As I mentioned earlier this week, President Obama is visiting Texas today to mark the beginning of yet another of his (now infamous) “pivots” to jobs and the economy, talking up all of the reasons why the government needs to do more to “stimulate” the economy so we can keep spending and centrally planning our way out of this mess — because that’s all worked so remarkably well so far and everything.

During his stay of about five hours in Texas, Obama was announcing a pair of executive actions the White House said would help the economy in the absence of action by Congress.

Keeping a promise made in the State of the Union speech, Obama was to announce a competition to create three new Manufacturing Innovation Institutes, partnerships among businesses, universities and government to help U.S.-based manufacturers and workers create good jobs, a White House official said. He also will ask Congress for $1 billion to create a nationwide network of 15 such institutes.

The president will also issue an executive order requiring that government data be made easily available to entrepreneurs, researchers and others who may use the information to create new products and services, build businesses and create jobs, said the White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to be quoted by name before Obama’s announcement.

It’s funny, but ‘Congress spending a billion dollars’ and ‘more government action’ is kind of a far cry from any of the reasons the president’s chosen backdrop of Texas is winning at job creation and business friendliness. As Governor Rick Perry put it the other day, “if President Obama is serious about getting our nation’s economy working again, then he’s come to the right place” — a theme upon which Sen. Ted Cruz elaborated in a statement today. Heh.

“America is stuck with high unemployment and low GDP growth, so it’s encouraging to see the President coming to Austin to talk about jobs – perhaps he will learn how to create some from the folks who know how,” said Sen. Cruz. “Texas is leading the nation in economic growth and job creation because of principled, conservative leaders who understand the keys to economic success are lower, flatter taxes, limited government and restrained spending. Texas has shown the country how it’s done, and we hope the President will take some of these lessons back to Washington to bring true economic recovery to our nation.”

Texas continues to outperform the nation in terms of economic growth and job creation. The state’s unemployment rate has consistently remained below the national average, currently at 6.4 percent, compared to the national rate of 7.6 percent. Eight of the 15 fastest-growing large cities between 2010 and 2011 were in Texas. And as states with high spending and high taxes are losing jobs, Texas is gaining them. In fact, between 2006 and 2012, Texas gained one million jobs, while California lost 359,000 jobs. Additionally, Texas continues to receive national accolades for its robust business climate, most recently in a report released this week by Chief Executive Magazine, naming Texas the best state for business for the ninth consecutive year.

Lower taxes, limited government, restrained spending — we can dream, can’t we? Unfortunately, I think Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has this one pegged down:

“I see that the president has decided to `pivot’ once again to jobs,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said this week. “I can’t even count how many times he’s done one of these `pivots’ at this point, so I won’t try. But I presume he’ll jet off around the country to campaign-style rallies in order to bash Congress and claim that none of this is his fault.”