Reading Paul Krugman’s recent column in the New York Times about Texas’ “disappointing” economy is a little like “Where’s Waldo.” Almost hidden in the good news about the state — paragraph after paragraph — is the one economic fact that he feels warrants the headline “Lone Star Stumble”: Oil prices are down.

Not even an Obama cheerleader of Krugman’s caliber can spin the facts about Texas. Our state works, and even with lower oil and gas prices, our economy is chugging along.

Still, Krugman gives it a shot.

He claims that “conservatives have long held Texas up as a supposed demonstration that low taxes on the rich and harsh treatment of the poor are the keys to prosperity.”

That’s a straw man argument — a bad one.

“So it’s interesting to note that Texas is looking a lot less miraculous lately than it used to,” Krugman writes. “To be fair, we’re talking about a modest stumble, not a collapse. Still, events in Texas and other states — notably Kansas and California — are providing yet another object demonstration that the tax-cut obsession that dominates the modern Republican Party is all wrong.”

How so? Well, he can find no bad news about Texas — other than its economic growth has slowed lately, but not stalled.

“Now one of the three big drivers of Texas growth has gone into reverse, as low world oil prices are bringing the fracking boom to a screeching halt,” he writes. “Hey, things like that happen to every state now and then. But Texas wasn’t supposed to be like other states. It was supposed to be the shining exemplar of the economic payoff to reverse Robin-Hood economics.”

In fact, he turns to Kansas to find any truly bad news — and in his inimitable fashion, Krugman conflates the two into another sloppy straw man argument. In Kansas, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback did not follow the Texas model. He cut taxes, yes. But he didn’t cut the budget or reform the state’s regulatory regime to be more business-friendly. Thus the deficits Krugman rightly points out in the Kansas budget. Naturally, Krugman also mentions California, his regulatory and high-tax poster child.

But we’re not here to defend the Kansas model. We’re here to talk about — as Krugman supposedly is — the Texas model.

As Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation points out, Texas beats the Krugman/California model in every category. That includes employment rates and poverty rates.

“Since 2009, as California’s job market recovery has added 618,000 jobs, Texas’ has added 1.1 million,” he wrote last year. “But California is larger than Texas … California’s big-government model is one well-worn path — and it isn’t working for the poor. The Texas model offers a compelling alternative: A dynamic economy with robust job growth fostered by low taxes and a predictable regulatory environment is far better at lifting people out of poverty.”

Krugman claims the Texas economy is “coming back to earth.”

The truth is it has long been grounded in solid policy decisions. That’s why people are moving here in such great numbers.