He's doing great work on this, go over and give him some kudos!

Rick Perry

Cap and Trade/AGW

Note that there are multiple cases of him trashing that bill in 2009.

He is suing the EPA over "bad science”. I think he and TX are the only State that has done this.

Strong positive here

Gun Control

LOL, what can you say? He carries a weapon and shoots coyotes while jogging and he is from TX. If he came out pro-gun control they would run him out of State.

Nuff, said, strong positive here

Small government in general (spending and regulation)

Taxes

He is also list as a member of the Tea Party movement

When the TX Comptroller causes Amazon to leave the State over the "so-called” internet loophole (which isn’t) he went ballistic. He called for legislation that restored the ruling that distribution centers with no storefront would be forced to collect sales taxes. Unfortunately the quest for taxes in the State legislature overrode him.

Some of the liberal "fact check” organizations like to ding him for signing into law small tax hike bills on stuff like fireworks to fund different projects but I don’t see that as an issue.

I will give him a positive on the tax issue.

Spending

I can’t find a whole lot on his policies for spending. It looks like that he is against big spending in general but it is hard to track down any specifics. I understand that TX has a huge deficit right now so there had to be some "spending” going on. I will have to give him a neutral here mostly for lack of information.

Government Regulation

I will have to say that his record here is poor to mixed. As evidenced above, he is strongly against burdensome Washington regulations and control over the States. But there are instances that really hit him hard in TX.

First the infamous Trans-Texas Corridor project which he pushed to further the connections through TX from Mexico to Canada. He would use imminent domain to take a massive amount of TX land and fund the project through tolls on the roads. After massive opposition by Texans the legislature passed a bill to defeat it. He vetoed the bill (after returning to the State from overseas) just before the legislature adjourned. It appears he fought hard for this massive project including proposing legislation which would "reform” imminent domain making it EASIER to take land. I have seen posts here by his supporters that say he finally backed off on the deal. I can’t find anything to support that contention. It appears that the massive project was killed first in Washington and then in Texas by the State Legislature. If any of the Morons have any info with links to show anything different from that please let me know and I’ll update this. But to me, this is a MAJOR negative hit.

Another hit is the infamous Gardicil Vaccine via executive order (something we have been killing Obama over). This order created a huge controversy in TX for several reasons. (1) It was done via executive fiat (2) It was expensive costing $360 except for "poor” (3) Social cons didn’t like it over the sexual implications (4) A lot of people worried about the safety of the drug even though it had FDA approval (keep in mind that at the time ALL vaccines were under attack because of the bogus Lancet study.) (5) In addition, there was a huge conflict of interest with the makers of the drug and Perry with implications of cronyism and possible corruption.

His supporters maintain that there was an opt out provision. The problem with that was that it required the parents to request and complete paperwork. IOW, work through a social bureaucracy to maintain your own personal choices. Although we will never know how that would have ultimately worked, we know how it has generally worked in the past (poorly). The legislature passed a bill that killed this requirement and he "allowed” it to go into effect.

My position is kind of mixed on this. I am generally in favor of immunizations, however, in one of this nature it would have been much better to work through the legislature and debate a bill rather than do it via executive fiat. If he had done that these problems would have been avoided. Now we don’t know if killing this was a good deal or not. I have to give him a big negative on this one as well.

I can’t find much else about Texas regulations in general. I did find that he had established some kind of record on the number of vetoes but no details on what he had vetoed.

So in the end on regulations, I have to give him a strong negative. That, in my opinion, pushes him into the negative category for small government. That seems hard to accept for someone who is supposed to be a member of the Tea Party, but that is the way the cookie crumbles.

Socialized Healthcare

He strongly opposes Obamacare and wants it repealed. The Texas AG has joined with the other States in the civil action against the law.

However, much like regulations, he is in favor of the State implementing socialized medicine. He helped establish the children’ social healthcare program in Texas.

His best action thus far on health care was the fight to reform Texas medical liability laws.

I’ll give him a positive here, but it is not a strong one.

Border control/Amnesty

His support for the TTC is the first hit here.

His rhetoric is that the Feds need to put boots on the ground to halt illegal immigration and enforce existing law.

He opposed a Texas version of the AZ law saying it is not right for TX.

He has stated he opposes the notion of sanctuary cities and led the fight pushing for the Texas Sanctuary cities bill which ultimately passed.

I could not find any position that he had taken on the 2006 McCain amnesty bill.

It appears he is trying to walk a thin line here to prevent angering TX Hispanics. I give him a neutral here.

Abortion

He is a strong right to life candidate.

He also pushed through a bill requiring TX women to get a sonogram before an abortion. (Good for anti-abortion, bad for regulatory stance).

I would rate him as positive here.

Summary

4 positive, 1 negative, 1 neutral

Overall he appears good, but I have some serious concerns on his "small government” bonifides. His stance on border control/amnesty is somewhat weak as well. I can support him as a candidate and he would go on my short list if/when he announces. He is worthy of support, but I would caution the Morons on trying to make him the "Party Savior” for 2012 because the rest of the field is not satisfying their needs.

I do hope the club for growth does a wrap-up on him and is able to get some more info because that is the area that he is getting killed in here.

Posted by: Jay in Ames at June 22, 2011 10:12 AM (UEEex)

Posted by: LC Aggie Sith at June 22, 2011 10:15 AM (+bSoE)

Posted by: Dick at June 26, 2011 01:56 PM (Tj88Z)

Hide Comments | Add Comment