The Governor of the great state of Texas seems to be suffering from an acute case of denial where the $23 billion budget shortfall is concerned. That or he is too chicken to admit that his uncompromising conservative fiscal policies earn an astounding F-.
Last week I wrote about Dr. Paul Krugman's assessment of the Texas economy in his article entitled The Texas Omen. Krugman essentially asserted that Texas is the place where uncompromising conservative economic policies have been in place for years. And yet there is a $23 shortfall or deficit in Texas, the conservative economic mecca of the U.S. What does this tell us about the success of uncompromising conservative fiscal policies?
And what is a fiscally conservative state to do when faced with such a whopping shortfall?
Since conservative economists and politicians have an unholy aversion to tax increases of any kind the state has no choice but to cut spending and slash budgets. In Texas the lions share of the cuts will be shouldered by schools and health and human services. Education and all services in the state have already been cut to the bone. And now they are going to have their bones fractured and badly broken.
Third world state of Texas here we come.
Texas schools are already ranked second to last nation wide and we boast the highest number of uninsured residents. The cuts will be devastating.
Governor Perry's response, of course, is to deny that a budget shortfall exists at all. He charges that "outsiders" are talking about a bunch of silly nonsense. Now, folks should know by now when a Republican politician attacks a messenger of bad news for the politician it means the politician is blowing a lot of hot air, perfume and smoke to hide the smelly elephant in the room.
Not only have accomplished, experienced and brilliant "outsiders" acknowledged something that the Governor cannot admit but Texas insiders like former Comptroller Carol Strayhorn have also admitted to a huge budget shortfall.
In 2006 Ms. Strayhorn tried to warn Governor Perry and Lt. Gov. Dewhurst about the potentially whopping hole but apparently both men slapped their hands over their ears and jumped up and down while screaming "don't want to hear it. don't want to hear it." The truth does not play well with voters, both men must have cried. It is more important to fool them and make them feel good about themselves and us.
How's that loving feeling working out for everyone now that we know what we know?
Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn did not win friends five years ago when she warned Gov. Rick Perry and state lawmakers they were writing the "largest hot check in Texas history" during a tax overhaul that resulted in lower property taxes and a revised business tax.
Strayhorn told them their plan would fall about $23 billion short over a five-year period.
Now, five years later, state leaders are staring at an estimated budget shortfall of nearly $27 billion over the next two years.
The nation's economic collapse three years ago contributed to some of the state's revenue troubles, but the biggest problem is that the new business tax did not generate enough money to pay for the school property tax cut, Strayhorn said Friday.
"I absolutely knew I was telling them straight up as best as I knew," the former comptroller said. "I knew it would be awhile before you would see the results."
At the time, Perry rejected Strayhorn's warning — saying she underestimated the tax reform and ignored economic growth from property tax cuts.
He also said at the time: "Future legislators are going to have the opportunity to be working with some numbers that are more current than what they're working at today — and some honest numbers."
How about today's current honest numbers and the overwhelming success of the Governor's new business tax? The Governor's fiscal policies are flat out crazy as we will soon find out.
How about class sizes of 40 plus? Students in China and India are already eating U.S. kids' lunches in math and science.
Unyielding conservative fiscal economics means kids from Texas will be qualified to work as domestic servants in Beijing and Calcutta after they graduate.
Are we all happy yet? The majority of Texans must be proud to have voted for a magician who blows smoke and flashes mirrors while lying through his teeth, all in order to get elected and re-elected time and time again. The meaning of campaign catchphrases and slogans rings hallow when the hard ideology is put into practice. Folks will have low taxes but they will be required to pay thousands of dollars a year in order to supplement their children's education. If they can afford it.
As of yesterday our Governor Smoke and Mirrors actually denied the budget was in trouble at all. And where Perry is concerned discussions about the budget are merely abstract questions of semantics that has nothing to do with hard factual reality. It must be easy for those who will not feel any pain at all to ignore its punishing consequences.
Apparently the Turd Blossom Rove dropped by the Governor's office last week. Maybe he helped the Governor with his con artist spin job on a shortfall that exists but does not in Perry's alternative universe where 2 plus 2 does not have to equal 4. That or Rove is recruiting Mr. Smoke and Mirrors to finish off the job W. started in 2000.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the state Senate and decides which legislation gets voted on, spent a lunch with the Capitol press corps trying to convince them they've got the story wrong.
"There is not a $27 billion deficit, and I don't think there is even a $15 billion deficit," Dewhurst said.
He went on to say the rebounding economy would provide more revenue and to express his faith in the Legislature's ability to address the problem efficiently.
But it's easy for Perry and Dewhurst to talk; they don't draft the two-year budget. That job falls to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie.
"There is no shortfall, because we know we don't have the available funds to do what we did last time," Pitts told a conservative conference on Thursday.
Technically, he and other GOP leaders are correct. There is no deficit or shortfall as long as there is no budget, and Pitts said he won't reveal his first draft of the budget until this week.
That's no comfort to state agencies, or those who depend on them for employment or services. The agencies generally expect the same amount of money every two years. If they are lucky, they get a slight boost to make up for inflation and increases in the population.
But the state comptroller says Pitts has only $72.2 billion to spend, or about $15 billion less than he had when he drafted the last budget in 2009.
Outsiders say that budget was already bare bones, and more cuts will be devastating.
"Texas is short $27 billion to keep doing what we're doing," said F. Scott McCown, executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, an organization that advocates for the poor. "If you don't want to educate all of our kids, if you don't want to provide financial aid to worthy students in higher education, if you don't want to meet the critical needs of Texas families struggling to deal with the recession, then we're not short $27 billion."
Those who deny there is a budget crisis don't dispute there will be spending cuts. The Texas Constitution requires a balanced budget, and Perry has said he will veto any budget that raises taxes.
Dewhurst said he expects the state to eliminate 8,000 jobs, but he promised that most of those positions will be ones that are already vacant.
Pitts said every section of the budget will be cut, including public education, health and human services, higher education and the Legislature's budget, but he refused to discuss other details.
"We went through every agency and every program that those agencies performed. We looked at the core functions of those agencies, and we'd see what we need to fund out of that core function," Pitts said. "If it wasn't their core function, we made a decision in the House that we may not fund those other things."
Legislators have a few options to minimize the cuts, but they have been reluctant to use them.
First is the "rainy day fund," a $9 billion savings account created for just this kind of situation. But Republican lawmakers, who comprise a 101-49 majority in the House, say they won't touch it.
Why touch the hail mary money when Republican lawmakers can ruin future educational and career opportunities for millions of Texas school children instead? And why not throw more poor children off of state funded health services? Sadly, no lawmaker in Austin will feel any of the pain they inflict. Most of them float around in bubbles in their self-constructed and narrow universe.
God forbid should we even whisper the word taxes in Texas, either, even if it means saving children and the elderly. And yet the Texas GOP loves to loudly and self-righteously wear its Christian values on its sleeve.
House Ways and Means Chair Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, believes there won't be new taxes and that "doesn't leave very many attractive solutions."
"The cuts, to many Texans, are going to be unacceptable. They're not going to understand why they lost their job, or why their benefits were cut, or why people got laid off," Oliveira said. "It's going to be a very tough session, and there will be body bags at the end. There are going to be a lot of members who don't come back because of this problem."
The Texas GOP will make Marie Antoinette and Ebenezer Scrooge proud.
Residents of other states run by Republican Governors and state houses should pay close attention to the unyielding and uncompromising conservative economic mecca of the United States.
And earth to Texans. Isn't it well passed the time in which we elect politicians that do not loath education, the poor, immigrants, minorities, middle and working class Texans?
As is the case with demagogues and narcissists like Sarah Palin and George W. Bush, Rick Perry is simply not hard wired to work for anyone other than Rick Perry.