Monday, June 20, 2011

First Look: Rick Perry

Since establishment candidate Mitt Romney appears to be the Republican Party equivalent of LeBron James (He just can't take over the game when necessary), many establishment types are tossing around former Texas A&M male cheerleader and current Texas governor, Rick Perry, as a presidential candidate.

Here's a quick first look at Perry:

He began his political career as a Democrat in 1984 in the Texas House. Way back in 1988, he supported Al Gore for president. When that didn't work out for him, or Gore, he joined the Republican Party.

Despite the widely held view that Texas is in strong financial shape, the state has severe debt overhang. Since Perry took over as governor in 2000, blame for the current debt situation can be place at his feet.

While not raising the sales tax in Texas (Texas has no income tax). He raised just about every other fee and tax he could think of, including a surcharge on traffic violations. He also borrowed money for road bonds and borrowed from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund.

In 2003, he launched the Texas Enterprise Fund, he quickly, in 2004, gave $20 million to Countrywide Financial, the mortgage creating machine that was a major player in subprime, no docs mortgages.

Depending how it is calculated, the debt of the state of Texas could be considered as high as $269 billion, which on a per citizen basis is $10,644 and is higher than even the $9,931 per citizen debt in the state of California.

In 2000, when Perry first became governor, total spending by the state of Texas was $49 billion. At the end of 2010, it was $90 billion.

I can just imagine what this guy would do at the federal level with Ben Bernanke around to backup his spending.

12 comments:

  1. A huge cheap shot to compare Lebron James to Mittens Romney. Lebron has taken over games when necessary a multitude of times(see ECF and most of career), it's just that he mentally choked in the 2011 Finals. Other than Ron Paul, there is no candidate in either field (obviously including the won) that will do what it takes to get the job done.

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  2. i was a ron paul sceptic, but his consistent positions over the past years convinced me to become his fan. Actually if i recall, my initial impressions about ron paul were based on mainstream-media's views on him. He is "extreme" "oulier" "fringe" "Not serious" "one of those guys like kucinich"

    It took me serious uneducation (from websites like you) to convert. Imagine all other masses who dont read your website or like yours.

    Its amazing how media can mass hypnotize humanity.

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  3. As a Texas libertarian who was a 2008 State Republican Convention delegate to support Ron Paul...so that I could meet Dr. Paul to ask him about knowing Murray Rothbard...I can say that Perry is a conman of buzzwords to the extreme and a CFR man, who hates the Tea Party.

    A couple of election cycles ago, Perry's Democrat opponent showed a police dash video or Rick Perry treating the police officer like dirt and threatening the officer for stopping him for speeding. I hope that gets played nationally. Maybe it is on Youtube, but Youtube is blocked where I'm at.

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  4. Congrats, anon@246pm. This time around, Dr Paul seems to be getting better coverage, so the attacks in the MSM are bound to grow sleazier and nastier.

    If the EU falls apart, and takes China and the US with it, then I think/hope/pray more people will flock to his views.

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  5. RE: Anon - "Imagine all other masses who dont read your website or like yours."

    I wish I'd known about this blog a long time ago. Might never have discovered it had Tom Woods not mentioned it in his interview with RW when Woods guest-hosted Peter Schiff's radio show a few months ago.

    Mr. Wenzel is a blogging machine--RW posts just about every hour it seems!

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  6. Actually Texas does have a sort of state income tax on businesses. It was Perry's brainchild too - the business margins tax. It's a flat 1% on revenue, which means that even if your business loses money you will still owe the tax. It's a small business killer.

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  7. As a native Texan, this is why I hate Perry. An opportunistic scumbag on par with Clinton minus the sex scandals. Neither man has ever held a real job ever it seems and both deep down have nothing but contempt for us proles.

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  8. Don't forget about the forced vacinations for cervical cancer to 14 year old girls against the wishes of the State Legislature.

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  9. @Dcentralist

    Thanks.I will call him in the morning.

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  10. I'm hoping those boob tubes rubes wise up this go around. It's real simple. If the networks say anyone is a great contender for public office then they are actually just the opposite and should be shunned. When the networks claim Ron Paul is not a serious candidate in reality he is the only person for this serious job.

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  11. I call him Governor Gardasil. As Skyorbit above posted, Perry forced girls to be vaccinated for a sexually transmitted disease in order to attend public schools. The vaccine has had debilitating side effects in some people.

    Just as Romney can't argue effectively against Obamacare, neither can Perry. How are his mandate better than Obama's? If anything, Perry's mandate is worse, at least for those who send their kids to the gummint schools.

    Say no to Governor Gardasil!

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  12. Perry gave Carlyle's Vought Aircraft Industries $1 million per job lost. Then he renegotiated the deal so Carlyle could sell Vought to Triumph.

    http://peureport.blogspot.com/2010/04/carlyles-35-million-texas-charge-card.html

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