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This Texas model is the most successful one of all

SOUTHEAST TEXAS RECORD

Thursday, November 21, 2024

This Texas model is the most successful one of all

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What do you think of when you think of Texas models?

Julie Henderson, Taylor Cole, Shannon Elizabeth, Kim Smith, and Anna Nicole Smith are the five highest rated Texas-born models on ranker.com.

But they're not the ones we think of when we think of Texas models – not always, anyway. Our favorite Texas model is a program of tort reform.

Really. We get enthused just thinking about it – or, in this case, reading about it.

“A combination of low taxes, light regulation, and responsible levels of government spending define the Texas model,” observes Kathleen Hunker of the Texas Public Policy Foundation in a recent post at city-journal.org. That model, she notes, “is generally credited with playing a significant role in the state’s striking economic vitality. No state has created more jobs over the last 15 years. As residents of high-tax, high-spending regions continue to relocate to the Lone Star State, the virtues of the Texas approach seem self-evident.”

Hunker's recounting of the development, implementation, and positive impact of our favorite Texas model starts at the beginning, 30-some-odd years ago, when “the state’s courts had become virtual fiefdoms of trial lawyers. Texas recognized few limits on damages claims and imposed minimal accountability on plaintiffs. The state’s litigation environment was, unsurprisingly, toxic for business. The pushback came in the early 1980s,” she recalls. “The state legislature’s decision to strike a balance and roll back tort excesses marked a turning point in the state’s economic rise. Together with competitive tax and regulatory policies, tort reform sowed the field so that Texas’s pro-growth policies could take root.”

In conclusion, Hunker affirms that “excessive liability impedes economic activity. By instituting common-sense limits on that liability, Texas gave its current and prospective residents a reason to invest in their future and that of the state. The results,” she notes, “speak for themselves.”

Anna Nicole Smith, eat your heart out!

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