The announcement by Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst that Texas can make its $28 billion deficit disappear by selling itself has hardly raised a hat brim here, because our dear legislature already prostitutes itself on a regular basis anyway. The Texas twister here is, the great unwashed bending over to pick up the grocery coupons we dropped are the ones who usually get screwed in these deals.
I actually wrote the following 5 or 6 years ago in an alleged humor column (with minor editing here). Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same...
I feel kinda silly finding out that everybody in Texas was fit to be tied when the state tried to sell a remote chunk of Big Bend State Park out from under us - and I didn't even know the darn thing was there.
The state park folks' shock at the uproar is understandable, since nobody ever actually went to this place anyway. And that brings to mind a scene from O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
"Why'd you sell your soul to the devil, Tommy?"
"Well, I wudn't usin' it..."
The would-be buyer suggested we think of it as more of a "land swap" than an outright sale. I'm not sure what that means, but if he owns Oklahoma, that might be a pretty decent swap for some Texas desert.
To be honest, I think the idea of selling off some little-used Texas assets is not that bad an idea.
Speaking of places that have fallen into disuse, wouldn't it be cool if Six Flags bought the capitol building? A "Six Flags is Texas" tour might go something like this:
"Ladies and gentlemen, behold the Throne Room. This is where Governor Perry is transformed into Legislator Perry who, for example, orders the school finance problem solved with the stroke of a pen. Coming soon: Chief Justice Perry."
"This is Smoke and Mirrors Land, where Gov. Perry makes his 65% for classroom instruction edict work...by redefining the classroom. He's assigned the job to a bunch of school superintendents and bureaucrats. No taxpayers. No teachers. Only bureaucrats. Ahem."
"Smoke and Mirrors is also where they fabricate press releases ballyhooing Governor/Legislator/Chief Justice Perry's defense of the little man in his cozy cottage with the picket fence...and where the loopholes are inserted into eminent domain legislation so that local governments can continue seizing Texans' homes and turning them over to entrepreneurs with bigger and better plans for the cozy cottage."
Wink. Wink.
"And here we have Looney Tunes Land - formerly the House and Senate chambers."
"Behold Roller Coaster Land, where the legislature now works on school finance. Notice that no matter how high the legislators get on school finance - or whatever they're high on at the moment - they always wind up at the bottom, right where they started."
"We'll take a break here in Contemplation Land, where visitors may sit and ponder why it took a regular session and two special sessions before Guv/Leg/Chief Perry decided Santa Ana's style of government cuts a lot more red tape than Sam Houston's."
"Watch your step here, folks. We're approaching a lobbyist crossing, and I'd hate to see anyone trampled to death. Resurrection Land is still in the development stage."
"And, oh yum, here is School Lunch Land, where state thinks up new ways to make school lunches so, um, interesting, that they wind up in the trash can. The upside is that child obesity in Texas will be stopped dead in its tracks. The downside is there's nothing in the trash can that you could convert to diesel fuel or interest a pig in eating."
"And, one of the amazing wonders of Six Flags is Texas - Casa Magnifica. This is where the Guv gets his teeth polished, his pompadour pomped, and is otherwise soaked in the magnetic charisma that enables him to regularly defeat political dynamos like Kinky Friedman. Kinky had a unique, if unsuccessful, appeal and that is, if you are gonna have a clown in the governor's mansion, he ought to be a professional."
"The rotunda is still the rotunda. This is where unsuspecting Texans stand and gawk at the ceiling like turkeys staring up at the sky in a thunderstorm."
Of course there will always be troublemakers like this visitor who refuses to stare at the ceiling: "Wait a minute. This is ridiculous. You can't buy the state capitol!"
Tour guide: "Oh really, now? You could have fooled me. Maybe we should make another run through that lobbyist crossing."