The State of the Economy: Texas, DFW, and Beyond

Originally published on Substack. 

​I hope you’ve had a great week! I’m ready for a wonderful weekend with family and multiple soccer games for my boys.

Yesterday, I presented at the Amrize leadership conference in Plano, Texas. It was great group. Below are my prepared remarks and you can view my slides here.

Cement is the economy made physical.

When economists debate growth, inflation, or productivity, those debates eventually show up in cement, concrete, and construction materials.

If something is wrong with the economy, your industry costs experience it quickly. If policy is broken, your timelines stretch first. If capital is discouraged, your projects get delayed first.

That’s why the state of the Texas economy—and especially the Dallas–Fort Worth economy—matters so much to this industry.

My calling is simple: to let people prosper in whatever way works best for them.

After decades of studying economics, teaching it, advising lawmakers, serving as Chief Economist at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and now president of Ginn Economic Consulting, working with more than 20 organizations across the country, I’ve learned something clearly.

The system that lets the most people prosper—across industries, income levels, and generations—is free-market capitalism. Not government planning. Not price controls. Not industrial policy.

Free people, free exchange, free enterprise. And few industries could understand this better than the cement industry.

Why Texas Works—and Why DFW Leads

Texas continues to outperform most of the country because capitalism is allowed to work here more than in most states.
Texas has no personal income tax. It continues to gain population while high-tax states lose it. Capital continues flowing here because returns are possible.

Construction alone accounts for roughly 5 percent of Texas’s GDP, compared with about 4.5 percent nationally, meaning Texas is still expanding physical capacity while other states restrict it.

But a major engine inside Texas is DFW.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Texas is experiencing a historic manufacturing building boom, with more than $289 billion in nonresidential construction contracts announced since mid-2022—much of it concentrated in North Texas.

That scale matters. Manufacturing and industrial facilities are not marginal users of cement. They are among the most intensive consumers of concrete, foundations, paving, and structural materials.

The Dallas Regional Chamber documents DFW as one of the nation’s top destinations for corporate relocations and industrial expansion, driven by logistics access, workforce depth, and business-cost advantages.

DFW is a major contributor to Texas’s $2.8 trillion nominal economy or $2.3 trillion real economy (adjusted for inflation), with durable goods manufacturing playing a central role in regional GDP growth.

Cement sits at the center of all of it. You cannot have growth without materials. You cannot have materials without capital. And you cannot have capital without confidence.

DFW as a Cement Demand Engine

DFW’s economy acts as a massive engine for cement consumption—not just because of its size, but because of how it grows.

Industrial Infrastructure Hub

DFW leads the nation in industrial construction. That volume of activity directly fuels demand for regional cement producers, including the Midlothian area—often referred to as the “Cement Capital of Texas.”

Industrial buildings are concrete-intensive by design: slabs, tilt-wall panels, heavy foundations, and extensive paving.

Infrastructure and Transportation

Texas infrastructure projects are among the largest concrete consumers in the country. Projects like the Southeast Connector and the I-35 expansion rely heavily on cement and aggregates.

Infrastructure investment in Texas is projected to consume millions of tons of cement annually, underscoring how infrastructure demand directly affects cement markets.

The Data Center Link

DFW has become a top-tier global hub for data center construction, one of the most concrete-intensive building types.

Massive campuses developed by firms like Compass Datacenters and Meta require:

• Thick foundations
• Precast concrete shells
• Fire-rated concrete walls
• Heavy-load paving and access roads

These projects concentrate demand in suburbs like Red Oak and Midlothian, creating localized but sustained cement demand.

The data center sector is also driving innovation in lower-carbon cement and concrete, as tech firms push for emissions reductions in large-scale construction—creating new market opportunities driven by private demand, not mandates.

Capitalism, Supply, and Affordability

Affordability is not primarily a demand problem, as people tend to have unlimited desires. It is a supply problem.

Prices rise when supply cannot keep up with demand. Supply expands when investment is allowed. Investment happens when returns are predictable.

Cement plants are not startups. They require:

• Hundreds of millions in upfront capital
• Decades-long planning horizons
• Reliable energy
• Predictable permitting
• Confidence that production will not be regulated out of existence

Capital does not chase uncertainty nor respond to slogans. Capital responds to predictability.

When government interferes with supply—through permitting delays, energy restrictions, or regulatory uncertainty—prices rise. Not because companies want them to, but because supply tightens.

You cannot punish supply and expect abundance.

Amrize and Free-Market Capitalism in Practice

This is where Amrize provides an example of capitalism working as intended.

Amrize’s strategy emphasizes American-made cement, long-term capital investment, operational efficiency, and producing close to demand rather than relying on fragile global supply chains.

Cement is heavy, energy-intensive, and logistics-dependent. Importing it at scale increases volatility. Domestic production reduces transportation risk, supply shocks, and long-run cost instability.

You don’t stabilize prices by controlling them. You stabilize prices by expanding reliable supply. That’s not protectionism. That’s not industrial policy. That’s econ 101.

Labor Markets: Capitalism Sending Clear Signals

Historically, construction wages in Texas have risen meaningfully, particularly for skilled trades such as cement finishers, equipment operators, and plant workers. That wage growth is not a failure. It is a signal.

It tells us:

• Demand is strong
• Skills are scarce
• Productivity matters

Labor constraints are not caused by markets. They are caused by policy barriers: occupational licensing that slows entry, training pipelines misaligned with industry needs, housing costs pushing workers farther from job sites, and federal immigration policy disconnected from labor realities.

DFW’s construction sector alone recorded an 8 percent job increase in 2023, the fastest growth in the nation—clear evidence of demand outpacing supply.

Labor supply is elastic over time—if allowed. When people can train quickly, move freely, and work legally, supply rises and output expands. When the government blocks adjustment, wages rise without productivity gains, pushing costs higher without increasing supply.

You cannot regulate your way to productivity.

Energy, Materials, and Capital Formation

Energy policy is economic policy for the cement industry.

Reliable, affordable energy is essential to domestic materials production. When energy becomes less reliable or more expensive, every ton costs more to produce.

Producer price data show sustained upward pressure on concrete and related materials, reflecting energy, transportation, and regulatory costs rather than market power.

Capital formation requires predictability. Cement plants plan decades ahead. They do not ask for subsidies. They ask for certainty.

When policy introduces permitting delays, regulatory ambiguity, or energy instability, investment slows, capacity tightens, and prices rise. That is not greed. That is economics.

Government Spending and the Quiet Squeeze

Texas has benefited from strong revenues, but state and local government spending has recently grown faster than the average taxpayer’s ability to afford it, as measured by population growth plus inflation. That matters.

When government grows faster than this, property taxes rise, fees multiply, compliance expands, and private investment gets crowded out over time.

Cement and concrete producers feel this directly through higher property tax burdens, longer approval timelines, and infrastructure funding diluted by political priorities rather than economic need.

Capital looks at trajectory, not just current conditions.

Federal Policy and the Cost of Interference

Many cost pressures are federal.

Trillion-dollar deficits push interest rates higher. Higher rates raise financing costs for capital-intensive projects. Long-term investment becomes riskier.

Federal housing policy emphasizes subsidies rather than supply. Subsidies increase demand without increasing supply. Subsidies without supply raise prices.

Energy policy, transportation policy, and regulatory layering all feed into construction costs that cement producers feel first. Immigration efforts may be warranted, but it creates labor shortages for many businesses. And protectionist trade policies may try to balance trade imbalances, but at the cost of higher prices and uncertain supply chains.

Capitalism can absorb shocks. It cannot thrive under constant interference. And we need more capitalism, not socialism.

The Pro-Growth Path Forward

If we want people to prosper, we need more free-market capitalism, not less.

That means restraining government spending. Controlling property taxes by controlling local budgets. Streamlining permitting and zoning. Expanding labor mobility and training pathways. Supporting domestic materials production. Reducing federal distortions that raise costs without expanding supply.

These principles are laid out in my guide on Pro-Growth Strategies for Construction Industry Prosperity. This is not ideology. It is evidence.

Let People Prosper

Capitalism is not perfect. But it is unmatched.

It has lifted more people out of poverty than any system in history. It has created more housing, infrastructure, and opportunity than any alternative. Cement proves this every day.

You cannot legislate affordability, regulate productivity, nor control prices into abundance. You can only allow it.

Texas has benefited because it has mostly allowed capitalism to work. DFW has grown because supply has been allowed to expand. The cement industry succeeds when capital is free to invest.
​
The choice ahead is simple. More capitalism—or more interference. If we choose freedom, people prosper.