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The Perry Delusion

jessfields — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:17:43 +0000

Has anyone noticed that Rick Perry has suddenly become the darling of conservatives?

Let me back up. Has anyone noticed how utterly screwed up the Republican Party is in this primary process? Has anyone noticed how so many “conservatives” have gotten behind Rick Perry? Has anyone noticed how people have conveniently forgotten his record of betraying conservatives? Has everyone really just forgotten, just like that?

I want to emphasize, off the bat, that I do not support Kay Bailey Hutchison. She is undoubtedly a horrible candidate to be governor of Texas, and I can see no reason to support a pro-abortion woman who voted for the first bailout, or to paraphrase George Bush, “destroy capitalism to save it.” Laugh Out Loud. I haven’t seen any real conservatives supporting her candidacy, but if they do they’re just selling themselves out.

Where I’m going is that Rick Perry is not much better than Kay, and regardless, certainly isn’t the sort of guy that Texas Republicans, if they really have woken up to the folly of overarching government, should support. Yet, somehow, much of the “conservative” wing of the Texas GOP (which is the majority) has thrown its support behind Rick Perry without much qualification. This is an error which, if not pointed out, threatens the very basis of our integrity as a party.

Where to begin? If re-elected, Governor Perry will have served for 14 years as governor. Remember back in, oh I don’t know, 1994… when Republicans were running for Congress with three-term limitations? When we believed in term limits and tried to get that passed through the federal legislature? When Republicans said that politicians need to stay in office for only so long, because the longer they stay in office the more corrupt they become? When we believed in the grassroots guy getting elected to office on the basis of his or her beliefs?

But let’s not forget a few policy matters, in addition to the problem of longevity in office.

Remember the Gross Margins Tax of 2006?

If you don’t own a business as I do, you might not. In fact, I had a guy in my shop the other day telling me to my face that Rick Perry didn’t raise taxes as governor. This is something that the Perry campaign, and many within the Republican Party, either don’t know the facts on or are intentionally deceiving us about. The fact is, in 2006 Rick Perry pushed through the house the Gross Margins Tax, a new tax on business that was intended to replace the corporate franchise tax and lower property taxes by funding schools differently.

You might hear from conservatives that this was just a case of switching some taxes to another kind of taxes, or something like that. Pure gobblety-gook. The fact is that the Gross Margins Tax replaced a tax, the corporate franchise tax, which many small businesses did not have to pay. The increase in taxes is only confirmed by the fact that after the Gross Margins Tax was enacted, the state collected almost 50% more in business tax revenues. The increased tax was supposed to be offset by decreases in property taxes for school districts, and they declined slightly, but the overall property tax burden actually increased.

Therefore, a NEW BUSINESS TAX in addition to HIGHER PROPERTY TAXES have resulted in a significant increase in state revenue, and the taxation burden on small businesses in Texas has increased under Governor Perry.

Remember the Trans-Texas Corridor?

If you are an average Texan, you most certainly do. But if you have bought into the Perry delusion, you are likely trying your best to forget it if you haven’t already. Well, allow me to remind you.

Throughout the earliest part Rick Perry’s tenure as governor, his transportation department worked hard on figuring out how to make transportation in Texas more efficient, cost-efficient, and advanced.

Somehow, they arrived at the conclusion to build a web of enormous quarter-mile-wide toll roads throughout the state of Texas. Not only would these toll roads be enormous (and a destroyer of hundreds of square miles of farmland), under the original plan there weren’t even exit ramps. The TTC would be built over all existed roads and highways and you could travel from Houston to San Antonio without ever getting off of the toll road. If you think I’m kidding, look at the original plan, or rent a documentary called “Truth Be Tolled.”

I believe in free trade. But come on, you have to keep in mind when doing a project like this that you will be hurting ordinary Texans. Therefore it would perhaps make sense to offer some of the jobs involved in creating these damn roads to Texans. But not so. Partnership Cintra-Zachry, a partnership between Spanish toll-road developer (and operator, which means an outflow in revenues) Cintra and Texas’ Zachry Construction, was to create the entire thing. MOST of the money is going to Cintra, who will operate the roads.

Need an example of that? Look at State Highway 130, a toll road component of TTC that is already being built. This road between Seguin and Taylor, TX would cost $1.3 billion to build under a 2006 agreement with TxDOT. TxDOT will only be receiving between about 5 and 50% of the toll revenues depending on the success of the venture, and Cintra-Zachry’s own plan shows the expected revenue at close to $15 billion over 50 years.

What does this all mean? Governor Perry supported an international toll-road developer cleaning up by building toll roads in our state, toll roads which TxDOT would only see a fraction of the revenue of, and which in the process would use eminent domain to sweep up family farms.

There’s a reason, after all, that the vast majority of Texans consistently opposed the plan.

Remember Perry’s Mandatory HPV Vaccination of 2007?

In 2007 Governor Perry wanted to make Texas the first state to mandate the vaccine Gardasil for sixth-grade girls to prevent the sexually transmitted HPV virus which leads to cervical cancer.

This was one of the many “huh?” moments of the Perry administration, where he thought it would just be a great idea to go right over the heads of parents and force kids to be vaccinated by the government. Besides the obvious state intrusion, there also is the issue of the State of Texas essentially trying to protect kids from sexually transmitted diseases, something that goes against the entire regime of sexual health in Texas schools.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with the idea of the state doing that, it is an unprecedented and bizarre way to shift sexual education. “Hey there little girl, here’s a vaccine!”

The vaccine, furthermore, comes from Merck, the pharmaceutical giant. Merck had a track record, around the time this plan was announced, of sending high-priced lobbyists into the State Capitol building.

Although parents can always choose to immunize their kids, that’s their choice, not the government’s, to make. Rick Perry clearly doesn’t follow that logic.

All in all, I’m truly shocked to see so many Republican “conservatives” flocking to Rick Perry as if he is the reborn Texas Ronald Reagan. Give me a break, here is a guy for whom many conservatives have had an enormous amount of criticism over the past ten years. And yet we are somehow supposed to just get in line behind the guy who “isn’t Kay Bailey Hutchison.” Why? Because he’s handsome? Because he has a fine head of hair? Because he has been lucky in having a phenomenal Texas Legislature to deliver him an austere budget to sign each and every session? Because he’s an Aggie? C’mon.

When are we going to stop settling for mediocre Republicans? When are we going to demand Republican leaders who understand that the government is tyrannical and inherently corrupt, that taxes must be as low as possible, that we cannot bail out companies, that we can’t take people’s property, that we can’t force people to accept federal or state health mandates? In other words, when are we going to demand that Republican elected officials follow the damn platform? That’s my question.

I understand why many Perry supporters say that Kay Bailey is worse. She is. But compare Rick Perry to the Republican Platform, hell, compare him even to the (currently) minor candidate Debra Medina. Is he a conservative Republican to be proud of, to vote for, to support for 14 years in the governor’s mansion?

The answer seems to be an unequivocal “no.”

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