Lone star tarnished
Subtitle: a critical look at Texas politics and public policy
By: Cal Jillson
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 285
ISBN-13: 9780415808774; 9780415808767
Subjects: Politics and government; Economic policy; Social policy; Political planning
Description: Texas pride, like everything else in the state, is larger than life. So, too, perhaps, are the state's challenges. Lone Star Tarnished approaches public policy in the nation's most populous "red state" from historical, comparative, and critical perspectives. The historical perspective provides the scope for asking how various policy domains have developed in Texas history, regularly reaching back to the state's founding and with substantial data for the period 1950 to the present. In each chapter, Cal Jillson compares Texas public policy choices and results with those of other states and the United States in general. Finally, the critical perspective allows us to question the balance of benefits and costs attendant to what is often referred to as "the Texas way" or "the Texas model." Jillson delves deeply into seven substantive policy chapters, covering the most important policy areas in which state governments are active. Through his lively and lucid prose, students are well equipped to analyze how Texas has done and is doing compared to selected states and the national average over time and today. Readers will also come away with the necessary tools to assess the many claims of Texas's exceptionalism.
Table of contents: title: The Texas way; title: Texas: the myth vs. the reality; title: Demographic change and its implications; title: Jobs, income, and wealth in Texas; title: Public education in Texas; title: Health and human services in Texas; title: Crime and punishment in Texas; title: Good roads, highways, and transportation in Texas; title: Energy and the environment in Texas; title: The way forward.