All Episodes
Previous Next
Sept. 25, 2025 03:10-03:42 - CSPAN
31:58
Gov. Greg Abbott Discusses Texas Economy
Participants
Main
g
greg abbot
23:48
|

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Democracy Unfiltered.
We're funded by these television companies and more, including Charter Communications.
Charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers.
And we're just getting started.
Building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most.
Charter Communications supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott spoke about his state's economy during an investor summit outside of Dallas.
His remarks are about half an hour.
A big part of this program is the Texas takeover.
You've made it a mission, and we heard some great comments from the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and the Texas Stock Exchange that it's all Yall Street, and Wall Street is yesterday's news.
Most people know of Texas outside of here as, you know, obviously a big energy state.
Could you talk a little bit about how you came to champion policies to make Texas a financial hub?
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
It goes back to, I think, the first thing that we talked about, and that is the importance of having a diversified economy.
And so we've been looking at a lot of different ways to diversify that economy and then go back in time through history because in part of the Dallas Federal Reserve District that's existed for about 100 years, is that right, Rob?
Something like that.
Anyway, Dallas was always kind of a natural place for the banking industry.
We have other people here from other locations around the state.
And I mean, there's this very simple fact.
And that is, as you've seen our population grow, both in people who live here as well as businesses that exist here.
We now have over 31 million people, and all those people have to have a bank to go to, a bank to borrow from, a bank to do business with.
And the same is true for all of our businesses.
So just by our sheer growth alone, there was a dramatic need to expand the financial sector.
But, and so I wasn't here for the presentation early.
I don't know if you heard how this actually began, but the stock exchange process is something that I had long envisioned even before I was governor.
But I was at a dinner about the size of one of these large tables here about, I don't know, four years ago, something like that.
And someone at the dinner said, well, Governor, tell us what your thoughts are about the future.
And I brought up the desire to have our own stock exchange.
And several months after that, the guy sitting next to me at the time, his name is Jim Lee.
And he called me and said, I'm just curious, are you serious about that?
And I said, absolutely.
And so we then got into a meeting where we learned whether or not there was truly a demand and a need for that product.
And the people in that meeting were some of the biggest financial leaders from the most important financial institutions in the entire country.
And they, to a person, said, absolutely, the product is needed.
Absolutely, it can and should be created.
And so Jim and others then took on the heavy load of laying the groundwork and building the infrastructure to get it done.
But here's what happens.
I mean, through their excellence, through their hard work, they got it up and running, fully funded.
It's the largest funded stock exchange ever to exist in the United States.
Moving very rapidly toward getting SEC approval, moving very rapidly toward trading operations, moving rapidly toward getting listings, all that kind of process.
But a fun thing happened along the pathway, something that shows the validity of the meaningfulness of the Texas Stock Exchange.
Because when competitors learned about this, the lead competitors are the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, both of which I think have more businesses located from Texas than any other state, they realized, wait a second, they cannot cede Texas to the Texas Stock Exchange because they would see it being completely taken over.
And so now both NASDAQ and NYC have trading operations right here in the state of Texas.
In fact, some of you may have seen about three weeks ago, I rang the closing bell on live on TV for the New York Stock Exchange from the Dallas Cowboy Football Stadium.
And so they're getting all invested in making sure that Texas is going to be the centerpiece for stock exchanges for financial transactions.
And there truly is win at our back.
And this is not a time for politics, but you've got to calibrate what's going to happen in the future based upon certain things that are going to happen politically.
And I'm just telling you what I'm hearing from New York financial institutions.
And that is, if the person who's currently in the lead for mayor of New York, who is an avowed socialist, an avowed communist, who, when you think about communism and socialism, and you think, okay, what is the most antithetical thing to that?
What's the direct opposite of that?
It would be capitalism.
But what is the pinnacle of capitalism?
I view a stock exchange as a pinnacle of capitalism.
So on the one hand, we have the current location where stock exchanges are located that is going to be led by a communist.
On the other hand, we have Texas, which is leading capitalism, that is already the home of all these stock exchanges, and they're going to flood here en masse to the state of Texas.
And so whoever's involved in the real estate industry, it could be McKinney that airport may be taken off real quick.
But the future growth just in the financial sector, just in North Texas alone, is going to be extraordinary, in part because of what we've already built, but also in part because of what people are fleeing.
And if you think this is some type of herbole or fiction or whatever the case may be, remember this.
Remember what's happened over the past decade or more, and that is all the people who've already fled states like California to get away from the heavy-handed rules and regulations that were inconsistent with running a successful business.
That is going to replay time and time again because Texas, time and again, are passing policies that make it more attractive.
I know I've gone on, but let me mention one last thing that we did, which was very, very important.
These stock exchanges are confronted with something that would cost so much it would put them out of business.
And that is a potential transaction fee on transactions.
And the way this kind of first began in the state of Texas was before COVID when the NASDAQ came to visit with me because the NASDAQ, which was located in New Jersey, New Jersey was considering imposing a transactions tax that would force the NASDAQ to have to leave New Jersey.
And in part, Texas was being used and being played by the NASDAQ because they needed at least to show New Jersey that they were going to be losing us.
But New Jersey eventually capitulated.
Anyway, this whole deal about a transaction tax has surfaced once again under this candidate for the mayor of New York.
And there may be even money odds that, in one fashion or another, it's going to go into effect in New York.
And if it goes into effect in New York, you're going to see immediate movement.
You need to be in the moving band business real quick.
And you can charge high rates and make a whole lot of money because they're going to be coming here very rapidly, growing and truly making Texas and the DFW region the capital of capitalism in the entire world.
unidentified
I love that.
Well, and that's one of three, I think, very important ballot props that will ballot measures that will be on the ballot that are capped up.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
I'm sorry, I didn't finish my point.
So, what we did, I should have complete the circle.
What we did this past session is in the legislature passed a constitutional amendment banning a transactions tax in Texas.
As what Glenn was about to tell you, that's on the ballot in November.
I defy Texans to vote against a ban on a transactions tax.
It is going to pass in the state of Texas, and that will cement Texas as the best place because these other states don't have a constitutional amendment.
So, think about the meaningfulness of that.
In order to undo a constitutional amendment banning a transactions tax, it would require two-thirds vote to say, oh, yes, and we actually do want a transactions tax.
Not in the lifetime of anybody in this room is that going to happen.
That's a guarantee.
unidentified
And also going to the ballot, I believe, will be a constitutional prohibition against capital gains taxes and death taxes.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
Correct.
unidentified
So, contrast that with New York, which actually does have something on the books that could always be resuscitated to actually tax stocks.
When we go to there's one other point I want to make because it just want people to understand how engaged the governor gets into the nuts and bolts for policies to make all of this work.
SB 29 and the business judgment rule and the business courts to make sure that as the stock exchanges and headquarters continue to come to Texas, we have the capacity to litigate complex business cases and we give companies the ability to headquarter or incorporate in a place where activist judges, Delaware, can't replace the decisions of boards.
Right.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
Good points.
Let me expand upon that.
But if I could, let me give you kind of the structure of what that falls under.
And it's the structure that keeps Texas number one.
You know, you talked about, I think you began, with the fact that we've won the Governor's Cup.
We've been the national champion for economic development for 13 years in a row.
And it's hard to be a national champion once, but 13 years in a row, there are a couple of things that are required in order to be able to keep that moving in that same direction.
One is that in addition to infrastructure like low taxes and regulations, we try to develop a partnership with all of these businesses that either are doing or seek to do business in the state because there's a simple math here.
When the businesses in the state succeed, Texas succeeds.
Mathematically, it's a simple equation.
And so we work on ways to be partners with them, but also we work on ways of evolving.
If we stuck to the formula that we had 10 years ago, we wouldn't be keeping a pace.
Instead, we evolve and constantly find ways to make Texas better.
And what you just talked about is one of those ways.
And there are other states, and most prolifically Delaware, that have business courts.
And we saw, like some businesses saw, the way that the Delaware business courts were actually failing because they were departing from long-standing precedents.
And as you all know, in business, one thing businesses need is predictability.
And they suddenly had lack of predictability in the Delaware courts.
And we thought, well, we can do better than that.
So we created the business courts, and then we listened to.
We were responsive to our business constituents.
One thing our business constituents wanted was to not make it so easy so that anybody with any amount of money, any small tiny amount of money invested in the company, could create a class action lawsuit that would hijack the corporate board and hijack corporate operations.
And so we had a higher standard for what's called a derivative action lawsuit to be able to bring a lawsuit against a board for board governance, and that is you must own 3% or more of the company in order to be able to do that.
And I don't know if 3% sounds high or low, to be honest, it's a large amount to own that.
You have to be a meaningful owner of a business.
It's a meaningful owner who would have an interest in bringing something like that.
The story goes back to some story many of you may have heard, and that is somebody who owned shares in Tesla valued it less than a Tesla vehicle.
In other words, he didn't even spend as much money to go out to buy Tesla, but had a few shares of Tesla.
Stock was able to hijack the board and halt its ability to implement several plans they had in place.
And that's just one of the reasons why Elon knew the right place to incorporate is the state of Texas.
And now there is a stampede taking place of businesses from across the country to incorporate in the state of Texas and to headquarter in the state of Texas.
unidentified
We heard of some that are doing just that earlier today, Governor.
Education.
You're also on a mission to make sure Texas is number one in education.
And under your leadership, Texans, parents, and students have never had more choice, and there's never been more funding going into our K through 12 system.
Could you talk a little bit about that?
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
Sure.
So I think it's been pretty well documented what we did over the past session and what my push was to achieve school choice.
And school choice would be categorized as an end for parents because it ensures that the people who love and care the most about a child is the parent and they're not going to have the ability to understand their child and understand the education setting that's going to be best for their child.
But school choice, when you look at the big picture, is not an end unto itself.
It's a means to an end.
And I'm the only governor in the history of Texas.
You know how we talked about these number ones for Governor's Cup and number one for exports, civic doctors, whatever.
If all I did was get up here and list all of our number ones, it would be a 30-minute speech.
But here's the point, though.
I'm the only governor in the history of the state of Texas to talk about a new number one, and that's to make Texas number one in educating our kids.
So there are several components to achieve this goal.
One of which is school choice.
Another one of which is to make sure we're going to have strong public schools.
And that's why we provided $8 billion more in funding.
However, one of the best benefits of school choice, it injects competition.
Like competition we saw with the stock exchanges.
Now we're home to three stock exchanges.
We want competition in schools.
Going to require every teacher in every school to be competing for these students, and that's going to lead to better products, regardless of whether or not children go to a public school, a private school, a charter school, or homeschool, whatever the case may be.
So, we're going to have competition, and importantly, we provided $4.4 billion for pay raises for our teachers.
We need to be able to attract and keep the best teachers, and we're doing that.
And then, in addition to that, Texas has a program that the teacher unions don't like.
The teacher unions want to see paid done on a ten-year basis.
You're here longer, you get paid more.
We want to convert that to more of a qualitative process so that the better you teach, the more you get paid.
And we have what's called a teacher incentive allotment.
It's a well-developed program that provides teachers the education they need, the tools they need to be able to take that next step.
And what this program does, it puts every teacher who applies to this.
And by the way, every ISD in the state of Texas qualifies for this, but it's going to put teachers on a pathway to earning a six-figure salary.
It's been in place in the Dallas Independent School District.
I can tell you there are a lot of teachers in DISD making well over $100,000 as we speak right now.
And then the last thing is curriculum reform.
Listen, I think speaking for us as a nation, we've fallen behind where we need to be in reading and math, definitely, which are subsets of other core topics like both science and history.
And so, we're redoubling our efforts first on reading and math and then expanding that to science and history to make sure that we are tuning out some things that don't really lead to better education results and double down on the things that do lead to a better education through curriculum reform.
And we're going to make sure that we're going to have the best students graduating from our schools.
And then, I can add to that what we're doing for career and technical education, making sure we have that most high-skilled, trained workforce of any state in the United States of America.
unidentified
Well, and it goes up in addition to career and technical education, dual enrollment, and then you think about under your leadership the new funding formula for community colleges, where a whole bunch of new funding tied to credentials of value.
International: Texas is really a country.
You have done a great job of attracting all sorts of.
I believe Texas is also number one in foreign direct investment.
Could you please talk a little bit about your, and I know Texas Economic Development Corporation has done a great job of really helping the best jobs governor in America sell the state of Texas.
Can you talk a little bit about the international?
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
I'll do it, but I'm glad you also inserted the Texas Economic Development Corporation because here's the reality, and that is the success we've had is not driven by one person, it's driven by a team.
The fact of the matter is, we have the best team in the entire country.
I'm looking at many of the teammates right now.
Those governor cups we talk about, they're not won by the state or solely by the state.
They're won by all these economic development organizations at every level across the state.
And one cool thing, and it's going back to the key word: competition.
I can look across this room and see competitors from one region to another, from one city to another, in just the Dallas region alone.
And you're fighting out there to get projects to your city, to your county, to your economic development area, and that leads to so much success.
So I want to thank everybody here who's involved in this process for making the Texas Economic Development Corporation the premier such organization in the entire United States of America.
It's truly you who make Texas so successful.
One thing we do with the corporation, we are able to expand the horizon of the investments.
Let's go back to that word I've used a couple of times now already, and that's diversification.
And so we're not just tethered to Texas businesses for our economic development, and we're not limited to just United States businesses.
Because we lead in foreign direct investment, we're so successful across the world.
We're the number one trading partner for Mexico, number one trading partner for Canada.
And so those are two obvious ones we're connected to.
But when you look at places we've been to around the globe, because Texas is kind of known as its own country, some here have done this before.
When you're in Europe or you're name some foreign country you're traveling in, and people will ask you what country you're from or where you're from.
And most people in the United States, when they're in a foreign country, let's say, well, I'm from the United States.
Most of you, when you know the country, you say, well, I'm from Texas.
And the reality is Texas is a brand that's known across the globe.
And it's allowed me access into the meetings with the political leader, could be the president, the prime minister of so many countries across the globe.
You can trace it from India all the way over to Taiwan.
And when we were in Korea as well as Japan, I was with the highest political leader in the country at the time.
The president or prime minister was out of the country at the time.
But then you go from the UK to France to Israel to countries across the globe.
And then others have come and met with me in the governor's mansion from Ireland and Australia to so many countries across the globe.
Countries want to do business with Texas, in Texas.
So the brand that you all have helped to create has been magnified and multiplied across the entire globe so that doors are open to us as we travel across the globe in ways that are not open to other states, maybe in ways that are not even open to other countries.
And we treat them with the same type of respect and support as we do with the businesses that operate here.
We roll out the red carpet for them, let them know how much we care about them and how beneficial it is for them to do business in the state of Texas.
And the results, the proof is in the pudding, because of that foreign direct investment, because these businesses are coming from across the globe, coming here and growing here and succeeding here.
And that message gets sent back home and it just causes other people from those countries to come here and multiply even more.
unidentified
And I believe the state, we have trade offices in Mexico and Taiwan, but we'll soon have them in the UK and Israel.
And you signed also a landmark agreement with the UK, I believe, a few years ago.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
Oh, that's true.
But that's just for starters.
We're just getting going.
unidentified
Well, as the United States, I'm going to start wrapping up the questioning.
As the United States reindustrializes, it's very clear that Texas is going to be the big winner.
I mean, when we talk about all of these different trade deals that President Trump has done, and we talked a little bit about this earlier, Japan, South Korea, the EU, it's very clear there's going to be a torrent of investment in the United States.
Is this winner take all?
Is Texas going to just clean up, Governor, as this foreign investment comes in?
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
There's plenty of love to go around the entire country.
But Texas is going to be the clear winner.
Let me expand on why, because you mentioned some of it.
I want to just, just like at that dinner five years ago when somebody asked me, so what's going to happen in the future?
And I mentioned the stock exchange, and now it's occurring.
Actually, what I'm going to tell you about the future is already occurring in the state of Texas.
It's just going to grow even more profoundly.
I'll put this in this context, ensuring you, but more importantly, ensuring audiences outside of here, that I'm telling you only what is public information.
And that is, as we do these competitions with other states to try to attract businesses or developments to our state, we're competing with other states.
And oftentimes, what matters the most is the bottom line.
We did have a competition with other states with an entity that could locate in any of the 50 states, but had to locate in the state they would do the most to be able to preserve and to perpetuate the United States of America.
And that's the Army Futures Command.
And Army Futures Command, the Army will have different command headquarters for different operations.
It could be in Northcom or Southcom or in the Middle East, wherever the case may be.
One of their command headquarters has to be on the design of future warfare.
What's it going to look like?
I can tell you it's not going to look like the battlefields of the Middle East.
The future of warfare is in outer space and cyberspace.
And that's why the Army Futures Command decided to locate in downtown Austin, because not just did they have access to the talent right there in Austin, but they were within a couple of hundred mile radius of all of our tremendous universities that are leading the way.
And I should say this, when I became governor in my first state address, Texas ranked down the rungings of the letter a little bit on Tier 1 research universities.
Texas is now home to more Tier 1 research universities than any other state in the United States of America.
So the Army Futures Command has access to all that talent.
So let's extrapolate from what they're focused on, space and cyberspace, and know that the future is going to be defined by these areas.
One is space exploration.
Part of that will be what Elon achieves in going to Mars.
But think of everything that Elon, but also Firefly and all these other Texas-based companies are already achieving right now in space.
Texas is the clear leader right now in space.
And that will only expand in the future.
We talked about AI already.
I will not repeat that.
Texas is already the leader in artificial intelligence, and that will just continue to expand in the future.
And I mentioned that the lifeblood of both space as well as AI are semiconductors where we already lead and will continue to lead in the future.
Here's the point.
The future is going to be defined by those, and AI is going to take over our lives like never before.
And we are ahead of the curve in all of that.
And whatever type of business you operate, you will be applying AI to your particular business.
So we are looking forward to taking our already leading position, expanding on excellence in those arenas, making sure we attract the best of the best from across the globe to ensure as the future of America is designed, it's being made in the state of Texas.
unidentified
Well, Governor, yeah, please applaud that.
And the final point I want to make is just, again, how the governor looks to the future.
I believe the state, when you talk about Texas becoming the financial capital of the United States, if not the world, the cyber piece is also important.
Through your vision, Texas has also created a cyber command that's the most robust in the country, as far as I'm aware.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
So, yeah, in my state of the state speech that I gave at the beginning of this past session, I listed several things I wanted to achieve during the session, one of which was for Texas to create the Texas Cyber Command, knowing how important addressing cybersecurity is to the state, but also to the entire country and protecting against it and being both on the defense as well as on the offensive side.
So we did create it during the session.
And then since the session until the announcement was made a couple of weeks ago, we sought the best person.
So we got a former admiral who was in charge of United States Cyber Command.
And I told him I want to give you a promotion from United States Cyber Command to be in charge of Texas Cyber Command.
He now operates the Texas Cyber Command Center and setting that up to make sure that we will be the leader in the United States as it concerns cybersecurity.
unidentified
Well, Governor, under your leadership, the state continues to soar.
We are the jobs juggernaut.
I'm going to close on this.
As a guy who comes from New York, it's humbling to be here.
When I was born, and it wasn't 100 years ago, Texas had 60% of the population of New York.
Now Texas is 31 million and growing, and New York is 19.5 million, and it's going to rapidly shrink after they make a terrible electoral decision.
Governor, the last word.
You are the best governor in America.
You are the jobs governor.
And I'll just say as a chamber guy, it's an honor to be in the great state of Texas under your leadership.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
Well, thank you.
Thank you to Glenn.
Thank you to everybody here who's so involved in making Texas so great.
unidentified
I'll look now at some of our live coverage coming up today on the C-SPAN networks.
First on C-SPAN at 1 p.m. Eastern, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation will be back for the second day of their annual legislative conference, where speakers will discuss the Supreme Court and potential reforms for the judicial body.
And at 4 p.m., the CBCF conference returns for a panel discussion on efforts to prevent gun violence.
And then on C-SPAN 2 at 9 a.m. Eastern, Democratic Representatives Sakeem Jeffries, Yvette Clark, Terry Sewell, along with other members of Congress, join a town hall to discuss issues concerning economic development, civil and social justice, public health, and education in black communities.
This also comes from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual legislative conference.
And at 9 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, policymakers, industry professionals, and scholars will discuss a number of financial issues, including regulatory trends, cryptocurrency, and technological advances in a discussion at Georgetown University.
And then at 1.25 p.m., we continue our coverage from Georgetown University on C-SPAN 2, where we'll hear from Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, former National Economic Advisor Lael Brainerd, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins.
You can also watch live coverage on the C-SPAN Now app or online at c-span.org.
And pass precedent.
Why are you doing this?
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
This is outrageous.
unidentified
This is a kangaroo quarrel.
This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity.
Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
Join political playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground.
ceasefire this fall on the network that doesn't take sides only on c-span c-span democracy unfiltered We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast.
Agriculture is the main life in Sussex County, and I'm very proud of that.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼
I felt like we were being left behind.
▲
Export Selection