Would Texas keep its low-tax, light-regulation model?

Independence is how Texas protects that model and extends it. The low-tax part is already Texas's own choice, and the heaviest regulation Texans carry is imposed from Washington. Leaving keeps the first and ends the second.

The low-tax model is already Texas-made

The thing people most want to protect is already entirely in Texas's hands. Texas funds itself with no personal income tax, leaning on the sales tax, the franchise tax, severance taxes on oil and gas, and fees. None of that comes from Washington, and none of it disappears at independence. The constitutional ban on a personal income tax stays exactly where Texans put it. Independence is built on the tax model Texas already runs, not a replacement for it.

The heaviest regulation is federal, and that is what ends

The regulation that weighs hardest on Texas is not made in Austin. It is made in Washington and applied to Texas whether Texas agrees or not. By TNM's analysis, the federal regulatory layer has cost Texas manufacturers an estimated $30 to $50 billion a year in compliance overhead. Independence removes that layer. What is left is the lighter, Texas-made regulatory environment, which Texans can then shape to fit Texas rather than to satisfy fifty-state mandates.

Texas is lightly governed to begin with

The scale of government in Texas is already small for its wealth. Developed democracies spend between 38 and 44 percent of GDP on all levels of government. The total government footprint inside Texas, federal and state combined, runs closer to 19 percent of GDP. Even before independence trims the federal layer, Texas is one of the lightest-governed wealthy places on the planet, with enormous room to stay that way.

The model is the competitive advantage, so it stays

There is a hard-headed reason this model survives independence. Low taxes and light regulation are exactly why Texas pulls in more people and more corporate relocations than any state in the country. Throwing that away would be throwing away Texas's biggest economic advantage. The arithmetic does not require new taxes, and the strategy argues hard for keeping the model that built the eighth-largest economy on Earth.

Self-government means Texans set the dial

Under the current arrangement, the most expensive rules are written elsewhere and Texas pays for them. Independence hands the dial to Austin. Whether Texas keeps regulation light, lighter, or adjusts it where Texans see fit becomes a Texas decision answerable to Texas voters, instead of a cost imposed from Washington with no say attached.

The bottom line

Texas keeps its low-tax model because that model is already its own, and it sheds the heaviest regulation because that burden is federal. Independence protects the advantage that built the economy and puts the rest of the dial in Texan hands.