Rick Perry Afraid of Rick Perry (Update)
I had the chance to meet Governor Rick Perry at his campaign stop in Iowa City yesterday. It was at the famed Hamburg Inn #2, where many candidates come for meet and greets before elections. The room was packed. The place has seating for about 75 people, and it was a full house. Standing room only. There was media everywhere; one of Wolf Blitzer’s field correspondents had her Situation Room camera right in front of my table.
Around 3:30, Perry arrived and shook hands all the way around the restaurant. While I was waiting for him to come around, met Mrs. Anita Perry and the family. Mrs. Perry asked me what “Mises” was all about on my wristband and proceded to talk about whatever nonprofit was on hers.
About five minutes later, Governor Perry came around and I talked with him briefly about his record. Here’s part of the exchange:
What I asked Governor Perry was “Considering state debt has nearly tripled and spending has increased by two thirds since you were governor, and also that ACORN considered your help their ‘proudest moment,’ what were the differences between him and the current liberal president?” As you can see, he immediately tried to excuse away the numbers.
I found the debt numbers at Politifact from Bill White, who quotes the Texas Bond Review Board. I asked Perry about the raw numbers, which show that in 2000 Texas state debt was $13.7B, and by 2009 that number had grown to over $34B (Mitchell Schnurman found more recent numbers for 2010: $37B.). Bill White at Politifact adjusted for inflation and found the debt merely doubled under Perry.
Perry’s record on spending can be found at Texas Budget Source. In 2000 when Perry took over, Texas spending was $49.7B and the latest numbers the site has available show that spending was $82.1B, a 67% increase. Adjusting for inflation and population growth, the growth in the size of the Texas government during his time as governor is a paltry 36%.
Finally, I found that Perry had good friends in ACORN, a community organization that Republicans love to hate. In 2006, Perry signed into law a bill which benefited low-income homeowners. ACORN called this their “proudest moment.” When Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson opposed funding ACORN in 2007, he attacked her.
This brings me full circle back to my question, what are the differences between him and the current liberal president? The Republicans love to attack President Obama for being a tax and spend liberal, being friends with all sorts of liberal organizations, and so on. Governor Perry’s record shows that he isn’t much different than President Obama, and he didn’t want to comment on this. His campaign website spouts platitudes about a record of cutting spending, which don’t jive with the numbers.
But that’s not all.
Governor Perry was once a Democrat. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but during Al Gore’s 1988 presidential bid, Perry was Al Gore’s Texas state chairman. For him to be so admired as a solid fiscal conservative means that people are completely oblivious to his record.
One other thing to mention is that Perry has a bit of a problem with handing out special favors to corporate interests. Many people are aware of Rick Perry’s executive order mandating that all 11 and 12 year old schoolgirls be given the controversial Gardasil vaccine, but many are unaware that Merck (the corporation manufacturing the drug) gave Perry money during his reelection campaign or that Perry’s former chief of staff went to work as a lobbyist for Merck before Perry issued his order.
I like the idea of private roads, but Perry has made sure to give the idea a bad name. In 2002, Perry promised to build a network of private toll roads called the “Trans-Texas Corridor.” However, he wasn’t too interested in maintaining property rights for Texans, and in a post-Kelo world, we ought to be concerned with this. In 2007, Perry vetoed a bill which would have given protection to property owners in eminent domain disputes.
Governor Perry has also been responsible for handing out huge sums of money to other political donors. Perry created a large taxpayer slush fund in 2005 with which to hand out money to promising political donors. Not only does this sort of corruption sound horrible, but it was destined to never work.
The shaking of hands with Governor Perry went just as expected. He has a record of excessive spending and working with lobbyists against the people of Texas. When confronted with his own record, Rick Perry runs. He’s no different than either George Bush or Barack Obama. In fact, before he arrived our table was discussing how Rick Perry looks just like Josh Brolin in that movie about George W Bush. His record and positions will not be questioned, and he will continue to have the adulation of the huddled masses, and he’ll wave his way into the White House:
Update: Rick Perry has been making remarks lately about how much he dislikes the Federal Reserve. Funny he should mention that considering his fervent support for bank bailouts in 2008.
Also, Robert Wenzel’s Economic Policy Journal and Will Wilkinson have linked to this entry and given some additional feedback. Wilkinson, whose footage you see above, wrote about a blog retweeted by Sarah Palin showing she has a better record on state debt than Perry.
excellent article!
He talks to you in a condescending manner, places his index finger on your shirt button, but then runs away. Not very dignified.
Keep us informed, Drew. We enjoy your insight.
Sounds like a typical Republican, talks balanced budget and smaller government, leaves behind larger deficits and more sweetheart deals giving government money to his buddies.
And then there was the FDLS fiasco he orchastrated. Thanks for you report, Drew.
Crappy of him to dodge a direct question, but don’t say ‘typical Republican’. You say Republicans give govt. money to buddies and business, and where does that money come from? TAXPAYERS. Guess what? Democrats increase overall social spending for lowest classes, but where does the money come from? TAXPAYERS.
What does that tell you?
To me personally, that says that Democrats have developed their sense of social responsibility and are willing to help take care of those who are unable (and yes, even some unwilling) to take care of themselves and/or have no family to help them out. On the other hand, republicans do not have that same sense of social responsibility, but instead a sense of personal entitlement. They still take that same money and give it to those who would best help them or their campaign. Not to say that Democrats don’t do the same thing, it’s that, on average, republicans do it to a much higher degree.
sed contra audentior ito
Good question. You most certainly caught him off guard.
Well written article. If America knew all this, they would most definitely not be voting for Rick Perry as the next president. Perry putting his hands on you doesn’t surprise me though. It exemplifies his “hands-on” approach to politics. He thinks he can build toll roads without citizens of Texas approving of the idea. He thinks he can tell you what to do, make your kids take a vaccine that could harm them. And in a decadent act of hubris, Texans’ money like it’s his own. Perry acting like a patriot is pure farce. Acting like a cowboy is even more of a farce. Rick Perry is acting like Josh Brolin acting like George W. Bush acting like a cowboy. As his neighbors noted in a recent Salon article, “We never saw Perry on a tractor, much less a horse.”
wow thanks so much for this info!!! it needs to be spread around, let more people think this and thwy will think twice about supporting rick perry.
check out conservatives4palin’s blog post about this story. http://conservatives4palin.com/2011/08/video-perry-refuses-to-explain-debt-record-in-texas.html not only does palin have a better economic record, but at the end, you can see her talk to a random alaskan and she is VERY nice and sweet and she listens closely.
Fool us once shame on you – (Obama). Fool us twice shame on us – (Perry). Will America repeat the same mistake in 2012 and vote in a “sweet talkin’ good lookin’ dude who talks the talk but has demonstrated he won’t walk the walk? Or will America truly emerge from it’s slumber. November 2012 will tell.
wow great video you schould get this to the network news ABC will love this.
Get to know the real Rick Perry…
Perry just approved a budget balanced with accounting gimmicks/deferrals. TX has a planned $7.1 Billion deficit for 2013 when the legislature comes back into session. In other words, TX used a “credit card” to balance the budget. Fact: “Budget writers had to rely heavily on gimmicks and one-time fixes, like a $2.3 billion payment deferral to the Foundation School Program and underfunding Medicaid caseload growth to the tune of $4.8 billion. Perhaps even worse than these budget shenanigans is the fact that, despite having a golden opportunity, lawmakers failed to make any substantive changes to how and why state government spends money.”
http://www.texaspolicy.com/commentaries_single.php?report_id=3939
Perry approved a budget that includes $25 million for Formula One Racetrack. He has line item veto. Why did he just approve this pork?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/11/texas-weighs-25m-year-formula-racing-amid-budget-crunch/
Perry’s budget includes $500 million in advertising for Fortune 500 companies, arts/film/video special interests. He has line item veto power. Why did he approve this pork?
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/jun/17/david-simpson/state-rep-david-simpson-says-state-budget-includes/
Perry’s DREAM Act gave in-state tuition breaks and taxpayer funded grants to illegals to attend Texas colleges. Why should citizens pay more for college than illegals? Why should we believe he will do anything to put citizens and legal immigrants first? See: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/jun/19/picket-does-gop-want-perrys-dream-act-too/
This legislative session, he failed to lead to get a simple anti-sanctuary cities bill passed with a super majority of Republicans in the legislature because of political games & cheap labor lobby. Since this is a law enforcement issue, he has the power to issue an executive order to end safe harbors for illegals in TX. He has been governor for ten years. So if he doesn’t believe in “interior enforcement” of the rule of law in our state, will he be another pro-amnesty President like GW Bush?
His campaign team is working hard to distance him from his book Fed Up…only a fraud would write a book about runaway, tyrannical gov’t and then distance himself from it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/perry-campaign-fed-up-with-fed-up/2011/08/12/gIQAHUdNWJ_blog.html
The best predictor of future actions is past actions. Don’t take my word for it. Check the sources (provided above) yourself.
Hmmm. He was going to say that he didn’t know where you got your info, but he abruptly terminated that line of thought and started to go off on a tangent (“…see, all of our debt is uh….”).
So you tried to get him back on track by revealing your source. Then he touched you provocatively and ran away, pretending that you wouldn’t let him answer.
What a weasel, if not also another Romney, too.
You need to contact Steve Deace about your encounter!
http://stevedeace.com/
Have you send this video yet?
Now that’s what I call real jounalism. Good work!!!!!
Wow.. These people are nothing but sociopaths. I am convinced that a normal person can never stay in power with these people. I disagree with Ron Paul on more than one principle, but the man has my respect and unfortunately the rest of them will never let him into the white house, or the senate.