Did the oil rich parts of the country NOT suffer like the rest of the country during the recession?

[kelliekat44]

I am a little tired of the pundits always talking about how the low gasoline prices will hurt a lot of people so there is a down side to low oil prices. OK. All that might be true but is this not part of the revered "Market Place" that the 1% is always holding up as some sanctified deity? Give me a break!! For once, can we have a unified group hug good economic news and oil prices that will gouge working families to death?

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Low oil prices = more people using more fuel = more CO2 emissions = bad

I find it kind of bizarre and fucked-up for so many people who ought to be aware of the very real threat that climate change poses to humanity to be all "yay, cheap gasoline"! And if one of the consequences of the USA's frankly stupid infrastructure decisions over the past 70 years in the light of rising oil prices is a declining standard of living for many Americans? I don't see that as being a problem for the rest of the world, considering that the USA has 5% of the world's population and has been greedily sucking in 30% of the world's resources for a very long time now.

[daredtowork]

2. I don't think they suffered as much

I know Texas kept shoving their thriving minimum wage free-of-labor-rules economy in everyone else's faces during the recession.

Of course if they go through a recession, it would genuinely suck to live there, since they don't believe in safety nets. They believe in bootstraps, even when people have no boots.

Apologies to anyone from Texas on DU, but I'd kind of like to see Texas go through a jobless period with no social safety net just to see if their heartless tone of voice starts to change. It would be awesome to see the people-power of Texas behind social infrastructure reforms.

[BlueCaliDem]

3. As GOPLife, Chris Ladd, had explained in his article

(that you can find here), Texas was almost untouched by the recession because it's a petrol State. Now he warns, watch Texas if the oil prices drop for another year. Their economy will be in trouble.

From the article:

- Keep an eye on oil prices. Texas, which is at the core of GOP dysfunction, is a petro-state with an economy roughly as diverse and modern as Nigeria, Iran or Venezuela. It was been relatively untouched by the economic collapse because it is relatively dislocated from the US economy in general. Watch what happens if the decline in oil prices lasts more than a year.

[daredtowork]

5. What really got my goat about Texas

was how they (sorry again for the generalization DU Texans - this applies to Red State Texas) were always insisting that Democrats just resorting to insulting them while ignoring how obviously wonderful their policies were. Meanwhile they were stealing businesses from other States based on their lack of labor protections (none needed because of relative lack of hard economic times - people could always go find another minimum wage job). Meanwhile people who became disabled in Texas were going through hell because they weren't bothering social infrastructure: they could afford to believe in the "bootstrap" theory because they had the jobs.

I have friends from from Texas, and I got tired of hearing their ongoing BS about how "misunderstood" their beliefs were when their beliefs were depriving people in the rest of the country of basic necessities like food and housing. Those votes in Texas matter. That's a heavyweight state. If they believe that social safety net is unnecessary and people can just run out and "get a job", then they can put the whole country on tilt like a pinball machine.

A little recession might be good for their soul.

[BlueCaliDem]

7. "A little recession might be good for their soul."

And, hopefully, it will jump-start their minds and recalibrate their way of thinking. For far too long Conservatives in Texas have been saved by high oil prices that has allowed them to remain untouched by the very policies one of their own, as president, had made this country go through. Those policies have never hurt them or their economy. Hopefully, the drop in oil prices will continue and Texas voters - who consistently vote Republican - will feel what the rest of the country has felt due to the failed policies under a Republican president and a Republican Congress. Maybe, just maybe, they'll awaken enough to finally give the other political Party a chance.

[elias49]

4. Alaska took a hit. nt

[closeupready]

6. The DC area did spectacularly well during the recession, I believe TX did well

and ND/the oil fracking area.

[Blue_In_AK]

8. Alaska didn't suffer much during the recession,

but the plummeting oil prices are hitting us hard now. That combined with the stupid SB21 that was forced through by ex-governor Sean Parnell last year that guarantees that, because of incentives to the oil companies to produce, we will now be paying them, apparently, to take our oil for a negative return. Less than zero.

Frankly, I just wish they'd pull up stakes and leave, taking all these transplanted Texas and Oklahoma oil men with them. Maybe then we'd get our state back, even if it was painful for a while.

I lived here before the pipeline, when we actually had an income tax. I liked it better.


Our new governor hits the nail on the head in this op ed. http://www.adn.com/article/20150108/gov-bill-walker-hard-truth-about-alaskas-oil-revenue

Imagine your family’s biggest source of income plummeting by 80 percent in one year. At today’s oil prices, that’s Alaska’s situation. The state’s oil and gas production tax is expected to bring the state $524 million in the current fiscal year, a shocking drop from the $2.6 billion collected last year.

But that’s only part of the story. The state offers tax credits to oil and gas companies as a way to encourage investment that will, it is hoped, increase oil production. Once all the credits are factored in, our production tax is expected to generate negative returns to the state. You read that right: this year, for the first time in state history, we are making less than zero from a tax meant to compensate Alaska for the taking of its oil resources.

How is this situation possible? The Alaska Department of Revenue projects the state will pay $625 million to producers through various oil and gas production credits. Subtract that from $524 million in production tax revenue, and we’re about $100 million in the red. Next year, the problem is expected to worsen, with the state netting negative $400 million on what has traditionally been our biggest source of unrestricted revenue.

I have learned these bitter facts over the past few weeks, and I feel obliged to tell Alaskans the hard truth. As for how we got here, it appears to be a combination of tax breaks and credits, and a tax structure that magnifies the state’s losses at low oil prices. The last oil tax rewrite occurred during a period of sustained high oil prices, and there was little consideration given to the low-price scenario.

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