Perry's Budget Whacking Axe has Consequences

[Sandy]

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-pol ... 59097.html

In a state with a history of deadly, destructive wildfires, and a cycle of extreme drought, underfunding the budget available for fire fighting is probably not a good idea. But those corporate tax cuts in Texas are as much of a priority as frying prisoners in the electric chair. Throw into the mix high property taxes, required because the state cuts corporate taxes, there is no personal income tax, and school districts, counties and municipalities receive little revenue from the state fund, and you have a high percentage of homeowners who have to choose between paying their taxes and keeping their property, or homeowner's insurance. Oh, and because the state refuses to regulate the insurance companies, it has some of the highest property insurance rates in the country, further reducing the ability of homeowners to buy it.

None of that is a good combination for this summer of 2011, when Texas burned while Rick Perry flitted from tea party debate to tea party debate.

But I suspect that the tea partiers, based on how some of them reacted to the scenario placed before them during the debate the other night, could care less about whether the homes of 4,500 Texans have gone up in smoke in the past three weeks, with about 30% of them uninsured. As long as corporations get tax breaks so that the "risk takers and investors" can "create jobs" (bunch of bunk), who cares that some fellow American citizens have been financially ruined and emotionally flattened?

And shame on anyone who claims the name of Christ and takes part in that bunch of baloney.

[Dave Roberts]

Sadly, somehow that has become the orthodoxy of the political Christian right.