On the surface, Perry is a godsend to a party looking desperately for someone, anyone to defeat an infinitely vulnerable Barack Obama. The Texas conservative is a good-looking, smart-talking career politician who campaigns like a Tiger Shark and touches on talking points with extreme precision.
But Perry, the man who once hinted at a Texas secession from the United States, has the type of baggage that needs to be aired out in public.
The Governor with the Texas-sized ego, has not only managed to rule his state with an iron hand, but he has even grander aspirations, such as a complete re-write of the United States Constitution-- a desire he details in his book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.
In Perry's ideal world, the 16th and 17th amendments would be eliminated completely.
While the 16th amendment's establishment of a federal income tax may be a popular target among less informed, more reactionary voters, Perry's dislike for the 17th amendment should raise more than a few eyebrows.
The Lone Star State Governor would like to repeal the 17th amendment, which provides for the direct election of Senators, and return to the days when government insiders would directly choose state senate representatives because, as he claims in his book, "The American people mistakenly empowered the federal government during a fit of populist rage in the early twentieth century"
With essentially a hand-picked Senate, Perry's next step, again, according to his book, would be to give Congress the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a two-thirds vote.
Other constitutional changes would involves the abolishing of lifetime tenure for federal judges as well as the inclusion of an amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
Constitutional tinkering notwithstanding, Perry's own record in Texas should raise many a red flag.
One bragging point for his home state is the fact that, as he likes to proudly claim, "about 48 percent of all the jobs created in America were in Texas."
However, what Perry fails to mention is that most of those jobs were government jobs, funded by a Federal Government he publicly rejects as over-reaching and intrusive. As a matter of fact, the self-proclaimed fiscal independent, dipped heavily into Barack Obama's stimulus funds, using billions of federal dollars to balance his state's budget (Budget balancing being another bragging point for Perry). Then, while still publicly denouncing Obama's stimulus, he would double-dip at the Federal teet, using $2 billion in Build America Bonds for highway upgrades and another $182 million for “public improvements.”
Despite Perry's characterization of Texas as a paragon for job creation and economic paradise, the claims, once again, don't stand up to the scrutiny of investigation.
Sporting an 8.2% unemployment rate, Texas rates in the middle of the pack compared to the other states and holds the distinction of having the highest percentage of workers in the nation without health care (26%, compared to the national average of 17%). Also, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Texas has the highest percentage of workers paid at or below minimum wage, 9.54%, compared to the national percentage of 6.0%.
Under Perry's laissez faire corporate attitude, Texas has also taken the national lead in carbon dioxide emissions-- a direct correlation to Perry's opposition to regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and his steadfast belief that global warming is a drummed-up political ploy from liberals. The Governor even described the 2010 BP oil spill as an “act of God” while speaking at a trade association funded by BP.
Perry's Utopian Texas home turf, where there is no personal income tax, is the template he'd like to use for the re-design of the nation. But what happens when the equalizing income tax is eliminated? If Texas is the template, the poor and middle class will have to bear a greater burden. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the poorest 20% of Texas residents have to pay a greater share of their income in gasoline taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, property and sales taxes to make up for the money not being generated by income taxes. The end result is that the poorest Texans pay about 12% of their income in taxes while the wealthiest 1% pays only 3%.
The oft-repeated GOP talking point is true-- 46% of the country does NOT pay federal income tax. However, the reason for this is that many of those 46% live below the poverty line, are senior citizens, and/or part-time workers. Without federal income tax revenue, the government would not be able to operate without significantly raising the other forms of taxes-- Again, something that would hit the poor and middle class significantly harder than the nation's top earners.
There's plenty more to point to when it comes to Rick Perry, like the decimation of the Texas education system, which has led to Texas ranking at the bottom of most national educational indicators as well as the undisputed leader in lowest percentage of adults with high school diplomas and a 49th ranking in SAT scores.
One could also point to Perry's steadfast belief that states should have the right to opt out of Medicare and Social Security, something that would cause untold suffering and could actually crush many hospitals that would be forced to provide essential, emergency services to a daily swarm of uninsured people who have to use the emergency room as their primary source of care.
With a raging ego and a pathological need to blindly pander to big business, the savior of the Republican Party just may be the most dangerous man in America. Perry knows how to campaign and he doesn't think twice about hitting below the belt. Beware.
Source:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/310565
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