Answer: Probably Not.
Obviously there’s no way to be 100 percent sure, but here are a few quotes from the former President signaling himself that he would likely not have been supportive of Texas’ state and local government-centric efforts to grow the economy.
By terminating the Economic Development Administration, we can save hundreds of millions of dollars in 1982 and billions more over the next few years. There's a lack of consistent and convincing evidence that EDA and its Regional Commissions have been effective in creating new jobs. They have been effective in creating an array of planners, grantsmen, and professional middlemen. We believe we can do better just by the expansion of the economy and the job creation which will come from our economic program.
–Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery
Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.
Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself.
You knew that in the end it was free enterprise, not government regulation, not high taxes or big government spending, but free enterprise, that had led to the building of a great America.
–Remarks at a White House Meeting with the American Retail Federation, 1984
We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success — only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development.
–Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank and IMF, 1981
Based on the former President’s own words, it’s safe to say that the Gipper preferred economic growth happen as a result of free-markets, not government picking winners and losers. Reagan conservatives need not wonder about that. The former President made it abundantly clear that he thought that less government is the best government.
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. [emphasis mine]