Texas supports one-quarter of US socialism

That's a statement you'll never see Ted Cruz make.

But, if we're talking about big-business socialism, it's 100 percent right.

The New York Times has compiled info on what local, county and state governments give away in "incentives" to recruit businesses, and, Texas' corporate socialism was almost exactly one-quarter of the national total. 

No, I'm not surprised.

While it may seem to start at the top, with Gov. Perry's Enterprise Fund, that's really NOT where it starts. City and county economic development corporations, common in Southern states as a union-fighting tool, are a large part of it. From there, local government development incentives, beyond EDC ones, plus local government property tax breaks, are next.

The Enterprise Fund is just the icing on the cake, folks.

And, whenever wingnuts bash national economic planning or how the government shouldn't pick "winners and losers," they need to look in the mirror first. At the local, county and state level, Texas does it all the time.

But, it's peculiar even among Southern states to Texas, in degree.

How bad is it? Texas corporate socialism is as much as the next four states -- Michigan, Pennsylvania, California and New York -- combined.