Our 50 states are sovereign within their borders and free to offer citizens as much or as little government as desired.
Citizens in one state can observe the political experiments conducted in other state "laboratories of democracy" and duplicate those experiments in their state – or take precautions to avoid unappealing ones.
The success of one state is not always welcome with the power brokers in others, who sometimes resent instead of admire other's success. In fact, rather than make the tough choices necessary to duplicate a neighbor's success, some politicians and vested interests prefer to ignore, downplay, or undermine it.
While Texas is in many ways a shining example for politicians in other states who want to improve the lot of their citizens, it is an affront to demagogues who seem to thrive on the misery of some of their constituents.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Texas in June posted the nation's largest increase in non-farm employment with 14,000 new hires. CNNMoney.com recently reported that our state boasts five of the top seven job-growing counties in the U.S. over the last decade.
In the midst of the worst economy in our lifetimes, while other states are going bankrupt and losing businesses and population, Texas is growing. The obvious explanation for some of that success is our pro-business climate, and a key contributor to that enticing climate is the series of tort reforms we began enacting in 1995.
If President Barack Obama really is interested in helping our nation recover from its economic malaise, he should come to Texas and pick the brains of the entrepreneurs and legislators who've contributed to our prosperity.
Instead, he flies in for a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraiser hosted by asbestos lawyer Russell Budd, whose Dallas-based firm specializes in targeting productive businesses and going after their assets, without concern for the consequences to the community eager for job opportunities.
On the rare occasion of his visit here, the President opted to rub elbows with Texas' jackpot justice hunters, not its remarkable job creators.
Perhaps the President doesn't like the results of this tort reform laboratory. In the midst of this national recession, it's worth asking why not.