From today's Houston Chronicle Blog
Gov. Rick Perry has drawn the ire of a number of federal labor unions following a statement he made on the campaign trail that those federal workers who don’t agree with his restructuring plans for federal agencies should be sent “to some really God-awful place” to work.
At a town hall in Derry, N.H., Perry repeated his campaign line about restructuring federal agencies, stating that “government should do a few things, but do those few things really, really well.”
Speaking about Health and Human Services workers, Perry said that those who try to “block” his redirection of federal grant money should be disposed of in the only way he sees possible.
“I don’t think you can fire federal bureaucrats, but you can reassign them. So reassign them to some really god-awful place,” he said to laughs from the crowd.
The way Rick’s been stumbling through his appearances lately, he’ll never know whether the crowds are laughing with him, or at him. Once he realized that he’d never be the class valedictorian, he set his sights on class clown, and decades later, it’s still his “go-to” comfort zone.
Let those other intellectual folks dazzle the audience with their grasp of macroeconomic theory and international geopolitical nuance. Rick will be remembered for his oh-so-human memory lapses, phony self deprecation, and “oops” moments. "See folks: I’m just like y’all! Everybody forgets stuff, like where they left their car keys, or why they drove all the way to the supermarket only to wander the aisles aimlessly, wondering what three items they were supposed to pick up." Or what three agencies they want to eliminate...
These days, the mere fact that Perry can string together a couple of complete sentences is hailed as a campaign coup. If he can include his hatred for all things federal and mention God in the same sentence, it’s time to notify the Pulitzer Prize committee. We have a winner!
Expectations are so low that if Rick shows up for an event and his breath fogs a mirror, his team runs a victory lap, and everyone’s laughing and high-fiving each other.
But federal workers unions aren’t laughing. William R. Dougan, National President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, called Perry’s comments “irresponsible and insulting to the 2.1 million dedicated federal employees serving our country every day.” In Dougan’s view, Perry’s position on reassigning federal workers is a politically-based attack.
“It comes as no surprise that Governor Perry would launch such baseless political attacks on federal workers,” he said.
Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees in 31 different agencies, echoed Dougan’s thoughts. She said that Perry’s emphasis on federal workers as the problem was misguided.
“The problems we are facing in our country today are not the fault of the federal workforce. Despite significant staffing shortages, continual threats of government shutdowns and the fact that they are working under a two-year pay freeze, federal employees continue to do exemplary work protecting our borders, inspecting our food supply, providing services to our veterans, the elderly and the disabled, safeguarding nuclear materials and more,” she said.
Follow along below the hole in the Texas economy that would result from the elimination of federal jobs in the Lone Star State...
Perry’s love-hate relationship with the federal government is legend here in Texas. He wants them out of our lives. Of course, that would mean the end of the Texas Miracle. It turns out, the feds are one of the main employers here in the Lone Star State.
The Department of Defense alone has 15 military installations in Texas, including:
• Fort Hood, Bell County (yes, this one has been in the news…)
• Fort Bliss, El Paso
• Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio
• Naval Air Station (NAS) Corpus Christi
• Fort Worth NAS Joint Reserve Base
• NAS Ingleside
• Kingsville NAS
• Brooks City-Base, San Antonio
• Dyess Air Force Base (AFB), Abilene
• Goodfellow AFB, San Angelo
• Lackland AFB, San Antonio
• Laughlin AFB, Del Rio
• Randolph AFB, Universal City
• Sheppard AFB, Wichita Falls
While we generate our share of criminals, you’ll be relieved to learn that Texas is also home to 14 federal prison facilities:
• Federal Correctional Complex – Beaumont
• Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) – Bastrop (center of recent wildfires)
• FCI – Beaumont
• FCI – Big Spring
• FCI – Fort Worth
• FCI La Tuna – Anthony
• FCI – Seagoville
• FCI – Texarkana
• FCI – Three Rivers
• Federal Detention Center – Houston
• Federal Medical Center Carswell – Fort Worth
• Federal Prison Camp – Bryan
• Federal Security Low La Tuna – El Paso
• United States Penitentiary – Beaumont
Of course, we can’t forget NASA… since the first word ever spoken on the moon was “Houston”, as in “Houston, Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed”. NASA’s Johnson Space Center (also known as “Mission Control”) is facing job cuts with the termination of the Space Shuttle program, but in its heyday, it employed over 3000 people.
We’re also home to numerous federal facilities for the:
• US Department of Energy
• US Department of Homeland Security
• US Drug Enforcement Administration
• US Customs and Immigration
• US Department of Agriculture
• US Department of Labor
• US Department of the Interior
• US Department of Transportation
and many, many other federal departments. As they say, the federal government has been “very very good” to Texas.
But Rick’s perfectly willing to throw all those federal folk under the bus as he scrambles to prove that he’s truly the Secessionist-in-Chief, ready to lead… the federal government. While he can’t always remember which of the federal agencies he’s eliminate under his reign of error, in the mean time, he’s content to blame the workers, even those who struggle to hold up what’s left of the middle-class sky in the Lone Star State.
Of course, the irony of the situation is lost on the class clown, who wants to take credit for the “Texas Miracle” job growth, much of which was fueled by federal money. It’s a love-hate relationship. That kind of thing is really tough when your mind is already reeling from having to remember the names of countries and stuff for those annoying debates.
Dougan offered Perry a different perspective on what would constitute a “God-awful place”–and Dougan’s idea hit a bit closer to home than Perry might like.
“If Governor Perry wants to know what ‘a god awful place’ looks like, he should imagine Texas without thousands of dedicated federal employees defending its border, staffing its VA hospitals and extinguishing its wildfires,” he said.
Oops…