Compared with other states, especially California, doing business in Texas is much less expensive. The reason? Taking a stand on social issues is hard when you are benefiting from a fiscal and regulatory agenda that makes Texas a business haven, according to several experts.
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"Businesses are having a really difficult time deciding how to position themselves on these issues of social justice and public policy," Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said over Zoom. The companies include the likes of Tesla, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Apple, Google and Amazon. It's no coincidence that the so-called Texas Miracle, which refers to a decade-long period of economic expansion after the Great Recession, has continued as technology companies relocate or expand in the Lone Star State. Tech and Texas have become intrinsically linked. That dynamic underscores the tradeoff that tech companies - and the liberal employees who have moved to Texas - must reconcile as their values collide with their wallets. That's especially the case when it comes to the booming tech community, which has played a key role in the state's expansion in recent years. But for a state that has seen such an influx of new voices - Texas has the ninth-largest economy in the world, is the third-fastest growing state and has added more people than any other state in the past decade - the overall public response to this slew of laws and orders affecting individual rights has not been as resounding as political observers expected. Indeed, the governor's directive about trans youth was just the latest in a series of laws and orders targeting social issues, including voting, reproductive and gun rights.