Gov. Rick Perry's beneficence to his donors might be our ticket out of this financial mess
I've got just the ticket for getting America back to work. It's pretty simple, actually! All we need to do is get every unemployed person in the country to cut Rick Perry a check for a couple hundred thousand dollars. Next stop: A new age of prosperity!
Lots of people have a pretty cartoonishly oversimplified idea of how money corrupts politics, so it's nice when that cartoonish oversimplification turns out to be totally 100% accurate, as it is in the case of Mr. Perry and the 150 Texans who have given him $37 million over the last decade. The L.A. Times reports what those "megadonors" got for their money:
"Permission to build a low-level radioactive waste disposal site in Texas" for $1.12 million.
"$25 million a year in subsidies" for a Formula One racetrack for the low price of $400,000
"Multiple transportation contracts" and a University of Texas board of regents appointment for "more than $320,000."
A $500,000 grant for a chicken hatchery and processing plant for $165,000
"They get the same thing that all Texans get," Perry spokesman Mark Miner said to the Times. (Enjoy your lucrative government contracts, everyone in Texas!)
The radioactive waste disposal site was by far the biggest coup. It required approval from multiple Perry-controlled commissions and a new law allowing private companies to own radioactive waste disposal licenses (followed by a law saying only one private company could do so). A team of geologists and engineers even recommended that the license be denied, but the state eviromental agency executive director ordered that the license be granted anyway. That executive director is now a lobbyist for the company that won the license.
As you can see, everyone wins, besides the people getting cancer after the radioactive waste seeps into the groundwater, as the geologists predict it will. (But that is a job-creator, for doctors?) In this unstable world, it looks like sending huge amounts of money to Rick Perry is one of the few reliable investments we've got left. If I had any money to invest, I'd send it to the Perry campaign! (And move to Texas and start a waste disposal company?)
So why not apply that principle nationally? Rick Perry will make the government work for you, as long as you send him money!
If you've lost your job and you're underwater on your mortgage, just scrape together $400,000, send it to President Perry, and you just might end up with a sweet government grant! Or even a job!
Americans, after all, hate the idea of giving a "free ride" to people who don't work hard and play by the rules. So what could be more fair than restricting government assistance to those who both need it and can afford to pay for it?
That is, probably, what our Founding Fathers intended.
So when conservatives talk about regulation what they are really saying is that the United States should conduct it's business and regulation like corrupt thugs in Russia. That will ultimately be good for? The rich who can live in clean gated communities. The rest of us can live in the wastelands ruled by the plutocrats.
Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry’s Politics Betray The Teachings of Christ
Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann advertise themselves to supporters and prospective voters as devout Christians who seek to change the nature of government to reflect “Christian family values,” but if voters take the time to compare their actions with the tenets of Christ’s teachings, they will find both candidates are the antithesis of a follower of Christ. First, it is important to review one very important commandment Jesus gave his followers that encapsulates nearly all of the Ten Commandments that do not deal with worshipping god, and it is the one bible verse that all Christians learn from a very young age. Jesus’ disciples asked him what was the most important commandment in the Mosaic Law and he replied, “You must love god with all your heart,” and “You must love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments the whole Law hangs” (Matt.22:37-40). Loving god is a personal dysfunction that is irrelevant to this discussion, but loving your neighbor is important because as Jesus alluded, it covers the parts of the Ten Commandments and Mosaic Law that deal with stealing, covetousness, adultery, and the various rules regarding interactions within society.
Bachmann and Perry have demonstrated that not only do they not love their neighbors, they hate anyone who does not adhere to their twisted religious views and neo-conservative agenda; more importantly, they hate people who need assistance. Both of the false Christians have shown their contempt for the poor by cutting programs that are specifically meant to feed and house the poorest among us. Each of the fakers claim that spending cuts are necessary because the government is too big and the country cannot afford to help poor mothers and disadvantaged children, but they have no problem giving the wealthy tax breaks and corporations entitlements. Their religion’s namesake said, ”If you want to be perfect, go sell your belongings and give to the poor” (Matt. 19:21).
