Posted on 08/17/2011 8:20:17 AM PDT by Rational Thought
As Gov. Rick Perry has launched his presidential campaign, he’s turned to a talking point familiar to anyone who has heard him rail against the federal government over the last two years: the perfidy of the roughly $800 billion stimulus plan orchestrated by the Obama administration in 2009.
“Washington’s insatiable desire to spend our children’s inheritance on failed ‘stimulus’ plans and other misguided economic theories have given us record debt and left us with far too many unemployed,” Perry said in his announcement speech in South Carolina on Saturday.
In his 2010 book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington, Perry wrote this: "We are fed up with bailout after bailout and stimulus plan after stimulus plan, each one of which tosses principle out the window along with taxpayer money."
But the reality of Perry's relationship with fed-stim is complicated. Through the second quarter of this year, Texas has used $17.4 billion in federal stimulus money — including $8 billion of the one-time dollars to fund state expenses that recur over and over. In fact, Texas used the federal stimulus to balance its last two budgets.
(Excerpt) Read more at texastribune.org ...
I bet Texas was just trying to get its own money back.
Yes, old flip flopper, Perry, was against the fed printing money, but he was for using fed printed money to balance the Texas budget.
Yes, the money is basically stolen by the income tax...does Texas have an income tax? I hope not.
I would use every penny I could get so long as it didn’t have costlier strings attached.
The idea that a governor wouldn’t take federal money available for his state is ridiculous, even if as a national matter he opposed the wisdom of the federal program.
So no one can oppose Obama because they or their state or their constituents availed themselves of available federal grants?
I think not.
I don't have any problem with accepting the money after the bill passed, but I wouldn't be bragging about balancing the states budget if it was done primarily because of large influxes of federal stimulus funds.
So, in other words, Texas DID NOT balance its budget; it simply stole more from taxpayers to make up the difference.
That’s pretty funny. You have mail.
Correct!
Perry opposes this federal bail out crap but if Texas recieved stimulus money remember one thing. IT’S OUR DAMN MONEY!
I feel the same for those on unemployment. If you’ve been working for years you have been forced to pay for unemployment insurance for years with no way to opt out. If you are now unemployed you have a legitimate claim on that insurance. That’s NOT entitlement. It’s your damn money!
Or - in other words - Texas managed to claw back some of the buying power from the Fed that its own future taxpayers/current fiat holders will have to fork out - and they used it much more responsibly than the Fed would have done.
That money was stolen from Texas taxpayers as much as from anyone. Given the toxic fact of the stimulus, balancing the (low tax) Texas budget with the money is one of the more sensible things you can do with it.
Isn't hypocrisy something that evangelicals eschew?
Except Texas still pays more into the federal treasury than it gets back. One could say the taxpayers from other states are stealing from Texas.
Yep, and you could say that Perry did not balance the Texas budget, Obama did.
Texas has 7.8% of the total US population, payes 8.4% of the total US taxes and has spent 2.1% of the total stimulus.
Yes, it is obvious Texas is feeding at the Federal trough. [major sarcasm]
As far as I’m concerned, government owes me a great deal but I don’t intend to get what is owed. I could easily get disability but I’m not going to because my disability is not the fault of my neighbor and I can struggle through without it. Continuing to take the bait offered by the feds will only perpetuate the scam.
If government really wants to settle the score, they can stop using our money as a lure. In my opinion that means spitting out the bait like Nebraska recently did.
Nothing like changing the topic, Perry said he was against printing money, but he is for spending it. The percentage of the states take of the money was not the topic. If you wish to start a thread on the fairness of the handout start one.
I guess you could but then why aren’t other states who take more out of the treasury then they put in all in better shape then Texas? I am glad that if Texas got stimulus money ouyr government used it to balance the budget instead of blowing it all on high speed rail or some other boondogle. You don’t think the Texas state government had anything to do with that when compared to other state governments who pay less into the feds then they receive, also got stimulus money and are still sucking worse than Texas?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.