The Inconvenient Truth About Rick Perry-Part I

"Good Time"Charlie Rangel might not have been too far off the point when he told reporters outside of a Rick Perry campaign stop in Harlem that Rick Perry for President might be the best thing to happen to Barrack Obama's campaign.  In part, this is because Rick Perry likes portray himself in ways that his record does not support. In the coming days I will look at a few of these stretches of the truth. The first one is his portrayal as a strong, fiscally sound governor.

For the last year, Texans have known that the state faced a large budget deficit when the legislature returned to Austin for its 2011 session. Candidate Rick Perry denied there was a problem. That alone should have raised red flags and set off alarm bells all over.  Needless to say, when the Austin Government opened for business in early 2011, fireworks would surely follow.  They did, in the litany of items being declared emergencies by the Governor to allow the GOP controlled Legislature to fast track through the process, not one of them dealt with jobs, revenue or closing the deficit.  Texas Horseman put forth a proposal that would have delivered thousands of jobs and billions in potential revenue to state coffers and that proposal never saw the light of day for debate on the floor while seeking to put guns on college campuses and voter intimidation initiatives receive the fast track emergency treatment.  All along Perry planned to cut spending on schools and social services to close his budget hole. In effect his actions, while not pulling the plug on grandma, did put grandma on the streets since many nursing homes are slated to be closed due to lack of funding.

Along the same lines, Slick Rick likes to paint himself as an ordinary Joe from Paint Creek, except in the decades he spent in government he acquired expensive tastes.  After a fire ravaged the Governor's Mansion, Governor Perry was moved into temporary quarters while the damage was repaired and the mansion habitable.  For someone who spent many years working in Austin, Rick Perry surprisingly had no local address to call his own. Using the money of the people of his fine state, the Governor rented a new mansion to live in during the repairs, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, in the midst of a budget crisis.  Given that the Texas Legislature meets for a few months every 2 years, some might see that expense as a bit excessive.  Certainly it would cost a fraction of that to set him up in a suite at a fine Downtown Austin hotel while the lege was in session and he could commute to his office from his home in College Station the rest of the time.  Perry obviouly thought differently, and reasoned that he needed to live in a swank mansion while his budget cuts to help pay for it would force grandma from her nursing home. In a nutshell that is GOP fiscal responsibility.

Next we examine Perry the Job Creator....