Stuff to read about Rick Perry —
From Texas Monthly — “Dear Yankee: Eight things you ought to know before you start writing stories about Rick Perry. You’re welcome.”
Via c u n d gulag, this article makes allegations about Perry’s, um, extramarital activities that really should be investigated. However, I understand the parts about Perry running Texas on borrowed money and being a crony capitalist are well documented.
Brad Plumer writes (at Ezra’s place) that much of Perry’s alleged success at steering Texas’s economy came about because of federal stimulus money.
Trouble is, that’s all about to change. Texas could only fend off its deficit woes for so long, and this year, faced with a $27 billion shortfall, Perry and the legislature opted for steep cuts to Medicaid and education over the next two-year budget cycle. Given that roughly half of all new Texas jobs in the last two years have come in the health care, education and government sectors, it’s a real question as to whether a newly austere Texas will keep creating jobs at its current pace.
See also “How Will Rick Perry’s Budget Affect Education?”
I first met Rick Perry in 1985. He was a Democratic freshman state rep, straight off the ranch in Haskell, Texas. He wore his jeans so tight, and, umm, adjusted himself so often that my fellow young legislative aides and I used to call him Crotch. Even among state representatives, even among Texas Aggies (graduates of this cute remedial school we have in Texas), Perry stood out for his modest intellectual gifts. Hell, he got a C in animal breeding. I have goats who got an A in that subject. But lack of brains has never been a hindrance in politics.
Yesterday Perry suggested that Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke’s “printing” of money is “almost treasonous” and hinted that, in Texas, Bernanke would be lynched. Alex Pareene says this is typical Perryism.
Perry’s love-hate relationship with federalism. He was for it before he was against it.
There, that should keep you busy!