12.08.09
A few items
The two faces of Kay, Two sides of Hutchison apparent as she files to run for governor.
Both Kay Bailey Hutchisons showed up to file for governor Monday — Primary Kay and General Election Kay. Like hyperkinetic twins, they tended to talk over each other.
Primary Kay is very conservative. She talks about property rights, illegal immigrants and state-mandated vaccinations of teenage girls (a particular bugaboo of the Christian right).
General Election Kay promises to expand the party — save it, she says — by appealing to the broad Texas electorate in November.
[...]
Whatever the turnout, Hutchison wanted reporters to know two things:
First Primary Kay: “Number one, I am a conservative.”
Then, General Election Kay: “And number two, I have won elections by over 60 percent of the vote every time I am on the ballot. Gov. Perry got 39 percent of the vote the last time he ran.”
As if to underscore the dual nature of her candidacy, Hutchison signed her filing so quickly Monday that TV crews asked her to sit down and do it again.
She did, leaving her signature on the official filing document written twice.
It’s sad to see Hutchison’s best primary campaign slogan become “you may not like me better than Perry but you have to vote for me anyway”. More from Primary Kay here, Hutchison supported 2003 redistricting, campaign says. It’s obvious why she’s worried about Bill White.
One of her opponents messes is coming home to roost, Jobless tax rates to nearly triple for 67 percent of businesses.
Nearly two-thirds of Texas businesses will see the annual unemployment taxes they pay per employee nearly triple — from $23.40 to $64.80 — under rates announced today by the Texas Workforce Commission.
The minimum tax is paid by nearly 255,000 employers, or 67 percent of those who have been in business for at least a year, according to the commission.
The taxes feed the state’s unemployment trust fund, which has been depleted by a high number of jobless claims. The state already has borrowed about $1 billion interest-free from the federal government to help keep the fund afloat.
Just counting state-paid unemployment benefits, not federally funded extensions, Texas is paying $68.6 million a week in unemployment benefits compared with $33.6 million a year ago.
About 700,000 Texans are now receiving unemployment benefits, including those funded by the state and federal government.
The tax rate is being increased to repay federal loans and ensure the fund has enough money to pay claims in the coming year.
[...]
GOP Gov. Rick Perry this year stood against the state taking $555 million in additional federal stimulus money for unemployment because taking it would have required expanding jobless benefits.
The Hill Country News is getting a new editor, Jenn Rains named editor at the News.
The Hill Country News this week promoted reporter Jenn Rains to managing editor. She replaces Scott McDonald, who served as editor for more than three years before taking a publisher position at the Navasota Examiner – which is a Granite Publications newspaper like the News.
I would love to see the HCN add RSS feeds.