For Perry, Inconsistencies in States' Rights Mantra
As Gov. Rick Perry begins his presidential campaign, he is working hard to position himself as the leading Republican champion of states’ rights, using his high-profile battles with Washington and his book on the dangers of federal power to build an ideological and constitutional rationale for his fierce anti-Obama message.
From his lawsuits challenging federal health reform and environmental programs to his suggestions that Texans were so angry with Washington that they might consider secession, Perry has repeatedly invoked the 10th Amendment — reserving to the states the powers not explicitly given to the federal government.
Perry uses the issue of ...
Comments (36)
Jack Suggs via Texas Tribune on Facebook
"What conservatism in this country is about is government failure. Conservatives talk about government failure all the time, constantly. And conservatives, when they're in power, deliver government failure." - Thomas Frank
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Apparently hating the federal government is something you can do a la carte. Cool.
Adam Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Go Perry ;)
Carolyn Moon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
He's always consistent. Pander to the corporate and the ignorant.
Thomas Darby
The country does not need an inconsistent President. It is past time Governors used the 10th amendment. When corporations get so large the CEO and the Board cannot make decisions that apply to the company the divide the corporation into profit centers. This brings decision making nearer to the individual affected by the decision. With over 300 million people spread over 3.5 million square miles and a budget so large the Congressional Budget Office cannot keep up with the spending, it is time the States took over much of the Federal functions.
Mark Paulson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Our borders are as porous as all the other states, in fact, it's the most open, so I don't buy that one.
Mark Paulson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And making toll roads where the profits go to his buddies in France instead of back to Texas, that does not sound like a success to me.
Charles D Stephens via Texas Tribune on Facebook
There is no way an Idiot can think Logic, he's idiot friends!!! If you want to know the truth about a Texan go to Texas!!! :-D
Charles D Stephens via Texas Tribune on Facebook
...Logical
Glenda Hawthorne via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And just where will Texas get the money to "step up" you freakin' moron?! Fix the STRUCTURAL DEFICIT!
Louie Heras via Texas Tribune on Facebook
All depends on what the Koch bros want.
Rudy Gonzales
Perry's inconsistently consistent is taking federal monies and spreading it around for his buddies in high offices and big business, but screams and hollers about the requirements to get the money! Perry's incompetency is superseded only by his ineptness, as was seen in his college transcripts. Perry's trying to hide his traveling and official duties under the guise that it's no one business. This is the typical action of the TEA party as they think they are above the laws of the land. Perry and the TEA party believe they can make pronouncements or pass laws to govern without taking into consideration we all do no go to their church or believe in their GOD! Perry's Trans-Texas fiasco and HPV debacle point to his real desire to do for himself and his closest buddies rather than for all Texans!
Barbara Nalls Golson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
look at texas schools, the poor who cant pay their electric bill, wheres the money. he balanced the budget, to make himself look. poor us if he becomes president, fools
Barbara Nalls Golson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Perry go back to the gov mansion, so we can stop paying for your house and all the maint o n the grounds ass
Josh Flynn
Since education dollars are so important the comment "This fiscal year, Texas received $2.03 billion in No Child Left Behind financing." I suppose the author is suggesting Perry should have not accepted the federal dollars thus reducing the education budget by $2.03 billion. Since the education budget is 60% of the entire state budget how does the writer of this story suppose the money would come from. Apparently the writer of this story either hates children and education or thinks Texas should take the lead of California and go bankrupt...now THAT will help the children won't it? Texas ranks 35th in federal income tax vs. receipts but that will all change soon because the fed will be bailing out CA because the state government is out of control. The writer should take a look at the states with the lowest ratio of fed $ received vs. the debt incurred. You will find that the states that don't get the fed $ simply borrow to make up the difference. Your children will have to pay it back, but what about their children’s future. I believe the compassionate thing to do is balance the budget and not expect our children to pay for our benevolence.
Eva DeLuna Castro
"Perry’s spokesman, Mark Miner, said ... Texas — a so-called donor state that pays more in federal taxes than it receives — has done more than its part, stepping in when the federal government has shirked its responsibilities"
In the past, yes, but Texas hasn't been a "donor state" for quite some time. "On an annual basis between 1981 and 2003, Texas almost always paid more in federal taxes than it got back from Uncle Sam. But since 2003 the reverse has been true, with Texas receiving more than it paid in five out of seven years, which is close to routine."
www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/apr/22/rachel-maddow/msnbc-host-rachel-maddow-says-texas-routinely-rece/
Not mentioned at the link above, but available from U.S. Census Bureau data: federal dollars pay for more services in Texas than do state and local government taxes/revenue combined.
Bonnie McGuire
I couldn't agree more Rudy!! Well said!
Josh Flynn
@Eva DeLuna Castro check your facts from the source and not the left wind drive by media
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html
There has been no year for which TX took more than it gave using the very reference Maddow uses.
You will find quoting Maddow can be very hazardous to your character.
Eva DeLuna Castro
Josh, you didn't bother looking at the Texas Politifact on this, did you. They looked at the Tax Foundation report (latest yr, 2005). And more recently, at information from the Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service; see links to original source data that Politifact used. Texas (and most states) have been recipient states for quite some time now. Why do you think there's an annual federal deficit? Almost every state is paying less in federal taxes than is spent there by federal agencies/programs.
Josh Flynn
@Eva DeLuna Castro I'm using your references, if you have a different reference, site it. But you don't because there is no such reference. The facts are the facts; not only does TX give more than they receive the fed borrows more than that and gives it to mismanaged states. TX is getting penalized for mismanaged state governments from across the country.
Eva DeLuna Castro
Have already cited the sources and provided links as to where they could be found, but here it is again, with more specifics:
http://www.census.gov/govs/cffr/ for federal spending by state (2009 is the latest)
Texas: TOTAL DIRECT EXPENDITURES OR OBLIGATIONS $ 224,338,605,325
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=237233,00.html for taxes paid by state (2010 is latest)
Texas in 2009: $200,521,512,000 in IRS gross collections; $37,022,653,000 in tax refunds to Texas federal taxpayers
Spending is higher than taxes in 2009. You can check those websites, as TX Politifact did, and find the same for 2008, 2005, and two other years since 2003. (Total: Texas has been a "net recipient" state in 5 of 7 years since 2003)
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Too bad Ricky. For we are FED up with your lies your misinformation, your attacks on minorities and women. You are the worst Gov. in the history of this state. You are a FAILURE!
Josh Flynn
You are manipulating data that hasn’t been verified for your own agenda. Take a look at what is going on and you will see that every piece of data that comes out of Washington is being adjusted to meet the reality of what is going on. Unemployment figures, GDP everything is changing from what is "Estimated" to reality. The IRS is still auditing 2008 & 2009 tax returns, those numbers are estimates until they finalize. I represent taxpayers before the IRS and personally know on firsthand account that the numbers you are sighting are estimates at best and if the current trend of revisions holds true you will find that TX is not a beneficiary of the federal government and quite the opposite being that TX is doing its best to protect the rest of the country on the border.
Eva DeLuna Castro
@Josh Flynn:
Take a look at the Tax Foundation's methodology and you'll see that they've made three major adjustments to the original spending and tax numbers they got from federal agencies.
I didn't adjust anything, just posted facts. Or "factual estimates at this point in time," to be precise.
You're right about audits. But can't people also amend prior-year tax returns to LOWER their federal tax liability? Maybe the numbers I cited are actually too HIGH for 2009. We won't know for sure for another few years, obviously, but I sincerely doubt they'll have been revised upwards to the tune of $61 BILLION (or 37%) for Texas taxpayers alone. Until you can prove otherwise, I'll stick with the latest facts available -- $224 billion in federal spending in Texas, versus $163 billion in federal taxes paid (net).
Josh Flynn
I can think of one variable still in dispute and that is $20 billion from BP. And I just got an audit notice for one of my clients for 2008 which increases his liability UPWARD $117,113.38 and for 2009 increase of $236,800.50. Those are just two examples of how wrong you are. http://jb.bz/irs_tax_docs.pdf
Eva DeLuna Castro
I would be completely happy to be proven wrong, if that meant that the federal deficit/debt is reduced through higher tax collections rather than through cuts to Medicare, Social Security, etc. Especially in a state such as Texas that depends so much on federal funds for health care, military/security spending, environmental protection, highways, child care, reducing poverty and malnutrition for the elderly, and so on.
$236,800.50 in higher federal taxes gets TX about 0.0004% of the way to "paying in" more than it got back in 2009; only 99.9996% of $61 billion to go (or about 257,000 more examples like the one you cite).
Or, BP could be joined by two other corporations whose federal taxes paid goes from zero to $20 billion in one year. That works too.
Josh Flynn
Even if you took 100% of everyone’s wages over 250K you would still need to cut your precious federal entitlement programs. I suppose you believe that all federal government program run at 100% peak efficiency since you can't tolerate the thought of government waste and solving that problem by cutting spending. Throwing more money at a problem does not make it go away nor does it make it better. Don't you care about future generations, don't you care about the children.
Eva DeLuna Castro
"Throwing" more money at a problem actually CAN make it go away and DOES make it better.
Poverty rates for elderly people in the U.S. were almost 30% in the mid-1960s; now they're below 10%. http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf p 70
That's because of Social Security benefits.
Lack of health insurance is only a problem for 1 out of 20 elderly Texans (4.5%), compared to 1 out of 3 working-age Texans who are uninsured (34%), and 1 out of 6 TX children uninsured (17%), in 2009
That's because of Medicare.
Nothing run by humans--whether federal/other govt, nonprofit, or private sector--operates at 100% peak efficiency. Military contracting is a prime example. Yes, let's get rid of all the waste in that, along with any fraud, like heath care providers submitting fake or inflated bills to Medicare/Medicaid. But that won't solve the whole problem. Taxes as a % of the GNP will still have to go up if we want to do more than just "care" about the children, or the elderly, while fighting two or more wars. Notice the historic peaks? http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=151
Josh Flynn
One last retort for you last comment. Funding for education has doubled while during the same time frame school enrollment has gone up 20%. Doesn't look like throwing money at education is working out to well is it.
Eva DeLuna Castro
Federal funding for education, or all TX funding (state, local, federal)?
Not that it matters much. That's another area we haven't really "thrown" more money at, once you adjust not just for enrollment growth but for inflation. Or do you think schools operate in a world where utility bills, school bus gasoline costs, employee health insurance, etc. stay the same every year?
Per-pupil real spending in Texas has flatlined for at least the last decade, and will drop considerably (over $1,000 per student) in the next two years, unless property taxes go up. And from 2000 until 2009, the high school graduation rate for young adults WAS improving significantly. Who knows how much better a job schools could have done with more funding?
Finally, schools are also spending more on special ed (federal IDEA program) for children who in past decades would have gotten nowhere near the level of services they get now.
Josh Flynn
It is what it is. You obviously have not or will not understand basic economics. I can see you just through everything against the wall and see if anything sticks. You will never convince me that government is the solution to any problem. GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM.
Eva DeLuna Castro
Facts tend to stick better than non-facts, so that's what I've thrown so far. I understand lots of things about economics -- such as the multiplier effect of federal spending on health care or the military, and the role that publicly funded infrastructure plays in economic development. Ever been to a Third World country?
Government's not perfect, but it (or rather, all of us paying local/state/federal taxes) have given me a free grade-school education/ undergrad Pell Grant/ subsidized master's degree from UT, made sure that my house had water and electricity when I got ready for work this morning, and paid for the interstate and city streets/traffic lights that got me safely to work. And didn't military research/DARPA lead to the creation of the Internet, allowing us to have this discussion?
Thanks, everyone!
Josh Flynn
Throw it ALL there. SOMEBODY had to pay for your "free" education. Don't fool yourself. The more money poured into higher education has only made it more expense for those who can't get your Pell grant. And those that do qualify still owe more at graduation then when government wasn't so involved. All you have done is put money into the hands of liberal professors to educate children on the virtues of government while soaking the students. They allow an assistant to teach so they can write new text books to sell to the students further enriching the liberal ideology. Defense is the main reason for government and yet that is the only thing you think worthy of cutting. You my friend have been drinking the government cool aid too long. I am sure you have never worked for or are currently worked for the government. Which if you have makes your opinions biased and self-serving.
Bonnie McGuire
@ Josh & Eva- you both are obviously well educated so why not just agree to disagree? Neither has been able to sway the others' views, so why beat a dead horse? Especially when the discussion turns to rethoric.
I just have a one question for you Josh. If you think so little of higher learning educators, how did you believe the education you recieved?
Josh Flynn
I entered higher education skeptically and used the same method as the Founding Fathers, historical reference and a desire to find the truth regardless how harsh that truth may be. I want to know the whole truth and account for it.
Bonnie McGuire
Thank you for your insight.