Will Rick Perry Ride To The Rescue?

The Republican Establishment is determined to roll the dice on Mitt Romney. He's rich; he has rich friends; he's vanilla and predictable, doesn't look like a freak and, most important, it's "his turn," always an important consideration in a dead-end bureaucracy like the Republican Party. But there's a problem: other than fellow Mormons and fellow vulture capitalists, no one likes him-- and the religious right just hates him. Sure, Republicans think he's better than Obama and many other people think he's no worse than Obama-- which is a helluva lot more positive than, say, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin or any of the other dwarves offering themselves up for the task. But still, there's something uncomfortable in everyone's craw about Romney. He's trying desperately to come off like an everyman, but he's even less successful at it than David Cameron was in the U.K. But if not Romney, who?

Enter Governor Rick Perry of Texas, either as a candidate of the religionist nuts in his own right (no one in the early states cares much about him yet) or as the one who can derail the dreaded Bachmann. No doubt some people do like him for some reason. I won't speculate on that and everyone I know in Texas just hates his guts-- but that's probably a good indication of why he's popular, or even just potentially popular, among Republicans, especially of the far right-wing variety. He's not as unpopular as Rick Scott, Republican governor of Florida, or Scott Walker, Republican governor of Wisconsin. And his July 11th polling numbers were actually even a point above Obama's. Let me go off on a little tangent for a minute and I'll circle back to Rick Perry in a moment. The tangent is Karl Frisch's brilliant analysis yesterday about how the deadbeat congressional Republicans manufactured the default crisis for their own political ends.

During the previous dare not speak his name presidency, both parties increased the debt ceiling so that we could pay our creditors for money borrowed to fund things already approved by Congress and the President. Nothing new there, the debt ceiling has been raised 72 times over the past half century.

Now, with Republicans in control of the House and with a filibuster in the Senate, suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of a debate, this time under President Obama. Which only goes to show you that nothing Obama does will be met without controversy from conservatives. He could take his young daughters ice-skating for Christmas and the right would accuse him of imitating Jesus by walking on water.

A group of 235 economists-- six of them Nobel Prizers-- have written Congressional leaders imploring them to promptly raise the debt ceiling, or risk “substantial negative impact on economic growth at a time when the economy looks a bit shaky. In a worst case, it could push the United States back into recession.”

Pair that warning with comments by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell that the “most important thing [Senate Republicans] want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president” and things begin to smell rotten.

If you doubt the penchant of Republicans to hold our economy hostage, perhaps Kentucky Senator Rand “Libertarian Magic Dust” Paul can change your mind. He threatened to filibuster everything in the Senate until there was a floor debate on the issue. Now, he never made it clear what he wanted to debate, but Majority Leader Harry Reid gave him that opportunity anyway by introducing a bill doing what he’d requested and wouldn’t you know it? Paul and 21 others voted against allowing debate on that bill. See, he’s so serious about the filibuster, he’ll even filibuster what he wants.

Republicans are banking on back-to-back economic collapses-- the first because of their Bush-backed policies, and the second because of partisan inaction-- but there couldn’t be anyone in their midst angling to benefit from the inability to act, could there?

Meet House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who has invested thousands of dollars with his friends on Wall Street in a fund that stands to make serious bank if we default on our obligations.

Cantor is betting against the American government, which I guess shouldn’t be all too surprising since Republicans have been betting against the government for generations. Heck, nearly every GOP campaign is premised on attacking the government. And when they do wrestle control away from the Democrats, Republicans govern in a way that would make anyone question our government’s purpose.

Current Beltway Republicans are just like their Bushian predecessors that got us into this mess in the first place. If we fail to meet our debt obligations, we will lose our perfect credit rating, which would, in turn, add billions of dollars to our debt each year in the form of increased interest. Talk about economic conservatism.

Well, talk about economic conservatism and talk about things Bushian and how could Texas not come to mind? Conservatives like to point to Texas-- Bush's and Perry's Texas-- as the model for how to do it the right way. Well... it may be how to do it the right wing way, but the correct way? That's a joke-- and Texans know it better than anyone.

For all the controversy over the national debt ceiling, here's a surprise: Since 2001, the debt load in conservative Texas has grown faster than the federal debt.

Texas has been borrowing more than most other states, too. And local entities, from cities to school districts to transit authorities, have been piling up even more debt.

From 2001 to 2010, state debt alone grew from $13.4 billion to $37.8 billion, according to the Texas Bond Review Board. That's an increase of 281 percent. Over the same time, the national debt rose almost 234 percent, with two wars, two tax cuts and stimulus spending.

The sets of numbers are not easily comparable, and not just because one is counted in billions and the other in trillions. National figures exclude some obligations, and the Texas total includes so-called conduit bonds, for which the state is not necessarily liable if the borrowers default.

Still, the trend is undeniable. While Texas lawmakers have refused to raise taxes-- and often criticize Washington for borrowing and spending-- the state has been paying for much of its expansion with borrowed money.

That's not a bad thing, if everybody can handle the debt service and spend the money prudently. Texas' population grew almost twice as fast as the nation's in the past decade, so it needs new highways, schools, prisons and more.

Local borrowing accounts for almost 85 percent of public debt in Texas, because the government is so decentralized. Combine state and local borrowing, and Texas ended fiscal 2008 with $216 billion in total debt, up from $98 billion in 2001, according to census figures. (The latest census data for local debt is 2008.)

The borrowing isn't slowing. New issues expected for 2011 include $2 billion for transportation, $434 million for water projects and $235 million for cancer research. All those are paid from the state's general fund.

Much more borrowing is planned for debt that's supported by revenue and user fees. And local borrowing dwarfs all the categories.

...Conservative writer Christopher Chantrill presents publicly available data on government finances and his estimates. Measured as a percentage of state product, he ranks Texas among the lowest on state debt and among the highest on local debt. Combine state and local, and in 2010, he estimates that Texas had debt of $8,943 per person, $380 more than the average for all the states. In 2001, the Texas debt load was $4,608 per person-- and $843 lower than the states' average.

Meanwhile Perry's in the news today-- not because of his secessionist/Confederate leanings but because he's being sued by a religious freedom group "in an effort to block his promotion of and participation in an all-day Christian prayer event to be held Aug. 6, arguing that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state."

The Freedom From Religious Foundation, which claims more than 16,000 members, including 700 in Texas, filed the federal lawsuit Wednesday in Houston, contending that Perry’s actions violate the Constitution's Establishment Clause by “giving the appearance that the government prefers evangelical Christian religious beliefs over other religious beliefs and non-beliefs.”

“We always say, beware prayer by pious politicians,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, who co-directs the group with her husband, Dan Barker, a former evangelical Christian minister who is now an atheist.

“Nothing fails like prayer,” she said. “It’s the ultimate political cop-out.”

The lawsuit, which comes as Perry flirts with joining the field of GOP presidential contenders, notes that the plaintiffs are “nonbelievers who support the free exercise of religion, but strongly oppose the government establishment and endorsement of religion, including prayer and fasting, which are not only an ineffectual use of time and government resources, but which can be harmful or counterproductive as a substitute for reasoned action.”

...“The answers for America’s problems won’t be found on our knees or in heaven, but by using our brains, our reason and in compassionate action,” Barker said. “Governor Perry’s distasteful use of his civil office to plan and dictate a religious course of action to ‘all citizens’ is deeply offensive to many citizens, as well as to our secular form of government.”

Perry has mixed religion with politics before. In April, he called on all Texans to pray for rain for three days as most of the state battled an extreme drought that led to massive wildfires that scorched more than a million acres this year, claimed the lives of two firefighters and destroyed nearly 400 homes.

It didn't work. Instead he called Obama and begged for relief for parched Texans.