Rick Perry’s Pay-to-Play Scam

The media is all atwitter today after Texas governor Rick Perry threw his cowboy hat into the ring and announced his campaign for the Republican nomination for president. However, if there were any integrity in the press, Perry’s campaign wouldn’t last a week.

Rick Perry is an ill-informed, incompetent, political extremist, who barely graduated from Texas A&M University (with a D average) and has suggested that Texas should secede from the union. He supports discrimination against gays and lesbians. He doesn’t believe in either evolution or global warming. He admits that he has no solutions for the nation’s problems other than prayer. And just today he reiterated his position that Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”

But the the big problem for Perry is his brazen corruption as governor of Texas. The Dallas Morning News conducted an investigation last year that revealed Perry’s conversion of the state house into a pay-to-play scheme that filled his campaign coffers, and the pockets of his contributors, with cash.

Rick Perry - Pay-to-Play
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Apparently, the way to get Texas taxpayers to finance your business venture is to payoff the governor. Then the state whines about not having funds for education, health care, and other social services. The Wall Street Journal called this scheme “Rick Perry’s Crony Capitalism.” When the conservative Wall Street Journal finds your shady dealings repugnant, you have crossed line that most people didn’t even know existed. This is the sort of scandal that would torpedo a campaign that wasn’t propped up by Tea Party fanatics and Fox News.

As Perry rolls out his campaign he is already asserting that he can bring to Washington the same sort of “success” that he brought to Texas. That should frighten most Americans. Upon closer examination, the alleged miracle of the Texas economy is a myth based on false premises and peculiarities exclusive to Texas. Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times illustrates just how little the nation can learn, or benefit from, Texas’ program of “depressing wages and dismantling regulation.”

“What Texas shows is that a state offering cheap labor and, less important, weak regulation can attract jobs from other states. I believe that the appropriate response to this insight is ‘Well, duh.’ The point is that arguing from this experience that depressing wages and dismantling regulation in America as a whole would create more jobs — which is, whatever Mr. Perry may say, what Perrynomics amounts to in practice — involves a fallacy of composition: every state can’t lure jobs away from every other state.”

What’s more, Texas is now facing a projected 2012 budget deficit of 31.5% of its general fund. That makes it the third worst state deficit in the country. Even California is doing better. [Note: Texas trails only Nevada and New Jersey, both of which have Republican governors]

It is also worth noting that a recent poll showed President Obama beating Perry IN TEXAS!

“…the poll shows Perry trailing President Obama in heavily Republican Texas, which last voted Democratic for president in 1976, when Jimmy Carter was the South’s favorite son. Obama leads 47%-45%, even though Obama’s net approval rating is underwater at 42%-55%.”

So the question is: Why is anyone taking seriously the campaign of a governor who has driven his state into ruin; who has one of the the highest percentages of minimum wage jobs; who has one of the lowest rates of health care coverage; and who is demonstrably corrupt? How long will it take for the press to catch on that Perry is an evangelical huckster with no substantive record of achievement? He’s Elmer Gantry with a government job and gets his snake oil straight from the well.

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16 thoughts on “Rick Perry’s Pay-to-Play Scam

  1. In other words, Perry is a perfect Republican.

  2. You left out one crucial fact: God doesn’t like him. Months ago he declared a three day pray for the end of the drought ceremony. Since then that drought has worsened considerably. I don’t take it as definitive proof of anything, but I suppose religious Tea Party members who celebrate Perry’s godliness and humility might be forced to take that as some kind of sign.

    • I don’t know whether God likes Perry or not, but Perry is certain that he’s God’s favorite. In fact, this election may go down in history as having the most candidates who believe God told them to run. Why can’t God just make up his mind?

    • Oh no, that’s God punishing them for not killing all the liberals, muslims, atheists, progressives and pagans and whatever else. No he’d never punish them.

  3. Per Rick Perry’s description of Soc Sec as a ponzi scheme –
    If you go to the SEC website to review their definiton of a Ponzi scheme, Social Security isn’t too far off from that definition. SS doesn’t fall into the “fraud” part since it is law and not some individuals get rich scheme, but the similarities are great. If I was you, with your love of this program, I would be concerned that it could fall into that category because it could and verfy likely will collapse eventually without “fixes” – see Europe.

    • Re-read that definition. In no way is SS a ponzi scheme.

      • I read it more than once, it’s not a perfect fit, but it’s pretty darn close – split hairs if you like, but you tell me how the currently retired are being paid – by new workers payments to the government. There is no trust fund sitting there paying out benefits.
        it didn’t need to be this way, but unfortunately it’s become that.

        • A Ponzi scheme is defined like so;
          “a fraudulent investment operation that pays quick returns to initial contributors using money from subsequent contributors rather than profit”

          You think those currently receiving benefits never paid into it?
          Your only partially correct about new workers paying for current users. SS has no solvency issues for a long time in spite of the government borrowing from its fund, because it had a large surplus. Which came from regular workers paying into the system.
          There IS a fund sitting out there paying out current benefits.
          This program is like a retirement insurance policy, you pay in while working, it pays out when you retire.
          I am not splitting hairs here, comparing SS to a Ponzi scheme is just flat out wrong, no matter who espouses that notion.

          • I’m not sure this debate is worth anything because it appears to be about what you call this program, but using your information, but if it’s properly managed and not some kind of a ponzi scheme, how is it running out of money and expected to be out of money by some date without some infusion of new money into the system? How is that not a scheme? You can hope and believe what you want and I really don’t care what a presidential candidate calls Social Security, but it’s not a sound system long term – it doesn’t make any returns to keep it sound except us pouring more money into it. Depending on returns from Government debt is not good for you or me. I would start saving a lot if I was you or you could be eating cat food for dinner in your golden years.

            • Steve, if you can’t stay on topic, please do not post here. If you have something to say about Perry’s practice of pouring millions of government funds into businesses run by his campaign contributors, please do so. Otherwise, this is not a forum for you to hijack with whatever stray matter interests you.

            • Mark, you have total control. If you want to keep me from posting anything, just block me. I don’t use profanity (I did use “bullshit” once or twice) and I think my grammar has been ok, but if I’m not mistaken, you mentioned the “ponzi” scheme in your article, i just focused on that and one of your followers engaged.. Was it the cat food comment? If you want this to be about hating all republican candidates for your fellow libs, just block me and you won’t ever need to worry about me going off script again. I won’t take it personally – if I remember correctly, I’m just a world class idiot so you won’t be missing much.

  4. It really is becoming “Idiot America” when there’s so little notice made of Perry barely graduating from college with a D average – C’s, D’s, and one F on his transcript – while if he were to make even the most minor social conservative gaffe, we’d never hear the end of it. If any candidate decries abortion, gay marriage, and a handful of other evils, it almost doesn’t matter what else they do or can’t do. Like Perry’s bad grades in college, the shady dealings don’t matter at all to the support base as long as he claims to pray every day.

    • That is one of my favorite books on American culture.

  5. For all the hucksters out there parroting tea party mania to the effect that “Social Security is broke!” – watch Bernie Sanders rip them a new one and set the record straight…

    [VIDEO] Brave New Foundation:
    http://www.bravenewfoundation.org/2011/06/press/sanders-stars-in-expose-of-conservative-billionaire-koch-brothers-video/

    Note that Fox “News” is mentioned more than once…

    Social Security is NOT broke and to make the absurd claim that the pension program is a “Ponzi Scheme” says more about the parrots’ pea-sized brains than it does about anything else.

    Brave New Foundation: Producers of Koch Brothers Exposed documentary series [kochbrothersexposed.com]

  6. i think it was very disturbing to see how many people responded to rick perry’s religious scam..the man has no shame to use all these people and their faith to finance his bid for president.i came across one of the flyers at work from a lady who was making copies of it,she even invited me to attend the event to “rescue” our nation from a historic crisis.i almost laugh at her,but i just listened to what she had to say and she finally left.i can’t understand why people are so damn blind following this asshole,this man does not want progress or care about the people of texas.he clearly supports corporate america and worships the almighty dollar,not the god he so wants us to believe he loves.

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