[Amy Nabozny’s] argument stands on the crippled shoulders of poor logic. In her recent article “Conservatism can grow economy,” she makes the case that conservative economic policies are more successful and offer the growth our country needs. To support this claim, she references personal experience in the state of Michigan, which she claims is Democratic leaning, and how it differs from Texas, which she references as a Republican state.

Perhaps she should begin with researching the state politics of Michigan. The Governor and Lt. Governor have been Republican for the past 16 out of 24 years. The State House has been red since 1998, with a slight break from ‘06-’10, and the State Senate hasn’t belonged to the Democrats since 1984. If you consider federal representatives, the Senators have been blue for some time, but there is only a slightly blue tint to the state’s House Representatives. Perhaps, before she blames political partisanship for her state’s woes, she should consider researching who is actually in charge.

Texas has been obscenely lucky throughout this recession, but a “system of low taxes and reasonable regulation” is not why. If you were a business owner, and someone paid you to move somewhere with cheap labor, would you not think it was a golden opportunity? Out of the $80 billion (tax payer dollars) states give to incentivize companies, Texas gave $16 billion. About $222 million of that is from the Texas Enterprise Fund, which an audit just revealed wasted approximately 44 percent  of that by giving it to businesses who didn’t even apply. For conservatives to be so against socialist practices, government bribery of business and wastefulness seem like something Republicans shouldn’t support. Yet here we are.

Businesses might like Texas, but our nation was created for the people. And policies supporting that will always win out.

— Patty Sanger, a UT government alumna, in response to a Monday column titled “Conservatism can grow economy.”