as the context of your reply clearly indicates as much as it is deeply tied to not only the history of Texas as it relates to joining the USA and also the fundamental manner in which the USA was supposed to function, wich has been and continues to be under constant and direct assault.
It may ruffle your feathers, but not knowing these things clearly indicates that you are not American, however the real questions should be "why is not every other sovereign state of the United States acting more like Texas and why is the system so broken today that essentially only Texas acts the way the system intended states to act?". The only other state that comes close to Texas, may be Florida, which is emerging and moving in that direction, at least among the states of consequence.
So... not technical, but political