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As a States’ Rights Stalwart, Perry Draws Doubts

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As a States' Rights Stalwart, Perry Draws Doubts

Travis Dove for The New York Times

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, in South Carolina.

By MANNY FERNANDEZ and EMILY RAMSHAW

Published: August 28, 2011


AUSTIN, Tex. — As Gov. Rick Perry of Texas begins his presidential campaign, he is working hard to position himself as the leading Republican champion of states' rights, using his high-profile battles with Washington and his book on the dangers of federal power to build an ideological and constitutional rationale for his fierce anti-Obama message.

A curated site for information on Gov. Rick Perry's political career and policy positions: texastribune.org/perrypedia. .


From his lawsuits challenging federal health care and environmental programs to his suggestions that Texans were so angry with Washington that they might consider secession, Mr. Perry has repeatedly invoked the 10th Amendment — reserving to the states the powers not explicitly given to the national government.

Mr. Perry uses the issue of states' rights to give his candidacy an overarching theme, tap into the frustrations that have fueled the Tea Party movement and highlight the substance behind his swaggering style.

Though the governor has a claim to acting on these principles, he has come to publicly embrace states' rights as a defining issue only in the past few years, a period when the 10th Amendment has been a rallying cry for many Tea Party supporters, libertarians and others who make up his party's conservative base. And he has been inconsistent in applying those beliefs, drawing criticism from some states' rights advocates and raising questions even among fellow Republicans about whether his stance is as much campaign positioning as a philosophical commitment.

In one of his more well-publicized shifts, Mr. Perry proclaimed that gay marriage was an issue for individual states to decide, but backtracked in recent weeks and now says he supports a federal amendment banning gay marriage. He has also signaled support for various federal actions to restrict abortion rather than leaving the issue to states. And he used $17 billion in federal stimulus money to balance the state's last two budgets.

Despite his vocal opposition to what he has called "the unprecedented and massive federal overreach" of President Obama's health care overhaul, Mr. Perry accepted a $1 million federal grant last October for planning to carry out one of its key provisions. (Other Republican governors, including Rick Scott of Florida, have refused to use the grants.)

Although his 2010 book, "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington," describes his outrage that federal bureaucrats distributed more than $245 billion in farm subsidies from 1995 to 2009, the governor received some of that money. Mr. Perry, a former West Texas cotton farmer, received at least $83,000 in federal farm subsidies between 1987 and 1998, during the time he was in elected office, according to his tax returns.

At the Republican Leadership Conference in June, Mr. Perry said that while government plays an important role in helping a city recover from a disaster, "the real recovery" stems from hard-working individuals. Unfortunately, he added, Mr. Obama believed government was the answer to every need, a sign of the "arrogance and audacity" of the White House.

Three weeks earlier, in a letter to Mr. Obama, Mr. Perry struck a different tone as wildfires ravaged Texas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had approved grants to reimburse some of the local and state costs of fighting the fires, but Mr. Perry was seeking the additional federal aid that comes from a presidential disaster declaration. "Your favorable consideration of this appeal would be greatly appreciated," the governor wrote to the president, who ultimately granted Mr. Perry's request.

Mr. Perry's aides and supporters defend the governor's record, praising him for taking bold stands to strengthen state autonomy and fight federal overregulation. In 2009, Mr. Perry rejected $556 million in federal stimulus dollars for the state's unemployment insurance program, saying that the money came with too many strings attached that would require Texas to broaden its rules on who is eligible to receive benefits. Days before he announced his presidential candidacy, Mr. Perry formally requested that the federal government reimburse Texas $350 million — the estimated cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants in county jails and state prisons in 2009 and 2010.

(Page 2 of 2)

When asked whether the governor saw any of these examples as inconsistent with his states' rights stance, Mr. Perry's spokesman, Mark Miner, said absolutely not. If anything, he said, Texas — a so-called donor state that pays more in federal taxes than it receives — has done more than its part, stepping in when the federal government has shirked its responsibilities.

Mr. Perry began embracing states' rights as a major part of his political identity after Mr. Obama was elected president. It was a time when issues like government bailouts and the federal debt made the concept resonate among conservatives nationwide and helped fuel the rise of the Tea Party movement.

Bill Ratliff, a Republican who served alongside Mr. Perry as lieutenant governor from late 2000 to early 2003, said that states' rights were not a priority for Mr. Perry in those years.

"He probably always had a level of skepticism about federal intervention and federal programs, but then when the Tea Party movement began, he sensed that this was going to be the place where he could participate," said Mr. Ratliff, 75, now a lobbyist for public education. "I think he's the best I've ever seen at picking up on a trend, a movement, and getting out in front of it very early."

Critics say that there are inconsistencies between Mr. Perry's message and his record and that this has eroded his support among some of those in Texas who share the same limited-government beliefs, including libertarians, moderate Republicans and Tea Party activists. "What he says in the book and what he does are not the same," said Dave Nalle, national chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a group of libertarian Republicans whose Texas chapter has never endorsed Mr. Perry for governor. "He's a good salesman, no question about it. But he's selling something that's mostly a fiction, I think."

But even as some conservatives say he does not go far enough in adhering to a states' rights philosophy, Democrats are already using his stated positions to portray him as an extremist who would gut popular government functions like Social Security and Medicare.

Mr. Perry has described the defense of the 10th Amendment as the battle for the soul of America. In his book, he called Social Security a failure that was "set up like an illegal Ponzi scheme" and described Congress as "arguably one of the most incompetent regimes with one of the worst track records of mismanagement in the history of mankind." In two statements in 2009, he suggested that frustrated Texans might consider secession.

"We've got a great union," Mr. Perry said at a Tea Party rally in Austin in April 2009. "There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that."

In his book, he sets out a view that the founders intended a federal system that allowed "people of like mind" in the states to make their own decisions about how to live, while the national government's role was properly focused on national security. "From marriage to prayer, from zoning laws to tax policy, from our school systems to health care, and everything in between," he wrote, "it is essential to our liberty that we be allowed to live as we see fit through the democratic process at the local and state level."

The history of Mr. Perry's anti-Washington beliefs is complicated by the fact that over much of his time in office during the last decade he had little interest in publicly challenging his predecessor as governor, President George W. Bush, alongside whom Mr. Perry served as lieutenant governor. Mr. Bush oversaw a substantial increase in the size and scope of the federal government, both in post-9/11 security programs and in social programs like the creation of a prescription drug benefit for Medicare.

Though in his book he criticizes Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act and suggests it is unconstitutional, Mr. Perry accepted financing for the education program as governor. This fiscal year, Texas received $2.03 billion.


Emily Ramshaw writes for The Texas Tribune, which produces a twice-weekly local section in the Texas editions of The New York Times.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/us/politics/29perry.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&hp


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/us/politics/29perry.html?pagewanted=2&_r=4&hp#h
 
But he follows right in the hypocritical lockstep with most the politicians that now call themselves "Tea Partyiers"- screaming for federal budget cuts- but then whining and crying when it is their pork being cut ... :roll:

Perry slams Obama for closing down NASA's space shuttle program
By Alicia M. Cohn - 07/21/11 04:15 PM ET

Texas Gov. Rick Perry slammed the Obama administration on Thursday following the conclusion of NASA's final space shuttle flight.

The Obama administration has left "American astronauts with no alternative but to hitchhike into space," Perry said in a press release.



"The Obama administration continues to lead federal agencies and programs astray," Perry said, pushing for the administration to define its vision of NASA's mission and return to what he called the agency's "core purpose of manned space exploration."

The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed safely at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida early on Thursday morning, marking the end of almost 30 years of NASA space shuttle flights.

Republicans have criticized the Obama administration for closing the program, though the decision to retire the space shuttles was originally made under the administration of former President George W. Bush in 2004.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement Thursday following the landing of Atlantis that NASA would "continue the grand tradition of exploration" following the conclusion of the space shuttle program.

"This final shuttle flight marks the end of an era, but today, we recommit ourselves to continuing human spaceflight and taking the necessary and difficult steps to ensure America's leadership in human spaceflight for years to come," Bolden said.

Perry criticized the lack of a clear path forward for NASA.

"Unfortunately, with the final landing of the Shuttle Atlantis and no indication of plans for future missions, this administration has set a significantly different milestone by shutting down our nation's legacy of leadership in human spaceflight and exploration," Perry said.

NASA is a major employer in Houston, thanks to the presence of Johnson Space Center. However, Perry could also be ramping up his criticism of Obama ahead of a rumored presidential bid.

Perry, the longest-serving governor in the U.S., is reportedly considering running for the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
 
But he follows right in the hypocritical lockstep with most the politicians that now call themselves "Tea Partyiers"- screaming for federal budget cuts- but then whining and crying when it is their pork being cut

I have shown on here, as have many other Tea Partiers that we are against pork.. and want the fed budget trimmed..

is there something wrong with that thinking?
 
hypocritical thinking.

if a person wants budget cuts.. yet takes needed money to help his state.. he is a hypocrite..

few conservatives want all federal spending to stop.. we want wasteful spending to stop, we want UN-needed spending to stop..

why , so the limited federal money can be used wisely and to support the needs of the country..

we need roads fixed, and upgraded.. do we need a bridge to no-where..
(a bridge to support a growing island, an airports and to ease the limited ability of a town perched on a mountainside ridge so it can grow)

do we need a big dig project.. ( huge massive costly project with massive overruns)

the answer is yes.. we need the projects,.. but not at the cost they became...


if the bridge could be built for a few million.. or even tens of millions.. then it might have made sense..

the Mass road project made sense.. on paper.. but in reality it was a fools mission.. and should never have been funded..

same with the Atlantic city tunnel.. a road around town would have sufficed.. but when handed a bundle of money.. they wanted the biggest project they could get..

do we need border stations slated for closing to be upgraded?

no.. the money could go to upgrade our security in more practical means.

so maybe the liberals can understand this

we need some federal spending.. but only if it is needed, spent wisely and kept under-control.. a little common sense goes along way..

we do not need uncontrollable out of hand obnoxious spend parties..

and since they do not seem to be able to understand that, based on the views of some on here.. we have to take a harsher stance..

STOP SPENDING like there is no tomorrow.. now why is that hypocritical?
 
"Unfortunately, with the final landing of the Shuttle Atlantis and no indication of plans for future

sometimes the truth is so self evident.. no plans for the future seem to be the only plan the Obama administration has..
 
Oldtimer said:
But he follows right in the hypocritical lockstep with most the politicians that now call themselves "Tea Partyiers"- screaming for federal budget cuts- but then whining and crying when it is their pork being cut ... :roll:


Pork barrel is a derogatory term referring to appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district.


So which "Tea Partyiers" are crying about their "pork" being cut?
 

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