Day: August 16, 2011

Categories
Politics Texas

Rick Perry Admits To Making A Major “Mistake” in Texas

Rick Perry wants to be president of the United States, and in order for that to happen, he must not only gain the votes of independents, but also the votes of the Religious conservative base. That’s why last Saturday Perry led a “Prayer Session”, pandering to this sect. Turns out though, that there was more pandering needed to win over the this group, so admitting that he made a major mistake in Texas, was as good a place as any to start.

The mistake Perry is now regretting, was a mandate he set up in 2007, requiring all sixth grade girls in Texas to get the HPV vaccine. HPV –  Human Papillomavirus – is the cause of, among other things, cervical cancer. Although this decision to have girls be vaccinated seemed like a good idea, conservatives have been getting down on Perry for making this decision. They claim this mandate is “too much government involvement.” At the time of his decision, Perry explained it this way;

“I understand some of the concern some of my good friends have about requiring this vaccine, which is why parents can opt out if they so choose. But I refuse to look a young woman in the eye 10 years from now who suffers from this form of cancer and tell her we could have stopped it, but we didn’t.”

“Others may focus on the cause of this cancer, but I am going to stay focused on the cure. And if I err, I’m going to err on the side of protecting life.”

That was his decision in 2007. The issue even followed him up to the 2010 Texas election, when his Republican primary rival Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, said this in an interview;

“[Perry] mandates 12-year-old girls to be vaccinated with an executive order for heaven’s sakes. “Didn’t even ask; didn’t even ask for an expert opinion; didn’t even ask the legislature for their approval. That is dictatorial.”

Now, realizing he’s on the national stage, Perry feels the need to flip-flop and explained his decision as “a mistake.” This is his new position, as he explained Saturday in New Hampshire;

“The fact of the matter is, I didn’t do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry.”

It should also be noted that the drug Perry was mandating for the HPV vaccine, was made by Merck. Perry’s former chief of staff was a top lobbyist in Texas for Merck.

Call him a flip-flopper, call him a panderer. Just don’t call him a man of conviction.

Categories
Politics Republican Texas

Rick Perry’s Texas Has A $25 Billion Budget Shortfall

So far, so good. Rick Perry just announced his intention to run for the Republican nomination for President in 2012, so the main stream media is falling all over him, praising his “job creation skills” in Texas, his “rigid good looks,” his “Texas slang,” the ease at which he collects massive donations, and his “Bush mannerisms.”

And although these “traits” in themselves may be considered a plus by some, they have no bearings on his actual governing and presidential capabilities. Take for example this story that is, so far, ignored by the media; Rick Perry’s Texas has a projected budget shortfall of over $25 billion over the next two years.

This month the state’s part-time legislature goes back into session, and the state is starting at potentially a $25 billion deficit on a two-year budget of around $95 billion. That’s enormous. And there’s not much fat to cut. The whole budget is basically education and healthcare spending. Cutting everything else wouldn’t do the trick. And though raising this kind of money would be easy on an economy of $1.2 trillion, the new GOP mega-majority in Congress is firmly against raising any revenue.

So the bi-ennial legislature, which convenes this month, faces some hard cuts. Some in the Texas GDP have advocated dropping Medicaid altogether to save money.

Yep. Cutting education and dropping medicaid to save money… that’s the Republican way!

Categories
Barack Obama Iowa Politics

Tea Party Argues With The President In Iowa

President Obama has always called for civility in this ugly, sometimes racially motivated environment called the American political system. And on his most recent engagement with the American people in an open-air town hall meeting in Iowa, the Tea Party used the president’s call for civility as an opportunity to show how uncivil they really are, shouting accusations from the audience to Mr. Obama and engaging the President in what is being described as a “sparing match.”

This report from Yahoo.

US President Barack Obama went head-to-head with a prominent conservative Tea Party activist, in a microcosm of a political clash that will play out in the 2012 election.

Ryan Rhodes, a leader of the group in Iowa, took on Obama during an open-air town hall meeting, which marked a moment of new intensity in the president’s campaign for a second term.

Rhodes shouted out that the president’s calls for more civility in politics had little chance of coming to pass after “your vice president is calling people like me, a Tea Party member, a ‘terrorist.'”

His question referred to media reports that Vice President Joe Biden made such a remark in a private meeting with House of Representatives Democrats at the height of a debt showdown earlier this month.

The clash came as Obama was intent on wrapping up the meeting in the shadow of a red country barn draped with an American flag, as the sun set on a rural corner of Iowa.

“I know it’s not going to work, if you stand up, and I asked everybody to raise their hand… I didn’t see you, I wasn’t avoiding you,” the president said, but later circled back to answer Rhodes’s question.

“I absolutely agree that everybody needs to try to tone down the rhetoric,” he said, before going on to detail some of the more explosive charges that conservatives have laid against him.

“In fairness, since I have been called a socialist who wasn’t born in this country, who is destroying America and taking away its freedoms because I passed a health care bill, I am all for lowering the rhetoric.”

Obama and Rhodes later engaged in an animated conversation as he greeted supporters on a rope line after the event, and the activist later told reporters that he believed that Obama was indeed a socialist.

Exit mobile version