BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Texas had the 12th largest economy in the world when the state’s comptroller, Glenn Hegar, took office.
Now, Texas has the eighth largest economy. “That is hard to imagine,” Hegar said, in a speech in Brownsville on Jan. 30. He said the state’s budget is roughly $150 billion.
The event was titled “Texas Talks: A Luncheon with Comptroller Glenn Hegar – Navigating Fiscal Frontiers.” It was hosted at the Brownsville Events Center by the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce.
Hegar said four times in the last two decades tax collections in Texas grew ten percent, from one year to the next. But in fiscal year 2202, two years ago, the growth was 26 percent.
“It was literally off the charts,” he said. He pointed out that some of this was due to the federal government pumping money into the economy.
The population of Texas is also growing fast, the comptroller said.
“Think about the fact that tomorrow morning, somewhere in this great state of 254 counties, somewhere there will be a another 1,200 to 1,300 people that call Texas home tomorrow that didn't call Texas home today.”
Texas also has a more youthful population than most of the rest of the nation, Hegar said. “It's hard to imagine, ten percent of all the children in the entire United States call their home Texas.”
Hegar said the Texas economy is more heavily influenced by world affairs than most other U.S. states.
“The challenge for us in my office as we monitor the economy of this great state is trying to tell the legislature where we think it's going, where is the state budget is going in the next quarter, in the next year, in the next two years. The challenge is (analyzing) not just the state of Texas economy, not just the U.S. economy, but literally what's happening across the entire world.”
Aware that he was addressing a largely business audience in a border city, he said: “You know better than most people in the state of Texas or across the nation that Texas as a state is very intertwined to the global economy. Texas exports more product in value than any other state in the entire nation. Over 20 percent of the entire value out of this entire country comes out of what state? Texas. And, our number one trading partner is who? Mexico.”
Continuing on this theme, he said: “My point being is the challenges that we have in trying to interpret where this economy is going are much more complex. Why? Because we're very intertwined into the global economy, but that is a strength for Texas is my point.”
Hegar said he can tell the people of the Texas that the foundation of the state is strong.
“We have more businesses relocating to Texas, as you see in Brownsville, more businesses expanding, new opportunities and exciting opportunities. But with that, as the mayor and I were talking (about) earlier, it brings challenges,” Hegar said, referring to Brownsville Mayor John Cowen, Jr.
“But, those challenges… are a lot better than the challenges of having your economy go in the opposite direction.”
Despite all the growth, indeed because of that growth, Hegar says he does have some concerns.
“As we're looking to where this state is going, we know that it's going to continue to grow. But the things that worry me and concern me the most are…
one of the issues we talked about earlier is housing, affordable housing, for our businesses and the people that live here and manage here; workforce development, electricity, all of these things are challenges. But my point being is this: the challenges that we have here are better than the challenges elsewhere.”
Hegar said he was not sure what the best word or phrase was to describe the record high $30-plus billion dollar surplus the Legislature had at its disposal last session. He said it could be described as historic and unprecedented. The phrase he settled on was “a once in a lifetime event.”
He said in his opinion that surplus should be spent on infrastructure.
“Put money into infrastructure. Whether it's transportation… put money into our electric system, put money into our water system… the basic necessities that you as individuals and businesses need.”
He said that with all the federal spending he was worried about the Texas economy going into recession. He said he warned the legislature about this. But, he said, “we’ve taken that out of our forecast for Texas.”
He reiterated that the Texas economy was in a healthy position.
“I don't know about you, but every morning when I wake up, I thank God I get to live here and do my job here versus somewhere else."
