A true ‘Texas Miracle’ would be electing lawmakers regardless of ideology to solve the state’s problems.

Sending lawmakers to state Legislature free of ideological blinders would be a miracle.

Like an entry in our annual Art Car Parade — say, an ‘83 Chrysler with faux tail fins, fake-fur upholstery and glitters-plattered exterior — the socalled Texas Miracle during the last dozen years or so wasn’t exactly what it appeared to be. As Chronicle business columnist Chris Tomlinson noted recently, the high-flying Texas economy that former Gov. Rick Perry loved to tout actually had more to do with high oil prices and a favorable location alongside that southern neighbor The Donald loves to hate. Our own economic acumen and political perspicacity had relatively little to do with an economy that created more jobs from 2008 to 2012 than all other states combined.

Perry’s Texas Brags braying about job creation was accurate, but since 2014, when the prices for oil and natural gas began to collapse, 250,000 Texans have had to trudge home and tell family members that there won’t be a paycheck for the foreseeable future. And those same laid-off Texans aren’t likely to be applying for newly created jobs either. To be sure, we’re adding jobs at a rate of 1 percent, but everyone else is growing at 2 percent these days. While the rest of the country’s unemployment rate is going down, ours is ticking upward.

We have advantages, including a major port, our location adjacent to one of the country’s largest trading partners and relatively cheap land, which makes it easier for individuals and businesses to buy property. We also have abundant natural resources other than oil and gas, including agriculture and timber.

Imagine, though, if we made our own miracle by investing in the future of this state — in education, in health care, in transportation and infrastructure, in alternative energy sources. Instead of sending lawmakers to Austin with an ideological accountant’s straitened mentality, not to mention a disdain for government, imagine what would happen if we elected people with a wildcatter’s faith and a trail-blazing entrepreneur’s foresight. That type of lawmaker, we’re guessing, would be eager to invest in schools that actually meet the needs of our changing demographics, colleges and universities with the resources to do both cutting-edge research and provide a high-quality education to the state’s young people.

Imagine if we elected men and women blessedly free of ideological blinders, lawmakers willing to explore fresh, new ways of financing the state’s needs, innovative ways of meeting infrastructure needs, particularly the need to respond to the existential emergency of climate change.

In a state where half of all children live in low-income families, imagine if our elected officials made sure that our minimum-wage workers had access to health insurance, education and training, as well as good-paying jobs, thereby freeing them from the taxing burdens of poverty and empowering them to be full-fledged contributors to their respective communities and this state.

Imagine what would happen if we thought big.

A true Texas miracle would be a renewed confidence in democracy and representative government, a confidence not unlike the Texas miracle that occurred on a nearby battlefield 180 years ago, almost to the day. Those early Texans were audacious enough to assume they could build a nation. Surely we can summon a similar capacious spirit, one that assumes we can build a better Texas, not one with flashy, faux tail fins and not much else.

A true Texas miracle would be a renewed confidence in democracy and representative government, a confidence not unlike the Texas miracle that occurred on a nearby battlefield 180 years ago, almost to the day.