Texans will go to the polls and decide whether to return the Republicans who run the state to their posts without one critical piece of information: The size of the projected budget shortfall. Sen. Kirk Watson has officially asked Comptroller Susan Combs to update her projections, which we know already include at least $1 billion less in revenue. Kuff has much more, including some data about sales tax receipts that indicate it may fall short by $3.6 billion.
Texas Republicans made this mess, and now they won’t be straight with us about how bad things are. No wonder Rick Perry won’t debate Bill White. They’re cowards.
You know the old saying? Things may be bad, but they could always be worse. Well, that appears to be the Texas GOP’s campaign slogan this year. Here’s the line the GOP in Texas has been hiding behind [PDF] for a while now, “The Texas seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 8.2 percent in July, unchanged from June, and continued to trend well below the U.S. seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 9.5 percent.” (Emphasis added).
What Gov. Rick Perry appointee, and former Texas GOP chair Tom Pauken is trying to say, is that we should all feel grateful because things aren’t as bad as they are for others. The unemployment rate in Texas has moved little in the last 14 months, hovering between 7.9% and 8.3% since July of 2009. In a rational state, where incumbents are held accountable, that would mean bad news for the Republicans running for reelection in Texas, but I digress. Has anyone heard any ideas for lowering that number from the Governor, Lt. Gov., Speaker or Workforce Commissioner? Me either.
Another line Texas GOP has been been trumpeting is that our budget problems have not been as bad as other states. That is, if you exclude the $16 billion in federal money that was used to balance the budget in 2009. But Texas’ “lesser” budget problems are more about a system that was already punishing the weak, at the behest of the powerful, Texan Tall Tales.
What is true is that the Texas budget is in relatively good shape. That’s because recessions don’t do as much fiscal damage if you have a weak safety net, so expenses don’t rise much as people are plunged into poverty (because they don’t get any help), and a regressive tax system, so that revenues don’t fall much when incomes collapse.
What is clear is that in the upcoming legislative session we’re facing a budget freight train that’s about to go off the rails. The HChron had a piece last week that took the usual, left/right, D/R, perspective on the budget “debate” that has prevailed so far this election cycle, White, Perry not specific about budget - One talks tough on spending, the other of bipartisan compromise. Kuff details what’s likely to be cut, Them that has, gets, and it’s not the Texas Enterprise Fund. Here’s the short list:
Some of Texas’ most vulnerable residents – the very poor, the mentally ill, those suffering from birth defects, and children from troubled families – would lose state support and services under several new budget-cutting proposals.
Bill White, for his part, has only said that he would accept a local option tax bill. (A local option tax bill would allow local elections to raise taxes in that locality to pay for transportation projects). It’s also likely, in the event the likely GOP controlled legislature was to send a state budget with a tax increase to him, he would allow it to become law. With Perry that probably would not be likely. That doesn’t mean that taxpayers will get a break if Perry’s reelected, they’ll just be called fee increases, instead of tax increases. Both candidates will talk of scrubbing the budget, cutting waste, etc.. But the reality is, and everyone knows it, that if Texas wants to keep it’s current level of spending, including assistance to the weak and needy, then those with higher incomes in Texas will have to pay more taxes [PDF].
Since taking office in 2001 Gov. Perry has saddled Texans with $11.8 billion in transportation debt, where there was none when he took office. In Texas the Republicans are in charge and have been for the last 7 years. The education system, public and higher, is facing all sorts of trouble – quality down, cost up. Unemployment is roughly twice what it was when they took over. While our situation may not be as bad as other states, we must ask ourselves why are things so much worse since the GOP started running this state? It’s also likely going to get much worse, for those of us who aren’t on the high end of the wage scale, as long as they’re in charge.
These issues are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s no wonder Perry and his GOP cohorts are running scared from Democrats and the media.
Williamson County Democratic Party chair Greg Windham holds a peculiar view of voters’ perception of the party he was elected to lead.
Windham said Moving Wilco Forward and Annie’s (List) play into anti-Democratic stereotypes, making Williamson County residents and other Texans “afraid of Democrats.”
“They [voters] think we are here to kiss their men, kill their babies and take their guns,” Windham said.
In an interview with Round Rock Leader editor Brad Stutzman, Windham echoed derisive stereotypes that Republicans frequently use to bash Democrats. During his brief tenure as the head of the local party, these sentiments have sparked conflict with a number of precinct chairs on the party’s executive committee.
Stutzman provides a balanced summary of the disagreement between Windham and the executive committee members who voted to spend about half their cash to fund a voter registration drive conducted by a coordinated campaign representing all local Democratic candidates. However, Windham’s comments quoted in the story reveal that he is fixated on opposing the treasurer of Moving Wilco Forward, the political action committee managing the coordinated campaign.
Robert Jones is a Democratic political consultant with a remarkable track record of success, serving as the political director for Annie’s List, a statewide “organization dedicated to electing progressive women to office.” Jones formed Moving Wilco Forward in December 2008 with the express purpose of electing all the Democratic candidates in Williamson county.
In voting to move $5,000 over to Moving Wilco Forward, the majority of executive committee members expressed greater confidence in the organization’s ability to execute the voter registration program than Windham.
Windham said he believes volunteers should use “elbow grease,” going door-to-door to register voters.
Hard work is part of the plan, and the coordinated campaign will do a significant amount of door-to-door canvassing; however, the coordinated campaign will also be using mail pieces and targeting new residents of Williamson county, many of whom may have neglected to move their voter registration. Take the average street in your average neighborhood, for example. Perhaps 1 in 20 homes on that street will have moved in the past year. “Elbow grease” is wasted knocking on the other 19 doors.
Windham may not have been aware of this, which may explain why he was in a very small minority voting against the proposal. After all, Windham has only run one political campaign, a failed bid for County Commissioner in 2008.
After the executive committee voted to write the check to Moving Wilco Forward, Windham fired off an antagonistic email to a large number of local Democrats.
It would be responsible for wasteful spenders to be eradicated in order to combat the stereotypes that prevent us from winning elections. We are living in an age of consequences and it would be refreshing for some people to wake up and realize it.
One is led to wonder how to “eradicate” members of the executive committee who disagree with him. The executive committee believes the best chance for success in November is with an organization that has the experience and tools to register more voters. They believe that a Moving Wilco Forward-led coordinated campaign will make a much better case than Windham that the Democratic Party better represents the interests of Williamson County’s working families.
The top concerns of voters this election, contrary to what Windham says, are Texas’ highest-in-the-nation electric and home insurance rates, the difficulty in finding a job or getting enough hours to make ends meet, the expense of sending a child to college, the fear of being one illness away from bankruptcy and the strain of toll roads and fuel prices on the family budget.
In ways that directly impact the lives of families in Williamson county, the Democratic Party represents positive change, greater transparency and accountability. All the better ideas for government are Democratic. The Republican party deals in fear, distrust, delay, stagnation and corruption. The Republican party is sorry that BP was asked to pay for the damage caused by their negligence. The Republican party wants to eliminate Social Security and terminate unemployment benefits. The Republican Party wants to give $3 million to each of the richest 120,000 taxpayers.
Local Democratic activists feel a sense of urgency to act now to take back government and use it to defend working families instead of giant corporations like ExxonMobil or BP. Every election that passes without voters hearing our message, more children fail, more homes are foreclosed, more workers become jobless, more jobless become homeless and summers keep getting hotter.
Greg Windham needs to heed his own advice: “We are living in an age of consequences and it would be refreshing for some people to wake up and realize it.” Wake up, Greg. Realize that you’re hurting the very cause you were elected to champion. Either that or step down and allow someone who actually believes that informed voters will side with the Democratic Party.
In a fascinating article about the re-election campaign of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Slate reporter David Weigel touches on the tragic irony of the typical disaffected voter that is working to return the Republican party to the majority in the United States House of Representatives.
In 2008, (voters in the Orlando-area 8th Congressional District) voted for Grayson and the Obama-Biden ticket, narrowly, because of disgust with the Bush administration’s failures. It was tough to find a job then. It’s tougher now.
Republicans are blaming the weak economy on President Obama, Grayson and Congressional Democrats.
It’s a critique that appeals even to voters like Jeff Evans, 49, who was laid off from his trucking job in December 2009. He was receiving unemployment benefits until a Republican filibuster stopped them this summer, leaving him without a revenue stream for weeks. But even though Grayson and his fellow Democrats eventually restored his benefits, Evans isn’t sure he will support Grayson. It would do him more good, he said, and allow him to keep his dignity, if they “let the small businesses create more jobs.”
Meet Jeff the Trucker, a typical unemployed American who despite the direct negative impact that Republicans have wrought — namely a protracted filibuster in the United States Senate that interrupted the meager unemployment benefits that represented his only income — is supporting a Republican Congressional candidate. How can Americans be so easily misled into voting in direct opposition to their economic best interest?
Grayson knows how popular that argument is. The solution: Argue that Republicans have no credibility to make it. He pivots off of one of Webster’s ideas,a proposal to cut the budget to what it was in 2007. Webster suggests that Floridians were perfectly well off when the government spent at that lower level. Grayson prefers to ask whether voters realize that a cut like that would mean lower Social Security payments.
“It’s a stupid idea,” says Grayson. “Nobody has a time machine, OK? The world has changed a little bit since 2007. For one thing, there’re a lot of more people out of work.” Soon he’s on a roll, explaining how $12 trillion of capital disappeared in the “Bush implosion” of 2008. That’s who voters need to blame, he says. Why aren’t they as angry as he is?
“In 18 months, two centuries of work, the collective effort of millions of people, all gone,” says Grayson of the financial crisis. “So now the Republicans want to go back to 2007? It’s a little bit late for that.”
Joe the Trucker needs to wake up to his exploitation by Webster and the Republican Party, that has used the “Tea Party” moniker to replace their discredited brand, misled and exploited its followers who are feeling real pain, some of it caused directly by Republicans themselves. What we are witnessing is the counterattack of the nation’s wealthiest citizens to prevent even the slightest correction to the disastrous course that President George W. Bush and Congressional Republicans have led this nation.
The aptly-named Take Initiative America, took the initiative and broke the law in spending secretive corporate cash to help the Green Party gain access to the statewide ballot in November, according to Texas Democratic Party lawyers. The Austin American-Statesman is reporting that the shadow Republican group spent more than a half-million dollars to gather signatures for the Green Party’s ballot petition.
Jason Embry is reporting that Take Initiative America misled at least one Green Party officer before the petition drive began.
In a June 10 e-mail to other Green Party officials, state party treasurer David Wager said, “I was promised by a representative of Take Initiative America that the organization was not a corporation and that he would comply with all disclosure requests. Today I was informed that the organization is in fact a corporation and they will not disclose their donors. They claim that their collection of signatures and in-kind contribution was not political. I don’t agree. In my opinion, we have no choice but to refuse the signatures.”
On his blog, Embry explains that “Democrats contend that Republicans are behind the effort because a Green candidate likely would pull votes away from Democrat Bill White, who is challenging Gov. Rick Perry. Take Initiative America has not disclosed its donors. ”
While us taxpayers in Texas are having tot tighten our belts and do without things like education funding, roads, etc.. it’s nice to know our Governor is living so well. Via Letters From Texas, It sucks to be you.
The numerous problems with the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) have been apparent, for anyone willing to see them, for quite a while, (see State Development Fund Rewards Hype: Incentives Great, Penalties Few For Companies That Overstate Their Benefits). The TEF allows the Governor, with tacit approval of Lt. Gov. and Speaker, to hand out corporate welfare to supposedly “attract new business to the state..”. From what Gov. Perry and his GOP cohorts always say, Texas already being such a great place for businesses, that they wouldn’t have to bribe them to come here.
* The Governor’s Office has awarded $363 million to 45 TEF recipients to create or maintain 47,735 jobs. These projects claimed 31,319 jobs in compliance reports covering 2008.
* Just 13 of the 45 job-related projects reviewed were performing well.
*As of October 2009 the Governor has penalized 11 TEF grantees for defaulting on their job creation commitments. These penalties, totaling $647,100, amount to just 1 percent of the $64 million in TEF funding that they received.
* The Governor has imposed the “death penalty” on just two TEF projects despite the fact that many other TEF recipients have qualified for termination.
* In February 2009, Perry declared that the TEF program had created 54,000 jobs since 2003. More than one-third of these jobs are pledges that have yet to materialize.
There’s much more. The Texas Observer had this story earlier in the year, Slush Fun, which shows that several companies that received money from the TEF, gave money to Perry in the form of campaign contributions.
Many companies that have received money from the fund have, in turn, aided the governor. An Observer investigation has found that 20 of the 55 Enterprise Fund companies have either given money directly to Perry’s campaign (through their political action committees or executives) or donated to the Republican Governors Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group that Perry presided over in 2008.
The 20 companies have received a combined $174.2 million from the Enterprise Fund. During the same time period, those 20 corporations have donated $2.2 million to Perry and the governors association. Several companies made donations around the time they received grants from the Enterprise Fund. It’s even possible that taxpayer money from the fund came full circle into Perry’s own campaign.
Texans for Public Justice today urged Texas’ top three officials who oversee the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) to investigate if Sematech, Inc. violated the 2004 contract it signed to obtain $40 million in state funds. Governor Rick Perry’s highly-touted Enterprise Fund awarded the high-tech consortium $40 million in 2004 to establish the Advanced Material Research Center (AMRC) in Austin. Sematech’s subsequent dealings with the State of New York strain the terms of its TEF contract—arguably to the breaking point. In a letter today to Governor Perry, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus, TPJ called for a probe into Sematech’s contract compliance, urging the officials to either “enforce compliance or recover the scarce funds that failed to deliver the promised benefits.”
[...]
“The Enterprise Fund is crying out for greater accountability, transparency and oversight. The Sematech fiasco highlights Governor Perry’s conflicts in both awarding and enforcing Enterprise Fund grants,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice. “The governor is quick to tout the promised jobs but slow to make corporate welfare recipients live up to the terms of their handouts.”
[...]
“If Sematech is two-timing Texas, Perry needs to get our $40 million back,” added McDonald.
This is one area where Texans can see the unchecked powers that Perry has accumulated from being in office for too many years. Perry believes, because he’s been in power for so long, that like a King he can do as he pleases. He also thinks that because he’s been returned to office, over and over again, that whatever he does it right and Texans will go along. If Perry is returned to office again we can only imagine how much more of our money, for four more years, will go to corporations in this manner.
No one wants to pay more for anything, but in transportation it’s becoming more and more clear that there is a cost – in both time and money – to doing nothing. This week, the Funding Subcommittee of the Texas House Select Committee on Transportation Funding heard testimony from Frank Bliss, a commercial real estate developer in the Metroplex, who investigated the cost to taxpayers in increased fuel costs through decreased fuel efficiency when traffic goes from free-flowing to “stop and go.”
[...]
His conclusion: “Without adequate funding for transportation, as growth occurs we pay for the lack of infrastructure by buying more gasoline and having less time for our families, communities, and the businesses we represent. Instead of . . . [paying] to fund new roads, we’re giving it to the gas companies. If we understood the math, I think we might change our attitudes and put the money where it can help us the most.”
Holy crap!! Is that plain enough for everyone to understand!? Would you rather pay taxes to build roads, or but more gas and give it to the oil corporations.
Here’s Burka’s comments on what the engineers had to say:
Rick Perry can say that he hasn’t raised taxes, but tolls are more expensive than gasoline taxes, and they have surged upwards. The rate of toll revenue increase cited above — equivalent to a 1/2 cent per year increase in the gasoline tax (I’m not going to adopt the euphemism of “user fee”) since the last tax increase in 1991 — figures out, over 20 years, to be identical to a 10-cent increase in the gasoline tax. Critics of the gasoline tax have a point, that it has lost a lot of its revenue-raising potential due to greater fuel economy, but raising the tax is still better than stagnancy. We could have built a lot of free roads with a ten-cent increase in the tax. Instead, we have spent this decade fighting over unpopular toll roads and even more unpopular proposals to privatize roads. At any point, Perry could have stepped forward and said that we needed to raise the gasoline tax — or presented the public with a referendum of the two alternatives, toll roads or gasoline taxes. Instead, we took the most costly approach: borrowing. We spent billions of dollars on bonds and hundreds of millions on interest payments. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Or, I should say, politics, politics, politics. [Emphasis added].
I’ll go with greed, greed, greed. Or selfishness, selfishness, selfishness. So glad the “fiscal conservatives” have been running our state government.
Tolls are the most expensive way to pay for roads. But it benefits corporations and allows politicians to use snake oil – in the name of Public Private Partnerships (PPP’s), Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDO’s) to name a few – to tell voters they can have new roads without having their taxes raised. Tolls are just a different name for tax, and a more expensive one at that. Damn, this sounds like a broken record.
The Lone Star Project has this video which highlights Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent defense of British Petroleum (BP) after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP donates $250,000 to the Governor’s mansion
When Rick Perry needed to raise money to restore the Governor’s Mansion after a major fire, he turned to his friends at BP. According to the Austin American-Statesman, “The largest donation is $250,000 from energy giant BP America.” (Source: Austin American-Statesman, January 30, 2009)
Perry paid BP for jobs already in Texas
Perry gave BP $750,000 to create 150 jobs in League City, Texas. It was soon revealed that, “50 already work for BP and live in the area.” One expert called it, “a classic case of getting paid for doing what you’re going to do anyway.” (The Houston Chronicle, January 13, 2005)
Perry said BP has “historically had a very good safety record from my perspective.” After a reporter pointed out that an explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, Perry acknowledged the company has been under scrutiny for its safety record.
“If you go from that point forward, they realize there is a bull’s eye on their back,” Perry said. “If there is a company that knows the world, the United States and Texas is watching what they are doing, it would be British Petroleum.”
In a letter to Gov. Perry, Alex Winslow of Texas Watch, “..share[s] a sampling of the reams of news reports written in recent years about BP’s long history of safety violations.”
Largest Workplace Safety Fine in History
“BP [paid] an $87 million fine in relation to an explosion at the Texas City refinery. … The fine [was] more than four times any previous penalty imposed by OSHA. … OSHA has issued 271 notifications to BP in the four years since the explosion.” (Bloomberg News, October 30, 2009)
“BP [paid] a $50 million fine to resolve criminal charges arising from the 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery.” (Houston Chronicle, March 12, 2009)
A History of Safety Violations
“The explosion … at the BP oil refinery in Texas City and another in March 2004 are among a long history of incendiary incidents, some deadly, that have cost the facility’s owners millions of dollars in fines and lawsuits.” (Houston Chronicle, March 24, 2005)
“[OSHA’s Houston Director Charles Williams] chided the company for allowing hazardous conditions to develop at its facilities. ‘OSHA will not tolerate this disregard for worker protection,’ he said.” (Houston Chronicle, March 24, 2005)
“At least 41 people have died at the plant in Texas City … since the mid-1970s” (AP, February 25, 2008)
“The [U.S. Chemical Safety Board]’s final report cited ‘organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of BP’ and said cost-cutting left the plant vulnerable to catastrophe.” (AP, February 25, 2008)
Ongoing Defiance of Safety Standards
“As we’ve seen from my department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s recent enforcement actions, BP still has a long way to go to ensure the safety of its employees and those of the contractors who work in its refineries.” (OSHA Press Release, March 23, 2010)
“Nearly three years after a massive explosion killed 15 people at BP’s Texas City refinery, the oil giant continues to have more fatal accidents at U.S. refineries than any other major energy company.” (AP, February 25, 2008)
“Two BP refineries … account for 20 of the 29 deaths at U.S. refineries from 2005 to 2008.” (Houston Chronicle, March 10, 2008)
“BP’s five U.S. refineries, deemed employers with repeated and persistent violations of federal safety rules, remain under OSHA’s stepped-up ‘Enhanced Enforcement Program.’ … for companies found to have willful violations of workplace safety laws.” (Houston Chronicle, March 10, 2008)
“The oil conglomerate is also facing serious charges from OSHA that is ‘willfully’ failed to implement safety measures at its Texas City refinery following an explosion that killed 15 employees and injured 170 others five years ago.” (Truthout.org, May 4, 2010)
Winslow ends with this:
We encourage you to join others who feel strongly that BP and others who caused this man-made tragedy to be held fully accountable for their negligence. As Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) said this week regarding responsibility for the oil spill: “If you’ve suffered a damage, they [BP] are the responsible party.”