Some people on the right have gone so far as to allege that Obama might use Chicago-style thug political tactics to teach strong conservative, private sector areas like Houston a lesson.  This is just silly.

On a side note, his budget plans to axe NASA's Constellation project which by estimates will cost Houston 10,000 jobs (almost all of which, even those the public normally think of as 'NASA', are actually sub-contracted to local private engineering firms). 

Then there are the approximately 3,000 direct and 6,800 related jobs to be lost in Sealy, Texas (a suburb of Houston) with the military's decision to move the production of their vehicles away from the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility owned by BAE, to a new Oshkosh plant in Wisconsin (which by coincidence is partnered with UAW).

On a brighter note, Houston has the world's largest medical center...