Fact checking Rick Perry’s announcement speech

By Glenn Kessler
WashPost

Well, goodbye Tim Pawlenty, hello Rick Perry.

The Texas governor announced that he is running for president on Saturday, just hours before the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa that ended Pawlenty’s presidential aspirations. As has been our custom, we will take a look at some of the assertions made in Perry’s announcement speech and then render a blended Pinocchio rating.

“Since June of 2009, Texas is responsible for more than 40 percent of all of the new jobs created in America. Now think about that. We’re home to less than 10 percent of the population in America, but 40 percent of all the new jobs were created in that state.”

This is a great-sounding statistic, and likely will form the core of Perry’s campaign against a presidency that thus far has negative job creation.

But, as always, there needs to be some context. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has especially promoted this figure, and even it acknowledges that the number comes out differently depending on whether one compares Texas to all states or just to states that are adding jobs. Since Texas is adding jobs, and many other states are losing jobs, Texas’s gains become out-sized in a general national survey.

Texas, as a state rich in oil and national gas, has also benefited from increases in energy prices that have slowed the economy elsewhere in the country. Higher energy prices have meant more jobs in Texas. Though Perry proudly claims the job growth is the result of a low-tax, anti-regulatory environment, others have pointed to a big investment in education in the 1980s that, yes, was the result of a tax increase.

(Original here.)