“If a piece of the building falls to the ground and breaks, they have insurance for that,” said a middle aged man in a wheelchair in Houston. Tweet Share
Thrown Away People
by Scott on June 10, 2013 in Dallas, Economy, Houston, Immigration, Politics, Rick Perry, Texas
Texas is Letting Fear Decide its Fate on Immigration
by Scott on January 28, 2013 in Border Security, Economy, Immigration, Politics, Tea Party, Texas
Texas has an estimated 1.7 million undocumented immigrants living between the Red and Rio Grande Rivers. Houston alone is home to about 600,000 of those. Texas has a 1,200 mile border with Mexico (the longest of any state). Texas has a booming Latino population that sees almost every other issue through the lens of immigration. […]
Purging the Underground Economy in Texas
by Scott on January 3, 2013 in Economy, Immigration, Politics, Texas
In Texas, we pride ourselves on job creation and entrepreneurship. This is the Promised Land, where you can be in charge of your own destiny. For many, if not most, this is true. For others, that rhetoric is used to dodge the law, pay people off the books, avoid taxes and contribute to a cancerous […]
Texas Built That
by Scott on September 18, 2012 in Economy, Politics, Tea Party, Texas
Texas might be able to settle one of the central arguments in the race for the White House: Whether business owners create wealth and jobs on their own or whether we all chip in to make that happen. But, first Texas will have to decide what it’s going to do. Tweet Share
Obama Misses a Texas-Sized Opportunity on Immigration
by Scott on July 23, 2012 in Economy, Immigration, Obama, Politics, Texas
We’ve entered an interesting time in American politics when a Democrat can flog a Republican with the issue of illegal immigration. For years, conservative politicians have used it to call their opponents “open borders liberals.” President Obama, during his visits to San Antonio and Austin this week, slammed the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney for […]
Texas and Germany Face Labor Shortage for the Same Reason
by Scott on July 10, 2012 in Economy, Education, Immigration, Politics, Texas
The coming labor shortage reported on extensively at Construction Citizen, another website I write for, isn’t confined to the United States. Germany, an economic powerhouse like Texas, now has its economic performance threatened because the country’s businesses can’t find enough skilled laborers. Tweet Share
Construction Industry “Bandits” Are “Tearing at the Fabric of our Nation” VIDEO
by Scott on May 23, 2012 in Dallas, Economy, Texas, Video
After I posted my thoughts on blue collar workers, this is one of the comments I received from a reader: “It is not just the academic types who devalue blue collar labor but corporate number crunchers who assume one set of hands is as good as another when it comes to these sorts of jobs […]
Wednesday Morning Reading: Anti-Tax Pledges, Chinese Ties, and More
by Scott on May 23, 2012 in Economy, Education, Politics, Rick Perry, Tea Party, Texas
Ohh…the coffee is dripping and so is the news. Those teases at the Texas Tribune continue to roll out the results of their latest polling with the University of Texas. Maybe unsurprisingly, those anti-tax pledges some politicians tout on the campaign trail don’t really do it for the majority of people, but the most conservative […]
Tuesday Morning Reading: May the Best Ad Win
by Scott on May 22, 2012 in Economy, Education, Politics, Rick Perry, Tea Party, Texas, Video
As we get closer to the May 29th primary, there are some really effective political ads and there are some that fall into the “questionable” category. Tweet Share
Monday Morning Reading: Looks Like a Runoff
by Scott on May 21, 2012 in Dallas, Economy, Obama, Politics, Tea Party, Texas
Good morning from Dallas! I’m here to follow up on some issues I raised over the weekend regarding the “Value of Blue Collar Work.” That piece I published Sunday seems to have really resonated with all sides. It’s hard to know exactly where this conversation will go, but I plan to press the issue of […]
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Scott Braddock is a journalist and political analyst based in Austin.
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