Miracle or mirage – what's the truth about Rick Perry's Texas?

[highplainsdem]

Source: The Guardian

When the truck from the Capital Area Food Bank eventually came, each person patiently waited to pick up a box containing cans of spaghetti sauce, fruit juice, a few pounds of potatoes and some pears. Connie Gonzales, an Austin city official, watched the crowds of hungry and desperate people and said that they grew bigger each week. "It is the economy. It is bad. Any help these people can get, they really need it," she said.

It is not meant to be this way. Not in Texas. After all, this is governor Rick Perry's Lone Star state. This is the Texas whose record at job creation is at the centre of Perry's bid for the Republican presidential nomination. This is the state whose economic "miracle" is being hailed as a conservative blueprint for the future of America – "Texas exceptionalism" as rightwing columnist George Will glowingly called it. This is the state of low taxes and low regulation and which is so pro-business that corporations are booming here. It is the state that dodged recession and has roared back into recovery; an oasis of jobs in a devastated US economy.

Yet there is a dark side. It was on stark display in Dove Springs. This is the Texas of a collapsing education system that is failing to educate its children. This is the Texas where millions have no health insurance and a growing low-wage economy means having a job is not enough to provide the basics of life. This is the hungry Texas that the food bank serves.

-snip-

Critics say Perry has presided over the establishment of an economy whose growing inequality resembles some in the developing world, not a 21st century America. For people like Hightower, it is distressing that Perry claims to want to expand this model to the rest of the country. "When Perry says he can do for America what he has done for Texas it is no idle threat," Hightower said.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/04/rick-perry-economic-mirage

[PonyJon]

1. Vote a STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC TICKET give Obama a real majority to work with and be happy! nt

[DissedByBush]

2. Obama had a majority for two years

In both houses.

He only need couple percent crossover votes in each house to have a supermajority.

[Jane Austin]

3. And they passed a lot

of good bills.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[dionysus]

11. lord forbid someone support electing democrats on DU. must be a mental illness!

:eyes:

[Jane Austin]

4. We don't have low taxes in Texas.

Our property taxes are sky high.

[midnight]

7. Leave it to Hightower to explain this: Jobs creation is a Perry-tale.

But also important to know is that Perry is a Koch addict...


"Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, an energy conglomerate based in Kansas, are among the country’s leading financial backers of conservative candidates and causes.
The Denver Post has more on the gathering: “The meetings are organized by two of the nation’s most powerful conservative political donors, Charles and David Koch of the privately held energy giant Koch Industries. Their brother, William Koch , who on Saturday paid $2 million at a Denver auction for a tintype image of Billy the Kid, also is a conservative political donor, but he does not participate in his brothers’ activities. The guest list is kept secret, and organizers won’t say where the four-day retreat is being held beyond describing it as in the Vail area. … On Friday, a spokeswoman for Koch Industries said, ‘The purpose of this conference is to develop support for the kind of free-market policies and initiatives that can get our country back on the path to economic prosperity and sustained job creation.’”
It’s not entirely clear how Perry got to Colorado, but a plane owned by aircraft dealer Goldsmith Team LLC flew from Aspen to Georgetown on Sunday, flight records show.
In 2010, Goldsmith made more than $25,000 worth of in-kind contributions to Perry’s re-election campaign. And now that the legislative session and veto period are over, Perry and other state officials can again accept in-kind contributions." http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2011/06/27/perry_spoke_sunday_at_koch_bro.html

[SKKY]

10. YOU JUST CREATED THE FIRST BUMPER STICKER FOR 2012!!!

"Don't believe the Perry-tale!"

[eomer]

8. Hightower makes some good points but misses one of the most important ones.

The tax and regulatory regime in Texas is not creating jobs, it is sucking them out of other states. When they give cash incentives and tax breaks to corporations, they know full well that it is to induce them to relocate existing operations to Texas, not to create a new startup operation there.

[No Elephants]

9. "Right to work" under lousy conditions for low wages draws in the corporations.

[dionysus]

12. "right to work" = right to get shit on and fired for no reason