By Ralph Forbes
With close to 30% of the total votes cast in the Iowa straw poll on August 13, Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) won a near tie with Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).
Only 152 votes separated them—but you would never know it if you depended on most establishment news media, which lionized the “top three Republican contenders,” Mitt Romney, Mrs. Bachmann—and newcomer Texas Governor Rick Perry.
If Obama was the cult leader four years ago, the media’s hallelujah choir is now singing the praises of Perry as the “hope and change” guy for 2012. The Texas governor, they claim, is “responsible for more than 40% of all of the new jobs created in America.”
But there’s trouble in paradise. More than any other single factor, Perry has immigration to thank for those numbers—most of it from Mexico. Perry creates jobs by turning Texas into a Third World country: Texico. Texas also sucks off the federal teat by taking highway money and Medicaid payments. Texas’s budget gap—$27 billion short of what it needs to maintain its inadequate services in the next biennium—is among the worst in the nation.
In other words, Texas has gained at America’s loss. Record oil prices that surged to $145 a barrel in 2008 propped up the Texas economy, while most Americans were extorted for $4 and $5 per gallon gas. About 9.5% of Texas hourly workers are paid at or below minimum wage, tying with Mississippi. Low cost of living also helped to make Texas among the nation’s fastest growing states, with the population jumping 20.6% to 25 million. About 25% of those were illegal immigrants.
This steady stream of low-cost labor has combined to fuel above-average job growth.Texas had annual employment growth of 1.15%, while the population was growing 1.89% every year.
Perry created a number of slush funds. The Texas Enterprise Fund awarded some $412 million in subsidies to companies “to create jobs.” But the Texas comptroller found that $119 million of that money went to companies that didn’t deliver the jobs they promised. Taxpayer-funded contracts that sent money overseas to create jobs were “disturbing” and “unacceptable.”
A second major fund under Perry’s control, the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, has also proved controversial. It spent some $320 million on tax credits and other subsidies for high-tech companies. The Dallas Morning News found that $16 million was awarded to companies with investors or officers who are large campaign donors.
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are also big business in Texas. The aerospace, aviation and war sectors have invested more than $900 million in Texas.
When Perry was the state’s agriculture commissioner, the federal government paid “farmer” Perry not to farm his 40 acres in Haskell County. Perry was paid $9,624 under the Conservation Reserve Program to leave his land fallow between 1991 and 1998. Perry’s tax returns from when he was in the legislature show he received $72,687 in agricultural program payments between 1987 and 1989.
Perry was the front-man for the Bilderbergers to foist the NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] Superhighway project—a quarter-mile-wide $184 billion boondoggle of toll roads, rail lines and utilities from the Texas-Mexico border all the way up to the border between Minnesota and Canada—to make it easier to flood America with foreign goods from China.
Perry mandated by executive order that every sixth grade girl, age 11 and up, be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease HPV—with Merck’s Gardasil vaccine—at a cost of $360 per shot. Gardasil caused many deaths and painful reactions. Lobbyists were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Merck funded Perry’s election campaign for years. Thankfully, Perry was forced to withdraw his order after the Texas Legislature blocked him.
Finally, Perry is also a political ally of the corpulent warmonger John Hagee meaning, if he is elected, his foreign policy will further entangle the United States in the Middle East to defend Israel.
Beware of this Texas governor who pledges “compassionate conservatism” but curses you with ruthless, endless wars based on lies, a wrecked economy, Third World servitude and a heartless security police state.
Ralph Forbes is a freelance writer based in Arkansas. He is also a member of AFP’s Southern Bureau.
