Since Phil Gramm "the man most responsible for the 2008 economic meltdown," endorsed Rick Perry, it has been mentioned several times that Perry was a student of Gramm's at A&M.
Between the cowboy imitation and showing off pilot photos I would think of Perry as a George W. Bush protégé. Bush himself takes credit for discovering a far meaner version of himself and Perry has the bonus of being genuine religious nut as opposed to Bush's pandering to the fundamentalist.
You would think Perry's death penalty cover up would be enough to scare Americas stiff but leave it to Thom Hartmann to tie him to the real boogie man and offer a future view of an American economy with Rick Perry in the White House.
After nicely articulating a Phil Gramm history lesson, Mr. Hartmann closes with;
So why would the disgraced Phil Gramm, former Senator Phil Gramm, want Perry to be president? Well because Rick Perry learned everything he knows about markets and the economy from, guess who, Phil Gramm.
As a student at Texas A & M University Perry took class taught by Phil Gramm. Phil Gramm who called unemployed people "whiners." His exact words were, back in 2008 when he was John McCain's economic adviser, he said "We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about loss of competitiveness, America in decline." End of quote. Phil Gramm, the guy who put into law the 'Commodities Modernization Act' and another piece of legislation called 'Gramm-Leach-Bliley.' which ended 'Glass-Steagall' and set up our too big to fail banks.
Which both by the way helped his wife Wendy make a fortune as a member of the board of directors of Enron. Gramm's legislative masterpiece is often called the Enron loophole and much of Perry's wonderful economy in Texas is the results of oil prices tripling in the last decade and Texas is the home to lots and lots of oil refineries. So many in fact that Texas produces more pollution than any other state in the Union. Great way to jump start the economy Rick. It almost like you're channeling the Enron CEO Ken Lay who conveniently died just before he could testify at his own trial before spilling the beans on Phil and Wendy Gramm.
Phill Gramm helped make fortunes in the state of Texas, both when he was a Congressman and a Senator and when his wife helped run Enron. He even co-authored Ronald Reagan's first budget. Which cut taxes on billionaires, raised taxes on working people and began the death spiral of today's American working class. So I guess after destroying the working class advising George W. Bush, Gramm wants to finish the job with his protégé Rick Perry.
Forget the death penalty, Perry sounds like the nation voting for mass suicide.