Dan Walters: California vs. Texas debate rages on

Dan Walters speaks.

Dan Walters: California vs. Texas debate rages on The differences are more than oil. Texas has a much lower tax structure, including no personal income tax, a much more permissive regulatory climate, and a much lower cost of living, especially housing. That makes it attractive to business of a certain type.

California has its attributes as well, including a much better climate and unmatched natural scenery, as well as first-class research universities and – in and around Silicon Valley at least – a powerful entrepreneurial impulse and access to capital.

The question for California – one that its politicians don't even acknowledge, much less answer – is whether the state's assets outweigh its deficiencies in the global competition for investment capital.

We always assume that today's bust will morph into tomorrow's boom. But Detroit also assumed that it always would be the nation's industrial Goliath.

One thing TX doesn't have is a Prop 13.  And that's a shame.