Bashing California is a Texas politician's birthright. The states' respective approaches to economic development are perfect foils for one another; deep-red Texas prides itself on allowing corporations free rein, while blue California is happy to tax and regulate them to the sky.

That's why California is a convenient punch line for Governor Greg Abbott in speeches like the one he made announcing the new special session yesterday, in which he promised to crack down on liberal cities that want local rules on things like ride-hailing and home rentals.

"As your governor, I will not allow Austin, Texas, to California-ize the Lone Star State," Abbott said.

Put aside, for a moment, the irony of a governor who championed states' rights turning around and opposing the desire of local communities to self-govern. Would it really be so bad for Texas to become a little more like California?

For a few years, while California was dogged by a real estate crisis and state budget deficit and Texas' oil boom was just starting to take off, Texas had reason to brag. It backed up its low unemployment rate with Texas-sized business incentives in a baldfaced effort to lure businesses from the Golden State.

But recently, those trends have reversed. The New Yorker traced California's return to economic health back in 2015, after Gov. Jerry Brown balanced the budget and a new tech boom took off. That was before Texas' oil bust, which took much of the wind out of the state's economy, even though it narrowly escaped recession.

And now? Average wages in California, which are already a few dollars an hour higher than in Texas, grew faster than they did in the Lone Star state for most of the past year.

Texas' unemployment rate bumped above California's this past March.

And California's economy grew faster than Texas' in 2016, 2.9 percent to 0.4 percent.

The former editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News — no communist rag — recently sung the praises of California as a destination for investment despite its decision to raise gas taxes, boost the minimum wage, protect undocumented immigrants and discourage fossil fuel use, among many other measures that would never make it to Abbott's desk.

Just this week, the personal finance site Wallethub ranked California as the second best economy in the country, behind only Washington state, which shares many of California's characteristics. Texas comes in at number 20.

This isn't to say that California is perfect. For example, its high housing costs have propelled its real poverty rate — which takes into account cost of living — to the highest level in the country.

But when it comes to economic performance, California matches or exceeds Texas on many important metrics. All things considered, both of them are powerhouses for the American economy. They just had different ways of getting there.