Gov. Rick Perry set up a possible battle with the Legislature today by rejecting about $555 million from the federal government for expanded aid to unemployed Texans on grounds that the money would come attached with too many costly obligations. Perry announced his refusal of the funds in Houston at a Bering's Hardware store near the Galleria, where a store official said accepting that share of the nation's so-called stimulus package might mean having to pay an additional $12,000 a year in unemployment insurance.... "Employers who have to pay more taxes have less money to make their payroll" and would have to raise prices on their products, the governor said. "The calls to take the (stimulus) money and sort out the consequences later are quite troubling to me.".... To get the stimulus money, Texas would have to extend unemployment benefits to those who lost their jobs and now are seeking part-time work -- an idea that Perry said Texas has rejected repeatedly, partly because it might discourage people from seeking full-time employment. The White House also want states to expand benefits to more low-pay workers.
One of the things I truly miss about living in Texas is the insane asylum that passes for state government in Austin. With bat-shit crazy God Squads running the all-powerful Texas GOP, politics is more about ideological fealty and attending to the nomenklatura than taking care of ordinary Texans. Not only that, Texas politics is a serious comedy gold mine. 'Course, some of the luster went the way of the buffalo with the passing of Molly Ivins, who could shine the light of ridicule on Texas politics like no one else. Somehow, I think Ivins would have relished (deservedly) ripping Governor Goodhair a new one. Jeebus, what a sorry (&^%$#@ excuse for a leader....
GOVERNOR GOODHAIR TO UNEMPLOYED TEXANS: (&^% YOU!
Of course, that's not the official message being sent by the empty suit in the Governor's Mansion, but it might as well be. Sure, Governor Goodhair will dress up his policy by defining it as doing what's good for business and reducing taxes, but beneath the empty words and insensitive gestures is the reality of his political future. He knows he ain't never gonna get to be Preznit if he puts a burr under the saddle of his Conservative base. It's about ambition and power...and while you's think it should be about unemployed Texans in need of whatever help they can get, you'd be wrong. Way wrong.
Man, do this clown make George W. Bush look like the poster boy for gifted, insightful leadership or what??
I'm not going to pretend to get into Governor Goodhair's head...like that's a place any of us would really want to be...but you've got to wonder about his apparent antipathy toward unemployed Texans. This may have escaped his notice, but there's a recession happening outside his ideologically pure bubble. People, through no fault of their own, are suffering...and since everything's bigger in Texas....
Texas is fortunate to have an unemployment rate which is, at 6.4%, fortunate to be below the national average. Even so, the state's unemployment benefits fund is forecast to run out of money sometime this year...and then what? No, no one wants to be in the situation we are, but we are, and there is help out there- if only Governor Goodhair could remove his anterior from his posterior long enough to see past his own self-interest and career prospects.
Jeebus, what a phenomenally clueless and insensitive dickweed. Then again, Texas has EXACTLY the quality of leadership it deserves. Cowboy up, y'all....
