Howdy, Texas! Here’s why your state sucks

Am I the only one here getting a little perturbed by the collective masturbation over Texas?

Texas is the future!  There’s so much land! It’s cheap to live! Diverse! Smart people! Great weather! Jobs! Rick Perry personally shakes each new citizen’s hand!

And on. And on. And fucking on.

Now look, I have nothing against Texas. I’ve visited it a couple times and found it quite lovely, inasmuch as you can find concrete lovely.  (It’s no wonder there are so many JFK conspiracy theories.  You could fit the population of Fort Worth in one lane of Dealey Plaza with more shooters than the goddamn Czech army.)

I also delight in the fact that the entire world population could comfortably live in Texas with the population density of NYC. It makes all those “ahhh scary population growth!” Chicken Littles look like the damned fools and closet eugenicists that they are.

Plus: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Any state that can tell effete East Coast elites to shove it is definitely a friend of mine.

(What’s little acknowledged is the fact that George W. Bush is to thank for all the good he did as Governor of Texas during his term–because all those good policies are playing out now.  That’s an uncomfortable fact for many said elites that I relish.)

But all this “OMFG TEXAS IS AMAZING” talk reminds me of San Francisco 1849. Or Los Angeles 1920. Lots of people shifting somewhere else because they just can’t cut it where they’re at.

There are a few things about Texas that may be uncomfortable for some of y’all Dallas/Houston/Austin/San Antonio (the sleeper big city—seriously, where the hell did you come from?) denizens—but it’s time to face the honky-tonk music.

First: illegal immigration. Texas has a real goddamn illegal immigration problem and doesn’t seem to be doing a darn thing about it. I’d care less if it affected just Texas—but Texas is the funnel for illegal immigrants to travel throughout the Midwest and towards the East Coast and Mountain West. Good news: the recession caused illegal immigration to drop by 1 million people last year. Bad news: illegal immigration increased by 200,000 that same year to Texas alone. The number of illegal immigrants in Texas combined would form the second largest city in Texas—and the fifth largest in the country. Memo to Texas: you have the largest border with Mexico compared to any state in the Union. Get your shit together.

Second: you have a lot less going for you than you think. The analogy that I can think of to best describe your situation is a male model who stuffs his jock with a sock. Or a female model who balloons two cup sizes with the help of Mr. Kleenex. Libertarian economist Tyler Cowen has a Time magazine cover story this week of “10 Reasons Texas Is Our Future”, a dystopian look forward if I ever saw one. Let’s read through them:

1. Everyone’s moving there (big fucking deal, lots of people eat at Subway and it sucks)

2. The middle class squeeze (surprisingly not a trendy new juice bar concept, unrelated to Texas entirely)

3. Automation (still on the middle class squeeze topic, Texas is not responsible for me scanning my own groceries at the store and gleefully avoiding the cashier’s glacial, Parkinson’s-addled scanning hand)

4. The skills gap (still about the middle class squeeze. Weren’t we talking about Texas in this article?!)

5. Cheap land, cheap houses (finally, we’re back to Texas! And it’s only to give them a reach-around for having the same thing that…39 other states have!)

6. Cheap living generally (goddamn, we’re really trying to stretch to get that magic ‘10’ on this list, aren’t we?)

7. Jobs (thanks for reminding me of recently departed Steve, you heartless bastards. Let’s see here…oh yes: YOU CAN MAKE OR GET A JOB ANYWHERE YOU WANT IN THIS COUNTRY IF YOU WORK HARD ENOUGH. Texas’s new motto should be: ‘If You’re Fucking Lazy, Come to Texas!’)

8. Low Taxes (will address this below)

9. The rise of the ‘new cowboys’ (I don’t know what the hell this is supposed to mean and I doubt the author does either. All I know is that, in Texas, there’s steers and queers drinking beers listening to Tears for Fears or something like that)

10. The rise of micro-houses (ladies and gents, this is what’s called in the writing world as “pulling something directly out of your ass”. I can think of nobody who would enjoy living in a 400 sq. ft. box. This is a downgrade for solitary confinement inmates for gawd’s sake. And weren’t they just bragging about all the land available? This is like having a Porsche and then driving it only to the mailbox and back. Or that model from earlier, but you only penetrate her in the belly button.)

I promised I’d go back to the Low Taxes point, and goddammit I don’t break a promise unless it’s in ring form.

The author brags about how much lower state taxes are in Texas compared to other states like California (appx. $1400 more/person) and New York (an eye-watering $3900 more/person). This is mostly because Texas has no income tax.

That’s fine—that’s one place you have California beat, and good on you for that.

But six other states: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming all have no income tax too. You’re not fucking special, Texas.

According to About.com Tax Planning (which I trust more than my actual accountant…keep your hands off my CVS receipts!  I don’t need your number-crunching judgment!):

“States need revenue to function, and these states will have to make up for the lack of income tax somehow. New Hampshire [which has limited state taxes like Tennessee] and Texas, for example, make up for it in property taxes. Both states have some of the highest property taxes in the nation.”

Enjoy your cheap little Hooverville hovels, Texas—you’ll soon be paying out the ass for the privilege of occupying a Lilliputian sliver of that prime, abundant Texas soil.

Even the author of the Time piece (heh) admits:

“[p]eople are going to Texas because it’s a low-cost, low-tax state. But they’re also migrating to other Sun Belt states, like Colorado, Arizona and South Carolina, which have similar policy profiles.”

Welp, there goes the one advantage Texas has.

It boils down to this: Texas is not some humble escape from the braggadocio East Coast or all-too-cool West Coast lifestyle. In fact, the number one thing people from Texas can’t stop bragging about is Texas. They’re just as bad as New Yorkers who think they’re the shit or LA people who don’t understand that there’s a world north of The [dreaded] Valley.

So to all the Texas fetishists, emigrators, commentators, and Rick Perry: do everyone a favor and shut the fuck up about your shitstain five-in-one Republic.

Or better yet: do good on that secession promise. If you’re nice, we may even let you borrow the “New Mexico” name. After all—in a few years, you’ll need it.

41 Comments

That’s a harsh one, my friend. I still miss Cali a little more than a year removed, and I’m not a Texas native. The fact is, though, there is something special going on here. Living in Dallas, I can see how it would be unrecognizably perplexing to an Angelino. The employment situation is like nothing I have ever seen, with people jumping from job-to-job as they are poached by competitors. Additionally, the weather excluding the summer months is only marginally worse off than LA.

Personally speaking, my income upon transferring here only declined slightly. I wouldn’t know it since my cost of living (with taxes and prices) actually went down too, and dramatically. Wanting to still live in trendy Uptown to maintain quasi-consistency with my living situation in Pasadena, I was pleased to learn my rent would be 25% less for 20% more space. Pretty much everything other than fresh fruit and car insurance is cheaper here. The social scene is to my liking, and the people are outgoing.

Anyway, I know I won’t convince you. I understand that because I have lived on the West Coast. I do think you went a bit off-key here. Being a native North Carolinian, you can trust me when I say that there is nothing remotely similar between South Carolina (the Carolina backwater) and Texas!

I moved from Texas to California, along with the over 43,000 Texans that flock to California each year, and never looked back! I love it here. This is truly the all-round most beautiful and best state in the union with the most balanced economy.

Bull, Texas food and so forth is more expensive than Arizona and California. Texas rent is higher than Tucson or Phoenix. In fact if I was you I would dump Texas for Utah, whiter, less illegal immigrants, and better schools since most of the school kids unlike Texas and California are not English learners.

What the hell is in Utah? You sound like an ignorant, low class teenager whos only knowledge on Texas comes reading a few closed-minded articles on Google.

I get tired of God Bless Texas its another Mexican state like California and New Mexico. Its demographics 5 and under is mainly Hispanic but the political right that complains about too many Mexicans or illegal immirgants in California doesn’t complain when comes to Texas even some parts of Arizona like Maricopia County are preferable to most of Texas.

No. The Spanish elite (which have nothing do with the Mexican people) had a territorial claim. That area was “owned” by Indians. The 10,000 or so Indians that lived in New Mexico and Texas repeatedly complained to Mexico City about being scalped by Commanche. How Mexicans today claim Indian land is just amazing. If we need to have another Mexican American war to settle this, let’s do it. All Mexicans in the US can return to Mexico and fight on the Mexican side as they have zero allegiance to “gringo” US. After the US spans Mexico again, Mexicans will beg to be let back in the country.

OMG, I totally hate texas! I despise it so much I refuse to justify its existence as a State by capitalizing its first letter. I don’t know how to express in words the substantial culture shock I experienced when forcibly transplanted here, but I will however maintain my narrow-mindedness and hide my out-of-state pretentiousness behind a series of stigma-based clichés to describe what I want to believe I’m feeling. All the people here are rude, mean, sexist, racist, inbred bigots. And I mean everybody. So yeah, there are about 27 million people here and I’m basing my opinion on my experience in one out of the 6,386 cities but never mind my sampling methods. They’re solid and just as reliable as my assumption that because I’ve experienced all of this in a large urban center (where a lot of snowbirds and out-of-state transplants reside) where Southern hospitality is typically non-existent anyway. I guess I could travel to a small town to see what that would be like but this is the largest state in the contiguous 48. I’m not about to risk my Prius getting run over by a tractor. It’s totally possible too since this state has the most acres farmed than any other state. Or I could be trampled by a herd of cows because this redneck-ridden butt of the world also produces the most bovine. Most of that probably comes from The King Ranch which is bigger than Rhode Island. How scary is that. But why? Why don’t these awful texans get with the 21st century and become more metro? I’m sure it has nothing to do with a need to produce food since the number one cause of death on the global scale is starvation. Nah, it’s probably just a sick sense of nostalgia for them. And if I have to hear one more toothless, tobacco spitting creep talk about his “texas Pride”, their diverse culture, rich heritage, living in the only state that become one through treaty rather than territorial annexation, that texas was once its own country, that their GDP is greater than Australia’s, that actually the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history occurred in Galveston in 1900 when a Hurricane did us all a huge favor and took 8,000 lives, or that they have a surplus economy and manage to balance their budget all without a state income tax, I’m seriously going to pull all of my East Coast hair out. Ugh, what idiots!!! They have no idea how to run a government. Hardly anything is taxed here….it’s so unsettling! How am I ever going to feel at home without a monstrous tax placed on my soda or tanning visit? These poor idiots are still stuck on autonomy and independence; they have no idea how blissful it is to have government manage and social engineer their pathetic lives. Largest herd of Whitetail deer? Big deal! Where I come from, we have the largest herd of vandals, rapists, and robbers. The whole reason I’m here anyway is because my employer buckled under like a pansy and relocated to the corporate tax-friendly environment that the state has used as a menacing ploy to trick other companies on settling here. Meanwhile, me and all of my friends are forced to leave the confines of the big city, and migrate here. As a gesture of good will, I want every non-texan out there to read this so he or she will know what a putrid place this is. texans are sooooo dumb and can hurt you!!! Think of Deliverance….that’s what I experience every day. No joke, it’s dangerous here so move to any other state but here if possible. So to all of my fellow Northeasterners, keep strong, stay snooty, and may unabashed pretention be your guide through your journey.

Hey. Hey you. Texas sucks. Write less. Normally I read long comments because they’re thought provoking. But that monstrosity was like trying to find the end of a fucking mobius strip with a kaleidoscope. I had no idea when you were trying move from thought to thought and it came across as nonsensical snark and ranting. You were whining about those damn Yankees at some point me thinks and espousing some Fox news nonsense.

Because Texas doesn’t have income tax, you either live with literally crumbling infrastructure (Houston), or the local powers that be find other ways to collect revenue. The most common is to encourage “law enforcement” officers to write bogus tickets, then make it cost even more to fight the ticket, but make it almost impossible NOT to fight the ticket because a few tickets can add so many points to your license that it gets suspended. Quite a scam they’ve got going in a lot of these small towns and puny counties.

I’ve lived in Texas most of my life. It is a 260,000 sq. mile shit-hole! Racist, conservative, fundamentalist, ignorant-and-proud-of-it. Rick Perry is probably the perfect representative of the state: Shallow, selfish, close-minded. He’s a graduate of Texas A&M University & everyone in the country should pray that there is NEVER a president who graduated from Texas A&M!

I don’t think its that racists because they use Mexicans for cheap labor. Actually if they were that racists they would moved to Oklahoma and Colorado and Utah a lot less Hispanics than Texas by far. In fact the political right don’t care about Mexicans as much as the left thinks because they praise the great Hispanic state of Texas even when you tell them they can go to more whiter states like Utah, or Id and Oregon and so forth.

Arizona. New México, Navada and California have high Mexica populations and most were born here. If you dont like Mexicans in America then why dont you get out?!?!

😐😕😒Amazed at all the hate for Texas because of the high Mexican population. First of all this was once a Mexican state so it already had a high Mexican population to begin with even after the Mex-Amer. War. Second, Mexicans are not just is Texas, they are everywhere and the number increases everyday, by 2030, hispanics will be the majority in Texas. Third, the only thing the makes Texas suck is that we are getting a shit load of people from all over the US moving hr and there is not enoughplaces to live so they are building nasty RV parks off the ass. Just an effort to make easy money but not really have to do much work. So everyone, STOP BRING RV’s TO TEXAS! Lastly, anyone that hates Texas is free to leave on my account, it wont bother us. Just stop hating on Mexicans with such ignorance, if y’alls states are as closed-minded and demonstrate such low class as many of you did, it cant as great as Texas.

I’m so glad you said it. This man rants on about how the governor is racist and the people there are too, like I 100% agree. But then he continues to berate on the Hispanic people that have been there for a very long time, yes there are a lot of Hispanic people coming up from Mexico, but I’m sure if you lived in the parts of Mexico that they do you’d want to get out of there too, and I’m not talking about the rich white guy parts of Mexico. The violence against women and children and without help from their country or government really deters the people from wanting to live there. I just wish people understood that people are people.

Rick is a scary man with limited brain poetty of desire to politicize everything, even the ultimate future of our only world. You go Texas and we will hope there is a succession in the next 8 years so you can do everything you want, We in CA already won’t fly there for business – and for me for anything.

Author is an immature fool..cussing proves childish…get a life writer…it’s your world that is rotted not anywhere outside your rediculously petty mind.

Literally no one gives two shits about you going to Texas, No one cares you choose not to visit, It’s only doing Texas a favor. By all means please stay away.

Yeah, but the political right don’t mention that Texas too has a lot of illegal immigrants just like California and unlike some here I know of people that went to Texas from California and other states and didn’t get a job they had to compete against illegal immigrants in Construction and restaurant jobs just like they do in California but no one from the right is honest about this.

I just escaped from Dallas, Texass in one piece after giving it 5 years. I really tried to like it but ran out of reasons to continue my futile social experiment. If Texass is our future we are in big fucking trouble. When I have time I will elaborate.

You don’t say? I’m wrapping up my 5 years in DFW and ‘escaping’ to Washington state in October. This article was written when I first got down here and I have to say I wish I found it when I did as it is by far one of the most accurate takeaways I’ve experienced and I don’t think I even agree with all the authors political views! Not that it’s the worst place I could be, the words I keep coming to time and time again to describe it are ‘ridiculously overrated’.

I was born and raised around abilene tx. I moved away when I was 18 and never looked back, if I would have stayed I’ve probably be in prison because the laws and cops there are too strict and theres no jobs and nothing to do. Besides there is to many Mexicans there they wise as well give that state back to Mexico.

The only way to fight Texas is to refuse to go there. Refuse to work there, refuse to visit, refuse to travel there or even travel through there.

Texas sucks so bad it is hard to even put it into words. It’s like a big vortex of a shit hole- a literal state personification of a butthole.

No one really wants to live in Texas- they are trapped there or escaped to Texas to flee a worse situation.

But no one who has every lived in another state really wants to live in Texas. It is hard to even imagine a worse state to live in.

I thank God every single day that I am out of that awful Penal Colony of a state joke shithole.

Yes, Texas does suck. People there are losers who live off their parents and think they are special because they were raised there. Its a cesspool and a dump. There is no scenery, nothing for anyone with hobbies to do other than be a fat ass whore and eat all day. Illegal scum everywhere you look, dirty ass bums everywhere. Trust me its a fucking shithole!

texas is the a** hole of America. They don’t have a problem with mexican because they like the cheap labor and they don’t care about Americans because they are not Americans. They have low educational standard and high prison populations. I can not think of any reason to go near that pit. I never drive through, or fly over it. No, there is no good reason to go to that state. If you look up the dumbing down of America you will find a picture of Texas. IF a texan reads this (if they can read) I know I need to explain the picture of texas commit. Texan have to have every thing in picture form or they can not figure out what it is. It’s full of steers and queers and they ran out of steers.

All I can say, its one of the ugliest places on earth. But I’m trapped here because I have a really good job. Lol!! Lots of theft and crime and scary drivers, don’t even get me started on constant tornado threats, and the brutal 110 degree summers. Lots of trump lover gun toting bone heads here, covid is a hoax to discredit the current white house a-hole, according to them. I will be running from Here in 7 yrs. when I retire, going back to upstate ny, where I get 4 seasons, forests, mountains and lots to do.

Yeah I live in Texas but I’m not that proud of it, I mean it’s a fine place and all at least to me but so many people are obnoxiously prideful in my area, acting like Texas is the best thing ever, and it’s super annoying. The lame cowboy culture also gets really annoying.

I got stuck in Texas because of aa damned wind storm and problems on the road. I am a vocalist and at least right now there is no place to go to sing, and I wont sing wearing a f-ing bedsheet on my face that stops (LOL) the virus anyhow.

Immigration is a HHUUGGEE problem. Mexicans have taken over almost every business, speak little or no English and stick together. I like Mexicans, as well as any other race, but if you take coffee and pour a jug of sugar and two drops of coffee in the pot, what do you have? Too damned much of one thing, da DAAAA!

One thing I like is that these country Bobs ignore me in public, and being a Romantic Goth who simply wants to dress nice, and does not have any use for stares, that works for me. I get compliments and an occasional man asking if I am available, which is a compliment.

But as for functionality, this erea rots for me. Just my view point.

Texas has always been America’s largest embarrassment. There’s no denying that.

For every positive thing that is said about this crumbling shithole, there are ten negatives. It really doesn’t take much effort to point out everything that is wrong; you can just list off everything that contributes to a bearable quality of life. Let’s have a look: education, healthcare, poverty rate, climate, infrastructure, crime rate, entertainment, natural beauty, transportation, social responsibility, yada yada yada… Texass ignores it all.

Growing up in middle America, our trips to Texass were always underwhelming. There’s a reason why no one plans a vacation to Texas. It simply does not have much to offer. Texans’ love for sprawling, inefficient suburbia, miles of crumbling interstates lined with McDonald’s and panhandlers, nonexistent pedestrian infrastructure, and maximizing the size of fattening foods while minimizing brain capacity it’s a hellish recipe for a state that is to be a laughing stock for the entire world.

We all know these things will never be addressed. Texass will always be shrouded with a blind sense of “freedom.” In reality, it is far from that.

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