The Forever Argument

The Mississippi state flag incorporates the Confederate
"Stars & Bars"

 At this writing South Carolina has officially removed the Confederate flag from its state house grounds. Mississippi remains the last state to officially display the Confederate flag, as it is designed into its current state flag (shown above).

"The past is never dead. It's not even past.” --William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

The issue of the Confederate flag is attached to the hip of the reason the American Civil War was fought in the first place. If the war was fought over slavery, it follows the flag represents the powers that hoped to secure slavery indefinitely. If otherwise, then the flag might reasonably be construed as representing something more benign.

It is hard to fathom at this late date, 154 years after the start of hostilities between North and South, that we still argue this case. But here we are, trapped in some exasperating version of the film “Groundhog Day,” doomed to present the same lecture again and again to a seemingly implacable audience, unable to acknowledge the uncomfortable truths of its (now) distant past. 

Perhaps, you say, there will always be cranks, deniers, et cetera. Is this really a mainstream issue? Emma Brown writing in the Washington Post several days ago discussed the new social studies texts for Texas’s public schools. (Texas centralizes textbook selection and thus has an inordinate influence on how such texts are written). According to Brown, school children will be taught that the causes of the Civil War are “sectionalism, states’ rights, and slavery,” with “slavery” intentionally in the third slot. 

Patricia Hardy, a member of the Texas Board of Education when this textbook was approved in 2010, commented at the time, “There would be those who would say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over states’ rights.” 

I must assume Ms. Hardy believes that with slavery hypothetically off the table in 1860, the South would still have seceded. Or that the two halves of the nation would have fought a war over something as hazy as states’ rights and sectionalism. And for what it’s worth, I had to look up “sectionalism.”

Company E, 4th U.S. Colored troops, November 17, 1865

By war's end African-American troops numbered some 178,000, comprising 10% of the Union Army. Most were former slaves, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. If Ms. Hardy could travel back in time and talk with the African-American soldiers of Company E (pictured above), does she really believe they would say anything other than they fought for their freedom and the freedom of other African-Americans still in slavery?

Several southern states, including Texas, issued "Declarations of Causes," specifically intended to clarify their reasons for seceding from the Union. Here is a pertinent paragraph from Texas's (but I encourage everyone to read the whole thing):

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.

Hmmm...That seems pretty clear.

Ms. Hardy and other Southern apologists would have us imagine a strange asymmetry, wherein the North fought for one reason, and the South for something quite different, leading inevitably to a recognition by the warring parties that it was all just a big misunderstanding. Well, that didn't happen.

 

In truth, it all seems preposterous, if not downright laughable. States’ rights and sectionalism existed as fighting issues only insofar as they related to the national argument over slavery. It was never about state’s rights in the abstract, it was always states’ rights regarding the laws governing slave ownership.

In his June 23rd speech to the South Carolina Senate, Paul Thurmond essentially asserts this, but even he, scion of the Old South, felt compelled to add an “in part,” 

“I will never understand how anyone could fight a civil war based, in part, on the desire to continue the practice of slavery”

Perhaps Thurmond needed this gratuitous qualification not to lose the support of some key South Carolina legislators for the upcoming fight over the flag. If so, and only if so, I’ll grant him a pass.

The war was about slavery. Abraham Lincoln was under no illusion as to why he was prosecuting a war that took the lives of 620,000 fighting men (more recent estimates go as high as 850,000). 

Here are two excerpts from Lincoln’s 2^nd Inaugural Address. The first excerpt succinctly lays out the political division between North and South at the start of hostilities in 1861. The second expresses Lincoln’s state of mind at the war’s end (37 days before the South surrendered) when he had come to believe the war was God’s penance for the sin of slavery.

“One-eighth of the whole population (of the United States) were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it…”

“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?”

Lincoln notably makes no reference to anything other than slavery. Without slavery there was no war. The Confederate flag, no matter how any individual regards it today, is inextricably bound up and tainted by slavery. The taint can’t be washed away or covered up. It will always be there. And, thus, as has been recommended by many across the political spectrum, it needs to be removed from our public places.




 

Miraculum Texanum

What the federal government should (or should not) do to stimulate job growth is shaping up to be the major political issue of the 2012 presidential election. Given the stakes we need to examine critically all claims from candidates that he or she knows how to do it. Governor Perry proposes that the nation model itself after Texas. This is my "take" on his proposal

With much fanfare Governor Rick Perry announced for the 2012 presidential race in mid-August. Along with his announcement came much commentary about the wonders of Texas, and, notably, its economic success since June 2009.

What’s special about June 2009? Officially that’s the month the Great Recession ended, i.e., the economy registered a statistical uptick. This is mostly of academic interest. With persistent 9% national unemployment most Americans believe we are still in the recession that started in December 2007.

Assuming there’s some validity to June 2009 as a starting point, Texas leads all states in the post-recession jobs race. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Texas added 262,700 non-farm jobs from the end of the recession through April 2011. This works out to about 55% of the nation’s job growth. Pretty impressive.

Naturally Governor Perry takes credit for this (I would in his shoes). Among the factors Perry and his supporters cite: low state taxes, tort reform (under Perry’s watch), no housing bust (due to regulations put into effect after the 1980’s S & L crisis), right-to-work laws, pro-business regulatory environment (except possibly the aforementioned mortgage regulations), and a commitment to small government.

Here’s a sampler from Governor Perry on this subject…

“The fact is government doesn’t create jobs, otherwise the last 2½ years of stimulus would have worked.”

“My message Mr. President (a rhetorical device, President Obama was not in the room), set the people free, set the people free to get back to work, set the people free from these regulations.”

Few things in life are black & white, and the same can be said about economics. Yes, Texas created jobs, but its unemployment stood at 8.5% this past August: not much better than the national average of 9.2%, slightly worse than 8.2% in Pennsylvania (my home state), and significantly worse than the 7.4% rate in ex-Governor Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts.

Pennsylvania, in fact, was the #3 job creator since the recession’s end. Its 93,200 new jobs is well behind Texas, but its population is roughly half of Texas. Correct for population difference and Pennsylvania theoretically would have produced 184,500 jobs to Texas’s 262,700—not too shabby.

Pennsylvania is no one’s first choice for small government. The Pennsylvania governor’s office changes from Democrat to Republican every eight years like clockwork. So what gives? Thanks to the much-ballyhooed Marcellus Shale formation and the new hydraulic fracturing techniques, Pennsylvania is now an energy producer. The Harrisburg Patriot News reported in May 2011 that Marcellus Shale accounted for 48,000 new hires in the year prior, which pretty much explains where the growth has come from.

Subsequently there has been much quibbling in the press over the "real" contribution of Marcellus Shale on Pennsylvania's economy. This is a separate discussion. Suffice it to say most Pennsylvanians see plenty of signs that Marcellus Shale has created a boom in the mostly rural areas where the drilling takes place.

Back to Texas…it has long been an oil producer, until recently in decline; now, like Pennsylvania, it’s enjoying a re-birth thanks in large part to drilling in its Barnett and Eagle Ford shale formations. With robust prices, the oil & gas industry is once again bery, bery good for the state of Texas (West Texas Intermediate crude is  currently $83.5 per barrel, down from $114 in May, but up from $25 when Perry first took office). Jobs in the oil & gas industry are growing 16%-18% annually. The NY Times reports that tax receipts from oil & gas alone run about $13 billion per year or 20% of the state budget. Considering this sector comprises only about 3% of the Texas workforce this is a remarkable number. Undoubtedly the prosperity of the oil & gas industry spills over into other sectors of the Texas economy.

Interestingly government employment grew by 35,800 during the post-recession period or 14% of total jobs created, second only behind oil & gas (mining). In itself not particularly remarkable but remember Governor Perry is head cheerleader for small government, which ultimately translates into how many people depend on government for their paycheck. Public employees constitute nearly 18% of the non-farm workforce in Texas, whereas they are only 13% in Pennsylvania.

Outside of the energy sector Texas job growth seems directly tied to population growth. Texas grew 20.6% in the first decade of this century, whereas Pennsylvania grew a mere 3.4%. Population growth goes hand-in-hand with economic growth. This raises a chicken or egg question: in the case of Texas, did population growth create new jobs or did new jobs bring population growth?

Texas vs US Unemployment From Start of the Great Recession

The short answer is population growth has driven job growth. There are two parts to the supporting argument.

Part I…Texas’s unemployment rate has closely tracked the national unemployment rate both before and after the recession (see chart). This suggests that the fortunes of its economy are still largely subject to the same macroeconomic forces buffeting the whole country. Yes, Texas is creating new jobs during the post recession but not fast enough to sop up the influx of new workers, hence persistently high unemployment. In short there’s not much evidence that “small government” politics in & of itself has created an economic miracle in Texas: a lot of Texans are still out of work.

Part II…While Texas has experienced rapid population growth, over half of this growth is natural, i.e., more births than deaths. Turns out Texas’s birth rate (number of births per 1000) is significantly higher than the U.S. as a whole and most of this can be attributed to Texas’s Hispanic population for whom large families are the norm. According to the Texas Department of Health Services the 2006 Hispanic birth rate of 23.3 was almost twice the "white" birth rate of 12.7. International immigration, mostly from Mexico and Central America, makes up another quarter of the population growth. The remainder is due to migration from other parts of the U.S. This last number is significant—by itself it represents more growth than my state of Pennsylvania sees from all sources—on the other hand it doesn’t suggest that the rest of the U.S. is rushing pell-mell to work in Texas.

Sources of Texas Population Growth 2000-2010
 (from presentation by The Office of the State (Texas) Demographer)

As the NY Times reported in February 2011, the real story here is the rise of the Hispanic population, which comprised roughly two-thirds of Texas’s growth during the last decade. Hispanics continue to cross the border in large numbers (I must presume mostly illegally) and have more kids than “whites.” Texas is now 38% Hispanic, which some say is a tipping point both culturally and politically.

Texas has taken a relatively accommodating stand towards illegal immigration (witness the heat Perry has taken on this subject in the recent GOP debates). In combination with the critical mass of Hispanic people already in the state, it creates a powerful dynamic that draws people, especially Hispanics, to the state. In short, Texas is a “happening place.”

Those that want to see a miracle in the performance of the Texas economy will likely find it. To my mind it’s much more complicated. Texas likely is more overtly business friendly in terms of tax policy and regulations than many other states, but it’s also blessed with natural resources and a unique set of circumstances that has created a Hispanic population boom. Without energy and population boom it’s not clear that Texas as an economic model has anything to offer the rest of the country.

Notes: 

• The source of the jobs and population data is either the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the U.S. Census; in some cases my figures came from a secondary source, such as the NY Times, that referenced the primary source.
• There has been much commentary on jobs growth and the so-called Texas miracle. I note that different reporters used different time periods for counting post-recession job growth. Unless otherwise noted I used June 2009 to April 2011.
• I used non-farm employment figures and so has most everyone who has reported on this issue. I'm not expert enough on employment statistics to explain why. Here I'm just following the crowd.
• Finally there are two ways reporters have "measured" Texas job growth. They reported the jobs increase in Texas as a percentage of a) the net jobs increase for the entire nation, or b) the sum of the  jobs figures only for those states which registered positive job growth. I used a) and frankly don't understand the significance of b). In both cases Texas comes out smelling like the proverbial rose.