Fort Worth Inc.
Gov. Greg Abbott addresses a lunchtime crowd at the Worthington.
The governor stopped in for lunch and a midafternoon address at the Worthington Renaissance Fort Worth Hotel on Wednesday to highlight the state’s achievements as an economic engine.
This is territory as friendly to business as its rich, fertile pastures have been to livestock.
For an 11th consecutive year, Texas was awarded the Governor’s Cup, presented to the nation’s top performing site for job-creating business relocations and expansions, according to data and criteria assembled by Site Selection.
Texas is among the top 10 economies in the world, in terms of its $2.4 trillion gross domestic product and it is now the home to the most Fortune 500 companies in the nation. The state also checks boxes for being among the top job creators and exporters in the country, a whopping $35 billion budget surplus — symbolic of a thriving economy — and a highly educated workforce that his helping lure business to the 28th state.
Football analogies always being popular here, the governor used one.
Nick Saban, the Alabama football coach who has won seven national championships, now trails Abbott, who has won eight, the governor joked. (He also added, this football and Dallas Cowboys fanatic, that TCU had the best football team in the state in 2022. When in Rome, it’s useful to point out these things.)
“One hundred and eighty-seven years after Texas was founded, there has never been a better time to be a Texan,” Abbott said. “It's a place where entrepreneurs can cast a vision and know that they live in a state where they have the ability to achieve that vision.”
And Fort Worth has been a big part of the “Texas economic juggernaut.”
He was preaching to the choir, this assembly of business leaders at the Fort Worth Chamber’s Leaders in Government luncheon. Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Kay Granger (R-Fort Worth), members of the Fort Worth City Council, including Alan Blaylock and Carlos Flores, and Tarrant County Commissioner Manny Ramirez.
When the “Amens” had dissipated (there weren’t actually any those), however, the governor flung caution to the wind.
There won’t be any resting on any laurels from the state government, he said, vowing that the work to ensure fertile business pastures never ends and that he will pursue and support public policy that “moves at the speed of business.”
Losing out on a Micron semiconductor chip maker to New York — not exactly Mister Rogers’ neighborhood as an ideal business environment — illustrates clearly that there is work to do on that end, he said, starting with the Legislature passing a robust economic development program that will provide the tools to close relocation deals.
“We need to ensure that this session,” said the governor, who added that it was imperative for his audience to press its legislators to do so.
“The most important five minutes of your day — today — is going back to your office and calling your state representatives and state senators.”
The governor also said the Legislature’s planned property tax reform — the state plans to share its budget surplus in the form of a property tax cut — needs to extend to small business in the form of a $100,000 tax concession on business personal property.
“That will lower the cost of doing business and spur even more small businesses to succeed.”
Infrastructure also needs to be more business friendly, particularly in terms of transportation. Business needs to be able to move product and employees need to be able to get to work. And, the governor said a further strengthening of the power grid compromised by the state's surge in population is also business friendly.
Lastly, even in a state with a favorable regulatory environment, Texas needs to go further. Regulations drive up the cost of doing business. The reasons businesses leave other states, he said, was not high taxes.
“It’s regulations,” Abbott said. “The regulatory reform we’re going to pass will be a model for the United States. In states with difficult regulatory environments, they are losing population and business every single day.
“And perhaps as favorable as the Texas regulatory environment is, the fact of the matter is it remains still too complex, too complicated, and too costly. The reality is no business should be by micromanaged by a government bureaucrat. Reforms that remove red tape should be put in place a session.”
Fort Worth, of course, has ambitious plans as part of Texas’ thriving economic environment.
The Fort Worth Chamber on Tuesday announced the hiring of Abbott’s former chief of staff, Robert Allen, to lead the chamber’s new economic development arm, the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership.
Allen was most recently the CEO and president of the Texas Economic Development Corporation, based in Austin.
Abbott joked that the Fort Worth Chamber had committed a “robbery” by “stealing” Allen away from Austin. He praised his former surrogate as one with the national and worldwide connections to spur economic growth in Fort Worth.
“As great as Fort Worth is, this is just the beginning of what it can be,” the governor said. “I know that Robert Allen working in conjunction [with the city] can take Fort Worth to new heights when it comes to economic development.
“This is a win-win situation [with the state]. Just know that you’re getting a five-star recruit who will be a boon to your economy here as well as the economy of Texas.”