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Comerica chief economist Robert Dye presented the bank’s 2013 economic outlook before an audience in River Oaks. He says Texas — Houston in particular — is continuing to outperform the national economy in terms of job growth.

“However, when we take a broader view, there’s some things we do have to be concerned about, particularly at the national level as we experience higher taxes and the budget sequester. We do expect to see federal spending dial down, and so we’re going to see a little bit cooler growth here — growth, but cool growth here in the first half of this year due to that fiscal tightening.”

Dye says he expects Austin’s job growth to overtake Houston’s this year. That’s in part because rig counts have fallen in response to the low price of natural gas, but also because of Austin’s growth as hub for high technology.