Guest Column: GOP Understands Texas Voters — For Now
The convergence of the legislative endgame on the 2012-2013 budget and the May UT/Tribune poll have directed a lot of attention to the seeming contradictions in public opinion regarding spending and revenue. Among critics of the Legislature’s budget, many discussions, including some in the Texas Tribune, have fed criticism that the Legislature has suffered from a lack of leadership in the face of a confused public, particularly in defense of those who are likely to feel the brunt of the budget cuts most: families with children in public schools, local school districts, and Texans who depend on social ...
Comments (16)
Joe Rodgers via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tea Party sucks and they will drive this state into the gutter!!!
Suzy Liz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That's what they r doing in Florida now, too.
Ann Pittman-Thompson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I feel like a total minority in the state of Texas - a woman, over 60, and a reasonable, compassionate thinker. None of those identifications have any place in the State of Texas it would appear at this time!!!
Ann Pittman-Thompson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And I would add a Christian who believes in not judging others and treating all people with dignity and understanding. Maybe I need to work on not judging the judgmental!!!
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
With the TEA Party infiltrating Texas politics, rationale thinking is now out of style. Taking orders from the command post is. Many believe the command post is big business out to line their pockets. Are some as Bob once sang "only a pawn in their game"? History does tend to repeat itself.
poryorick
Well, that's depressing. I'm sure we'll start to see by next lege whether ideological voters can stomach having their infirm parents in the house, their children's lack of extracurricular options and denial of service in emergency rooms. And, oh, so much more.
Autumn Williams Keiser via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I have two reactions to this piece. 1: clear evidence that republican leaders ARE doing what their electorate are asking them to do. I don't like it, but at least it is true representation. 2: Along the same lines as Bambi's comment, there is no accounting in this kind of analysis as to WHY constituents want this. Where is this very hard line of reasoning coming from? Isn't it coming from the leaders on the right? More and more we (on BOTH sides) develop our thoughts in a feedback loop - listening to sources of information that confirm our beliefs, thus reinforcing them. It seems Henson's conclusion is our only real hope - republicans will see the result of their budget preferences in a negative way (likely because of personal experience) and change their mind. Cold comfort.
Earl Wills
So, this time its the Tea Party everyone blames. In the past, groups ranging from Pro-Choice to Anti-Abortion, from Environmentalist to Capitalist have all shaped the arguments and legislation from Austin. Nothing new here. The squeaky wheel gets greased. And unfortunately there are a lot of wheel's that want attention. But while everyone whines and moans about the Tea Party they should also look at the budget and what put us into the debt side of the ledger... getting out of a $27B hole won't be fixed solely with tax increases. Cuts had to happen. If it affects one, it affects all. I don't want education to suffer either but obviously there is a problem there and a way to fix it has to be determined. Throwing money at it sure hasn't worked.
Stephanie Willis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The typical Republican voter in my part of the state is totally uninformed. All they know is Republicans and the Tea Party are "aginst Obummer." Most are not willing to do much investigating even though every one of their kids attend public schools.
Clay H. Courtney via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Voter turn out in our state is abysmally low. Anyone to claiming to have the "will of the people" should honestly be saying "We have the will of the majority of the 15% that showed up to vote". Primary voting numbers are even worse.
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@Stephanie when they polled those Republicans against Obama all they could say was "I do not like him". When asked why they could not say. The TEA Party has done such a good job of spinning hate.
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Bambi, because most of us wouldn't know where to start with specifics. The Czars, Obamacare, the Porkulus non-jobs bill, the bizarre foreign trips and policies. I can either give your 2 hours of specifics or just say 'I don't like him'.
Ann, treating all people with dignity and understanding doesn't cover Tea Partiers, right?
Autumn, I think you are getting some of the picture. However, you ASSUME the budget decisions will have a neagive outcome. Where I can POINT TO EXAMPLES of what happens when you give in to ever increasing taxes. California (classrooms up to 40 to 1) and New York, both places with fleeing populations.
Some of us endeavor to make this place a bit less of an austin echo chamber; as this survey shows, that is NOT the majority Texas view.
Aldo Merino via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And that same survey shows just how far right the Tea Party/Republican base has gone, even by Texas standards. It may explain matters a bit, but it should also serve as a warning.
I do love some of the specifics listed though. Czars! (Unspecified and unqualified) 'bizarre' foreign trips! Oh, the horror.
And those wonderful simplifications about NY and CA (which, as a standalone state, would be the world's 8th largest economy). Clearly, it must be taxes.
Dennis Boyter
Mr. Openshaw! Where do we begin? I guess the czar canard: perhaps you should do a little fact checking (http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/czar-search/). Bizarre foreign trips? This is so ridiculous. Perhaps you are a Mitt Romney supporter and missed the Politifact "Pants on Fire" rating. (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/03/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-barack-obama-traveled-around-glob/). Porkulus? The stimulus program was a problem because it was insufficient, due largely to opposition from politicians that deride anything "Obama". There is considerable evidence that many hundred of thousands of jobs were either saved or created. An indisputable fact is the comic pictures of Republican governors and congressman proudly proclaiming new monies for their constituents - all from the reviled stimulus package. Obamacare? Ah, the Frank Luntz talking point. So, you like the current health care procedures in America? For profit insurance companies have your best interest at heart? No problem with that extra thousand dollars a year you pay to cover emergency room care for the uninsured? I too could talk at length about your dislike of President Obama, but it would not require two hours to refute your anemic arguments.
DMedina
Interesting slicing of the data Jim but wonder whether those who are advocating budget cuts would parse a little more carefully? Sure they want cuts but would they prefer that those cuts come primarily from the corporate welfare funds and funding of benefits for non-citizens rather than education and healthcare which seems to be the only areas this legislature is focused on?
Philip Diehl
I recently spoke to a Tea Partier /Christian Rightist who reflexively rejected the possibility that a decade-long rise in temperatures and the extreme weather of recent years might have anything to do with climate change. She was more inclined to think it might be a sign of the end time foretold in Revelations.
Who can have any reasonable expectation that these folks will connect the dots when they (and we) face the consequences of their policy choices? Stagnating middle class income growth, dramatic increases in income disparities, deteriorating public schools and public health, are some of the consequences of 30 years of their tax-cutting, starve-the-beast policies, but who among these ideologues is facing up to those hard facts? Then there's the maddening recent example of their incapacity to see the real causes of the 2008 financial meltdown and to blame it on big government and big taxes.
No, when the sh#t hits the fan, they'll be convinced it's somebody else's sh#t.