Rick Perry does the right thing for Texas: No Medicaid expansion or health exchange

Do you plan to refuse to enroll in Medicare when you are 65?

 

To follow up some of the criticism of Texas' reckless finances, I have faith our public infrastructure will be restored in healthier times soon with a surging private sector:

 

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/State-sharply-lowers-estimate-of-Medicaid-3703643.php

 

I can't believe the good people of Texas aren't storming the state capital demanding Perry's resignation.

 

They are too busy being employed.

 

You must mean by working two jobs to make ends meet.

 

The best he's ever looked.

 

The "surging private sector" is a function of a good supply of land & labor along with a sufficient commercial industrial sector that can makek use of both. Land is fixed, as for labor, Perry's impacting it in a couple of ways.

Look at the education score - Perry and his cronies have been working to diminish that for a decade now on all fronts, from gutting the student-teacher ratio via budget cuts, ridiculous creationsm/textbook culture wars that make peopel certifiably dumber, trying to meddle with the university systems - it takes a long time for the results of this to show up, and he'll be mercifully out of office when they do, but the damage is done.

Add to it his singular determination to refuse to improve Texas' mediocre health care system and you have the seeds for long-term disaster. An unhealthy populace is not exactly an economic dynamo.

Not only are Texas natives going to get the shaft, but you make it a much less attractive place for out-of-staters and foreign immigrants that drive the eocnomic growth today.

Good luck with that.

 

The only solace I take in this sordid business of watching our ignorant douchecanoe of a governor **** the poor for a few cheap political points is taht I suspect this will go down a lot like the stimulus.

I.e. Rick the d!ck will make a show of "refusing" federal funds and then quietly accept them later once the publicity is gone and a few buddies inform him of how they "need" those funds to further enrich themselves.

 

All he needs is a little tricycle and some balloons....

 

No doubt, there is certainly a lot of room for improvement in the areas you address. How we get there both locally & nationally is an entire conversation in and of itself. We as a people overall are not getting smarter nor healthier though more concentrated liberal areas like Cali & NY seem to be making headway through local govt & grass root efforts. Getting there is certainly a topic I'm quite passionate about. I feel the overall culture regarding education [university & trade] & public health needs a paradigm shift here in Texas.

 

The consolidation of the Texas GOP into a singular homogenous right wing entity has been the ultimate problem with Texas.

Even during the days of Democratic dominance of Texas, this was still functionally a two party state. You had the conservative dems from rural Texas and the much more liberal Dems from the cities.

And both of those played off of each other and compromised on issues like a normal government would. For example, rural communities were the reason why education was so highly valued. Bill Clements (a Republican governor mind you) passed one of the largest tax increases in Texas history to fund our education system (which paid huge dividends decades later). That was primarily spearheaded by rural democrats who were winning elections on local issues like education.

Today Texas is a one party state with the GOP in power now but the GOP doesn't have the same dynamic that the Democrats had when they controlled the state. Instead we really have a legitimate one party government that has no incentive to compromise or do anything.

Hell even in 2008 when Democrats only had 2 seats less than the Republicans, you saw a few rural Republicans forming coalitions with Democrats to stonewall education cuts (because there are still a few that actually have to campaign and win on issues like education)

But that dynamic is largely gone. Perry et. al. basically have total control over the legislature. For example, the Republicans in the state Senate were ready to use the rainy day fund to help plug the deficit in order to limit cuts to education. But David Dewhurst decided to stick his nose in the whole thing and killed the bill and then told Steve Ogden to remove any provision that uses the rainy day fund.

This state badly needs some type of opposition party. It's only a matter of time before Joe Straus gets the boot and gets replaced with some right-wing wacko (since the only reason he became speaker was because Democrats managed to pull of a coup in 2008 and vote him in) Not to mention the top education experts in the house are retiring.

Our school systems are ****ed unless the Democrats wake up.

 

Yeah!!!!! More money for the rest of us!

 

Excellent post. While there are relatively moderate Republicans still in the legislature, they try to keep their heads down, and spout a right wing platitude for the "Tea Party" wing of the Republican Party every once in a while in an attempt to appease that faction, which has influence all out of proportion to their numbers simply because they are organized and target vulnerable moderate Republicans as often as they target Democrats for defeat.

It's a great pity, and extremely damaging to Texas and her people. And it starts from the top down. Perry has been governor for so many years now that he has the commissions and boards of state agencies, that have staggered terms to reduce the influence of any Texas governor, packed with hand picked Perry partisans, many with little to no knowledge of what they are supposed to be doing, and often young Perry staffers "movin' on up." The system is broken. Add that Dewhurst is pathetic as Lt. Governor and running scared from the "Tea Party" GOPers, and the inexperienced members of the Lege running amok, and you have a recipe for disaster.

 

nevermind

 

What a complete douche.

Rick Perry Factors Into State Budget Obamacare Funds He Had Pledged To Reject

Eight days after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and ruled that the federal government cannot penalize states that refuse to expand Medicaid, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced that he would not open the program to more applicants. But while he was making a public show of turning down federal funds, Perry was using the additional dollars in state budget projections.

 

Surprised?

 

He did the same thing with Obama stimulus money that he wanted to reject (but then accepted)

The comptroller's office in Texas is a downright criminal institution nowadays with its accounting practices.

And then when they finally admit that their numbers are lies, we're presented with a gigantic budget deficit that then destroys the school budgets.

Texas's government is total garbage today.

 

Wonder why bigtexxx and trader aren't praising their lord and savior governor slick hair?

 

Absolutely not. I called it, b****es!