| After rejecting $556 million in federal stimulus dollars to expand unemployment benefits here in Texas, Governor Perry has decided to request another $900 million from our own Texas taxpayers' pockets to fund his office's business development initiatives. This comes after Perry's projects have already been sucking money out of our unemployment trust fund. Seems like Governor Perry's just in it for himself, and not for hard-working Texans who can't stay afloat in this tough economy.
News 8 reports today that Governor Perry has asked the State Senate for another $900 million to be added to the budget to fund his business development programs. The House is refusing, so Perry has taken his case to the State Senate, where the 19-12 Republican majority favors his agenda slightly better.
The $900 million would primarily go towards two discretionary funds overseen by the Governor's office: the Texas Enterprise Fund, and the Emerging Technology Fund. Neither are bad on the outset: the first fund helps business move to Texas or expand herein. The latter helps fund R&D. That's all well and good, except that the funds have faced criticism lately for a lack of legislative oversight. The Emerging Technologies fund recently drew fire over Perry's creation of a biomedical facility at Texas A&M, his alma mater, without sufficient oversight of the taxpayer-funded initiative.
Here's the catch: Perry's business-development projects are already paid for with our unemployment fund. From News 8:
The Associated Press Tuesday reported his Texas Enterprise Fund for businesses steadily pulls in tens of millions of dollars from the dwindling Texas unemployment tax pool.
[snip]
Each October, if the amount of money in the [Texas Unemployment Trust Fund] is above a certain level, 75 percent of that holding account money goes to the Texas Enterprise Fund and 25 percent to a skills development fund to help retrain workers.
This comes, of course, after Perry rejected $556 million in Federal stimulus dollars for unemployed Texans, because he didn't want to broaden eligibility and help more folks keep their heads above water.
The House already rejected Perry's initial demands because both funds have healthy budgets already -- $200 million and $100 million, respectively. They'd prefer Perry focus on bringing more money to Texas, rather than just giving it away:
back in the House, lawmakers have attached a provision in their budget that would zero-out the Enterprise Fund if Perry continues to reject federal stimulus money to fund unemployment benefits.
So lemme get this straight. Heck, lemme make a list.
1) Perry rejects $556 million in federal stimulus dollars because it would require broadening benefits and helping more Texans (and thus, spending the money).
2) Perry asks for $900 million in Texan taxpayers' dollars to fund his own business development initiatives without sufficient oversight or transparency.
3) Perry gets 75% of what's left in the unemployment fund for his own projects if it isn't spent by October.
All in all, not a bad deal for Governor Perry. He gets to reject Federal money, which appeals to his tea-bagging base; prevent spending more money on those who need it most; hog taxpayer dollars to fund long-term projects that won't necessary help suffering Texans right away; and then take whatever unemployment money he's managed to keep from the people of Texas to repeat the cycle.
Hurting Texans while appealing to the base? All in a day's work for Governor Rick Perry. |
