He says whatever people want to hear and promises them whatever they want to be promised. He takes care of his fat cat donors. He makes millions for himself until eventually he cashes in and leaves town. He will throw the interests and needs of his constituents under the bus. School teachers lose their jobs. Class sizes across the state increases. Children are robbed of educational opportunities. Slick Rick's mean and lean economic policies continue to chip away at the sustainability and dignity of the elderly's final years of life.
Ponzi Scheming Rick Perry's Texas miracle with its no income tax has an 8.4% unemployment rate.
Cross posted on Texas Kaos and The Burnt Orange Report.
Rick Perry says he wants to make the federal government inconsequential in our lives and yet the Governor has never held a job outside of government. He relies on Texas taxpayers to pay his salary, housing expenses, health care benefits and security detail. He travels on the taxpayer dime whenever opportunity knocks for Rick.
The Governor of the once great state of Texas has been on the campaign trail for only a couple of weeks and it has surprised few of us in Texas that the Governor is telling one tall tale after another while throwing verbal bombs. The Governor, a former Al Gore Democrat, turned Republican, turned tea party darling has hinted at secession finds himself running for POTUS two years later. No matter, for Rick Perry will wear whatever costume he needs in order to promote himself and his extremist right wing agenda.
This citizen blogger is going to attempt to tell readers that they have everything to fear and dread about a potential Rick Perry Presidency. Think G.W. Bush on steroids. Rick Perry is far more conservative, anti-government and anti-establishment than W. Rick Perry's style of pay to play politics make Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay seem like lightweights.
Of course at least half of us in Texas get it that Rick Perry will say anything his right wing supporters, his big donors and Rush Limbaugh want to hear. Christian fundamentalists want the Governor to be anti-science, anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. And he will promote these views with a vengeance. His fat cat donors, especially those in oil and gas want low taxes, no or little regulation and the ability with which to pollute the environment as much as possible with no financial repercussions for them. Rick Perry passionately supports these notions. Defending fat cat's views drives the Governor's anti-climate change message. Of course if Rick Perry did not promote these causes (that are unpopular among most Americans) Rush Limbaugh would rake him over the coals. And so would the head of the neoconservative agenda, Grover Norquist. Readers may recall that Grover Norquist is the man who forced GOP lawmakers in Washington, D.C. to sign a "no tax increase" pledge. Norquist obviously has a lot more clout over the GOP in the U.S. Congress than do the lawmaker's own constituents.
Voters should know right now that Rick Perry will never in a day support their best interests or needs if they do not fall into any of the narrow and unpopular categories above. The Governor has made millions of dollars for himself while pleasing his biggest supporters. This is what Rick Perry has been doing for the past ten years.
Half of us in Texas understand that Rick Perry is merely a puppet who performs and delivers to his puppet masters. But the Governor is very clever at getting folks to vote against themselves time and time again. He gets an A in the acting out passion and belief department and he excels at cleverly using fear whenever necessary. Rick Perry would make a great Hollywood actor.
The Governor really has no viable solutions to address any of our current national problems (save the same old GOP mantra of tax cuts for the rich and deregulation) but he is great at pointing fingers and blaming other culprits. Rick Perry is a master at kicking his messes down the road. A prime example of this is the super majority of super conservative anti-fed Republican lawmakers used federal stimulus dollars to "balance" its 2011 budget and it engaged in Enron type accounting gimmicks to kick part of its deficit can down the road to the 2013 legislative session.
Rick Perry likes to boast about the jobs he has created in Texas but alas unemployment is 8% and many jobs are minimum wage positions that offer no health care or other benefits. There also happens to be more jobs in Texas because of the state's abundance of resources that have nothing to do with Rick Perry.
Texas leads the nation in low end minimum-wage jobs. Some 550,000 workers last year were paid at or below the federal $7.25 minimum wage, more than double the number making those wages in 2008 (CNNMoney.com, Bureau of Labor Statistics). Texas shares with Mississippi the dubious title of having the highest percentage of minimum wage workers in the U.S., 9.5% (CNNMoney.com, 8/12/11). Many of those Texas positions don’t offer health benefits. Even with these new low level jobs, because of Texas’ population growth, it would need to create another 629,000 jobs or 5.6% more positions just to reach its pre-recession employment level (Economic Policy Institute). Doug Hall, who works at the Economic Policy Institute, stated, “They (Texans) have a long way to go before they get back to a positive place.” Texas also has other resources most states don’t that have nothing to do with Gov. Perry. Texas is rich in natural resources and has benefited from the high price of oil and gas exploration (CNNMoney.com). Gov. Perry also signed a Tea Party- type budget in 5/2011 that slashes $15 billion in spending over the next two years. This budget could result in the loss of 100,000 jobs. Thousands of teachers, a vital investment in Texas’ future, are already feeling the impact of more than $5 billion in cuts to education funding (CNNMoney.com). Fiscal “hawk” Perry fought against raising taxes. However, he didn’t mind raising the state’s debt from zero, when he took over, to $37.8 billion in 2010 (Recio, McClatchy Newspapers, 8/12/11).
If God forbid, Perry were the POTUS and an economist told him that by changing from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy sources the U.S. could create $2.7 million jobs, the Governor would very likely thumb his nose at the economist and slap his oil and gas lobbyists on the backs. No worries from my end, he would say.
Rick Perry is a typical right wing crackpot who is rabidly anti-intellectual and anti-science.
He is willfully lying while on the campaign trail.
Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”
That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”
The second part of Mr. Perry’s statement is, as it happens, just false: the scientific consensus about man-made global warming — which includes 97 percent to 98 percent of researchers in the field, according to the National Academy of Sciences — is getting stronger, not weaker, as the evidence for climate change just keeps mounting.
In his book flip flopping Rick had written that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional. And yet while on the campaign trail he tells voters he never said they were unconstitutional. I guess speaking and writing are two different things.
In his book, Perry argued Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional and should be dissolved, a claim that he defended while promoting his book. Now, however, despite saying he stands behind his book, he's telling people that he never said the programs are unconstitutional.
The Governor has issues with transparency and accountability as well.
Mr. Open Government Promoting Rick Perry has shrouded his gubernatorial schedule in secrecy.
Now, as Gov. Rick Perry embarks on a presidential campaign, it is unlikely the public will access records that provide many revealing details about his decade-long tenure as governor. While Perry extols open government - most recently challenging Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to "open the books" of the nation's central bank - he has adopted policies that shroud his own office in a purposeful opaqueness that confounds prying reporters - or any member of the public questioning his policies.
He has been governor longer than anyone in Texas history, but there is a lot the public does not know about Rick Perry. Where does he go each day, and with whom does he talk? What is discussed when he meets with top state agency executives? How does he evaluate a clemency request from a death row inmate? Or an application for a grant from his Emerging Technology Fund? What opinions are expressed to him through email and how does he respond?
Rick Perry is especially cagey about his
pet projects, the Emerging Technology and the Texas Enterprise funds.
Most of the withheld documents involved contracts, bidding and oversight of programs in which state money flows to entrepreneurs, privately held companies and universities from Perry's two economic development funds, the Emerging Technology Fund and the Texas Enterprise Fund. In some cases, the requests involve entities headed by Perry campaign donors and political appointees. Perry also chose to withhold information when third parties complained they would release proprietary information or violate trade secrets.
Among the information withheld from public view were communications between Amazon and the governor and his staff concerning the company's recent dispute with the state of Texas over a $269 million sales tax bill.
He has declined to release staff notes and emails relating to the Emerging Technology Fund and records relating to appointments to the advisory committee that oversees its grant applications. He also withheld emails and telephone logs relating to a $4.5 million Emerging Technology Fund grant awarded to Convergen Life Sciences, a company owned by campaign contributor David G. Nance.
A man who will willfully lie on the campaign trail while making absolutely outrageous if not insane statements about a "treasonous" Federal Chairman, who called social security a Ponzi Scheme days later, and one who refuses to tell voters what he is doing as the Governor should hardly be trusted for any office including county dogcatcher.
Texas, we know what we have to do to defeat Rick Perry.