Hacker News Reader

Comment by sirkneeland | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like that is something the Democrats need to fix about themselves and their special interest groups, not that we have to fix about what's right

View on HN

The Democrats are doing quite well politically at the moment, regardless of the quality of the governance they offer. They feel little pressure to change a winning formula.

As a lifelong lefty liberal, the Democrats are only doing well by comparison. The Republicans being so far off the rails is actually fucking things up for all of us because the Democrats can coast on being merely incompetent and still look good compared to the other guys.

That's certainly the impression that a person could get from watching lefty media. But I think it represents an advance in the lefty propaganda machine more than it represents a decline in the level of Republicans.

All I want out of my government is good governance - a system built to last without any budget time-bombs that allows for human flourishing. The red states seem to be the best place to find that nowadays.

"The red states seem to be the best place to find that nowadays."

Based on what criteria?

Walter Russell Mead's blog pretty regularly talks about state and local governance. The big pension disasters are heavily biased towards the blue states, and red states like Texas have seen heavy migration from blue staters looking for jobs.

The danger is that migrants from blue states will turn red states blue and kill the nice business environment that attracted them in the first place.

You need more than a single datapoint to determine something like good governance. From what I've read a lot of Texas' growth can be attributed to its geology (They have lots of oil and gas), demography (They have lots of immigrants willing to take on various jobs), and its geography (They share a border with Mexico and have port access with the Gulf. They trade a ton with Latin America.) (1) Don't get me wrong it's still growth, but not really a recepie that can be applied to all States.

As a young person looking to start a business soon, Austin's downtown and cheap rent look very appealing. Though unfortunately I think the cheap rent thing is going to change soon, haha.

(1) http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/10/obama-and-perry-and-the...

I know this is late, but I don't base my opinion on just one data point. The bankruptcy of blue state pensions is a national phenomenon. Following the issue closely drives me more and more Republican, as does living in the one-party state that is California.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com