TexasBred
Well-known member
jingo2 said:
Only in the democratic primaries.
Perry is In!
- Thread starter BRG
- Start date
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Only in the democratic primaries.
Steve
Well-known member
TexasBred said:
I am glad the liberals are vetting this guy.. after all he may be the next president..
we should look at him and his liberal ties closely..
it might just be a case of..
but we had better look.. and look hard..
A
Anonymous
Guest
Reading up on Perry- I find that just like Palin, he's one that likes to delve around with secessionist ideas...
I don't know how he can hope to unite a widely divided country when talking about seceding and dividing it even further...
I thought the secessionists learned their lesson the last time they tried that- and it ended with their their leader fleeing and getting caught dressed as a woman to avoid capture and hanging...
Maybe if President Johnson had continued his prosecution for treason- and hung him as a traitor- these folks wouldn't be so vocal supporting tearing our country apart again now.....
I don't know how he can hope to unite a widely divided country when talking about seceding and dividing it even further...
I thought the secessionists learned their lesson the last time they tried that- and it ended with their their leader fleeing and getting caught dressed as a woman to avoid capture and hanging...
Maybe if President Johnson had continued his prosecution for treason- and hung him as a traitor- these folks wouldn't be so vocal supporting tearing our country apart again now.....
Mike
Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
The story of Jefferson Davis is a myth and a lie. Just like yourself.
Yes, I can prove it with eyewitness testimony by several Union & Confederate soldiers written after the capture.
You better hope I never meet face to face with you.
Somebody would take a tumble.
lightninboy
Well-known member
Is there any doubt that Woodrow Wilson and F.D.R. were agents of the New World Order?
Is there any doubt that Obama is an agent of the New World Order?
Is there any doubt that Rick Perry is an agent of the New World Order?
Is there any doubt that Obama is an agent of the New World Order?
Is there any doubt that Rick Perry is an agent of the New World Order?
Bullhauler
Well-known member
Mike said:Oldtimer said:
The story of Jefferson Davis is a myth and a lie. Just like yourself.
Yes, I can prove it with eyewitness testimony by several Union & Confederate soldiers written after the capture.
You better hope I never meet face to face with you.
Somebody would take a tumble.
You sure like to type big. Typical Alabama white-trash I guess.
A
Anonymous
Guest
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_58411.shtml
Look at this site Perry was big on is. Cost Texas taxpayers a lot, Electricity to the company at a cut rate. Really bent over and kissed Toyota ass. Highest priced pickup and lowest wages. The workers may not be able to buy a Thundra on the wages paid.
Look at this site Perry was big on is. Cost Texas taxpayers a lot, Electricity to the company at a cut rate. Really bent over and kissed Toyota ass. Highest priced pickup and lowest wages. The workers may not be able to buy a Thundra on the wages paid.
Mike said:Oldtimer said:
The story of Jefferson Davis is a myth and a lie. Just like yourself.
Yes, I can prove it with eyewitness testimony by several Union & Confederate soldiers written after the capture.
You better hope I never meet face to face with you.
Somebody would take a tumble.
:lol: :lol2: :dunce:
mikey has his robe and hood on again, must have had a long night, eh mikey :roll:
:tiphat: :wave:
Sounds like you had a long night in the barrel eh flounder< can't find any cut and pastes to destroy the cattle industry EH flipper? so now it's attacks and name calling EH
Personal insults EH Terry?
Terry the Wolf CALLER whose lifetime goal is to destroy Americas stock producers, failing that he likes to try and align himself with PHONIES
Personal insults EH Terry?
Terry the Wolf CALLER whose lifetime goal is to destroy Americas stock producers, failing that he likes to try and align himself with PHONIES
Close-up: Texas under Perry
Health care falters in state
By PATRICIA KILDAY HART and GARY SCHARRER HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Aug. 17, 2011, 8:04PM
This is the second of four reports looking at the state of Texas infrastructure under the tenure of Gov. Rick Perry, a GOP candidate for president.
Seven years ago, when Jake Margo graduated from Texas A&M University medical school, he chose Rio Grande City, one of the poorest towns in Texas, to begin his career. There, he plunged into grueling 80- to 90-hour workweeks seeing a blur of patients with every medical issue imaginable, often feeling guilty about leaving his clinic.
Why choose a community that promised such hard work? It's Margo's hometown, and the state of Texas offered a tantalizing loan repayment for physicians willing to practice in remote areas in desperate need of doctors.
"You are filling a huge need in one of the most remote communities in the state," Margo said.
This year, however, state lawmakers facing a $15 billion budget shortfall slashed funding to the loan-repayment program that encourages doctors like Margo to set up shop in underserved areas.
As Gov. Rick Perry travels the country in his bid for the Republican nomination for president, his and Texas' record on health care issues — particularly in light of his criticism of the health care reform bill touted by President Barack Obama — will draw fresh scrutiny.
With 26 percent of its citizens lacking health insurance, Texas ranks the worst in the nation for health care coverage. Premiums are well above the national average. The number of Texans who qualify for Medicaid has grown 80 percent since 2001.
While Perry trumpets the state's balanced budget, he fails to mention that lawmakers this year cut $805 million from doctors serving Medicaid patients, and that they also postponed $4 billion in Medicaid costs for payment in the next budget cycle.
The state's population growth of 4 million new residents over the last decade, coupled with budget cuts to medical education and Medicaid providers, has put Texas health care access on a dangerous trajectory.
Ranks 48th out of 50
Perry touts his lawsuit reform policies, which helped lure 17,000 new physicians to the state, but that hardly made a dent in Texas' growing needs for health care professionals.
More than 5.2 million Texans live in areas designated as official health professional shortage areas.
Texas ranks 48th out of 50 states in the number of physicians per 100,000 residents. In addition to cutting the loan repayment program, lawmakers this year reduced state support to graduate medical education by almost 40 percent, ensuring that many medical school graduates will leave Texas to other states for residency programs. Since statistics show that doctors usually begin their careers where they train, that means Texas taxpayers have footed the bill to educate doctors who move to others states.
Lawmakers also slashed 80 percent of the state's investment in the production of primary care doctors by reducing funding to a loan repayment program - like the one Margo took advantage of - and a primary care mentoring program. Texas Academy of Family Physicians CEO Tom Banning said the impact of the cuts means "we will have fewer physicians caring for Texas patients at time we need to be growing that base."
Other budget cuts - particularly an 8 percent cut in reimbursement rates to hospitals - could undo the settlement of a federal lawsuit by constricting the availability of health care available to Medicaid recipients, experts say. The state had agreed to improve its payments to hospitals and doctors to ensure that Medicaid patients have somewhere to go when they get sick.
John Hawkins, senior vice president of the Texas Hospital Association, noted that the 8 percent cut to hospitals came on top of a 2 percent cut in the last budget, in addition to a 23 percent cut to trauma care funding. In all, he said, the new state budget will "increase costs to those with health insurance, require higher local taxes and reduce access to health care services in communities statewide."
Most of Texas' new jobs are low income and have been accompanied by a soaring number of Texans who qualify for Medicaid - from 2.1 million in 2001 to 3.5 million today.
"We can be sure that everyone who is moving here either does not necessarily have a job or they are possibly forced to take a job where they are under-employed," said Hawkins. "They likely cannot afford health insurance so they put more pressure on state services that are currently underfunded."
His view was confirmed by Harris County Hospital District's Dr. Bob Trenschel, who has seen an exponential growth in demand for services.
"I liken it to pouring 20 ounces of water in a 16-oz glass. It can't fit. And the demand for services continues to be extraordinarily high," Trenschel said. "You almost can't build capacity in the system fast enough."
Governor's response
Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said Perry believes he could improve Texas health care access if the federal government gave states a block grant for the Medicaid program.
She also pointed that the Legislature passed, and Perry signed, legislation that "enacts cost savings and quality improvement measures in the Medicaid programs" by giving incentives to reduce emergency room use and expanding managed care.
[email protected]. [email protected]
Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7701850.html#ixzz1VPfBo6Hg
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7701850.html
Health care falters in state
By PATRICIA KILDAY HART and GARY SCHARRER HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Aug. 17, 2011, 8:04PM
This is the second of four reports looking at the state of Texas infrastructure under the tenure of Gov. Rick Perry, a GOP candidate for president.
Seven years ago, when Jake Margo graduated from Texas A&M University medical school, he chose Rio Grande City, one of the poorest towns in Texas, to begin his career. There, he plunged into grueling 80- to 90-hour workweeks seeing a blur of patients with every medical issue imaginable, often feeling guilty about leaving his clinic.
Why choose a community that promised such hard work? It's Margo's hometown, and the state of Texas offered a tantalizing loan repayment for physicians willing to practice in remote areas in desperate need of doctors.
"You are filling a huge need in one of the most remote communities in the state," Margo said.
This year, however, state lawmakers facing a $15 billion budget shortfall slashed funding to the loan-repayment program that encourages doctors like Margo to set up shop in underserved areas.
As Gov. Rick Perry travels the country in his bid for the Republican nomination for president, his and Texas' record on health care issues — particularly in light of his criticism of the health care reform bill touted by President Barack Obama — will draw fresh scrutiny.
With 26 percent of its citizens lacking health insurance, Texas ranks the worst in the nation for health care coverage. Premiums are well above the national average. The number of Texans who qualify for Medicaid has grown 80 percent since 2001.
While Perry trumpets the state's balanced budget, he fails to mention that lawmakers this year cut $805 million from doctors serving Medicaid patients, and that they also postponed $4 billion in Medicaid costs for payment in the next budget cycle.
The state's population growth of 4 million new residents over the last decade, coupled with budget cuts to medical education and Medicaid providers, has put Texas health care access on a dangerous trajectory.
Ranks 48th out of 50
Perry touts his lawsuit reform policies, which helped lure 17,000 new physicians to the state, but that hardly made a dent in Texas' growing needs for health care professionals.
More than 5.2 million Texans live in areas designated as official health professional shortage areas.
Texas ranks 48th out of 50 states in the number of physicians per 100,000 residents. In addition to cutting the loan repayment program, lawmakers this year reduced state support to graduate medical education by almost 40 percent, ensuring that many medical school graduates will leave Texas to other states for residency programs. Since statistics show that doctors usually begin their careers where they train, that means Texas taxpayers have footed the bill to educate doctors who move to others states.
Lawmakers also slashed 80 percent of the state's investment in the production of primary care doctors by reducing funding to a loan repayment program - like the one Margo took advantage of - and a primary care mentoring program. Texas Academy of Family Physicians CEO Tom Banning said the impact of the cuts means "we will have fewer physicians caring for Texas patients at time we need to be growing that base."
Other budget cuts - particularly an 8 percent cut in reimbursement rates to hospitals - could undo the settlement of a federal lawsuit by constricting the availability of health care available to Medicaid recipients, experts say. The state had agreed to improve its payments to hospitals and doctors to ensure that Medicaid patients have somewhere to go when they get sick.
John Hawkins, senior vice president of the Texas Hospital Association, noted that the 8 percent cut to hospitals came on top of a 2 percent cut in the last budget, in addition to a 23 percent cut to trauma care funding. In all, he said, the new state budget will "increase costs to those with health insurance, require higher local taxes and reduce access to health care services in communities statewide."
Most of Texas' new jobs are low income and have been accompanied by a soaring number of Texans who qualify for Medicaid - from 2.1 million in 2001 to 3.5 million today.
"We can be sure that everyone who is moving here either does not necessarily have a job or they are possibly forced to take a job where they are under-employed," said Hawkins. "They likely cannot afford health insurance so they put more pressure on state services that are currently underfunded."
His view was confirmed by Harris County Hospital District's Dr. Bob Trenschel, who has seen an exponential growth in demand for services.
"I liken it to pouring 20 ounces of water in a 16-oz glass. It can't fit. And the demand for services continues to be extraordinarily high," Trenschel said. "You almost can't build capacity in the system fast enough."
Governor's response
Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said Perry believes he could improve Texas health care access if the federal government gave states a block grant for the Medicaid program.
She also pointed that the Legislature passed, and Perry signed, legislation that "enacts cost savings and quality improvement measures in the Medicaid programs" by giving incentives to reduce emergency room use and expanding managed care.
[email protected]. [email protected]
Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7701850.html#ixzz1VPfBo6Hg
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7701850.html
Some on political right doubt Perry's bona fides
By RICHARD S. DUNHAM WASHINGTON BUREAU
Aug. 18, 2011, 4:19AM
WASHINGTON — Rick Perry has counted on the staunch support of Texas conservatives during his two decades of statewide triumphs in Texas. He's an anti-tax, anti-spend, anti-regulation, anti-Washington stalwart.
So why are some conservative bloggers and activists warning others on the political right about a Perry presidential candidacy?
"Before Republicans start salivating too heavily, it is important to examine Perry closely," says conservative talk-show host David Zublick. "His conservative bona fides leave much to be desired."
That view is a distinct minority on the right, and it is a situation that Perry advisers find laughable.
"I find it humorous that anyone who looks at the governor's record could doubt his conservative credentials," says Dave Carney, Perry's top political strategist. "Those folks really need to get out of the sun, hydrate and seek medical assistance if this condition continues."
Here are ten things about the Texas governor that cause at least some conservatives to turn red:
1. The 10th Amendment conundrum
Perry has often spoken - and written - about his fundamental belief that all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government in the Constitution belong to the states.
"You either have to believe in the 10th Amendment or you don't," the governor said last month at a ceremonial bill-signing in Houston. "You can't believe in the 10th Amendment for a few issues and then something that doesn't suit you say, 'We'd rather not have states decide that.'?"
That's fine with conservatives when he's talking about environmental regulation or health care mandates. But when Perry crossed the line and said he was "fine" with New York adopting a law legalizing same-sex marriage, the Religious Right erupted, saying the federal government had the power to trump states' rights on abortion and gay marriage, among other social issues.
"His comments were inartful and disappointing," Gary Bauer, president of American Values, told Real Clear Politics.
Perry quickly amended his Houston declaration, saying he favored constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage and criminalizing abortion, but the entire episode left some conservatives uneasy.
2. Immigration
Perry has managed to anger some on the left and the right on the hot-button subject of immigration. Liberals complain about his support for legislation cracking down on so-called "sanctuary cities" and his demands for additional troops along the Mexican border. But he's been blasted by conservatives, too, for what they see as being insufficiently tough on illegal immigrants. Among their complaints: Perry's support for undocumented immigrants paying in-state tuition at Texas' state colleges and universities.
"To punish these young Texans for their parents' actions is not what America has always been about," Perry told the New Hampshire Union Leader on July 24.
According to some of his immigration critics, Perry's cardinal sin was his 2010 comment that he had concerns about portions of Arizona's tough immigration enforcement law and "it would not be the right direction for Texas."
"Governor Perry is very eager to appear tough on illegal immigration, but upon closer inspection he's part of the problem," said William Gheen, who runs the North Carolina-based political action committee Americans for Legal Immigration.
3. Some higher taxes
Although he signed an anti-tax pledge in 2009 and now says he's against all tax increases, Perry has raised taxes in the Lone Star State a half-dozen times since becoming governor, though several of the tax increases were part of larger tax reform measures that lowered other taxes. Those paying higher taxes after Perry became governor include some Texas companies, cigarette and smokeless tobacco users, and fireworks purchasers.
Steven E. Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota, says the tax issue could hurt Perry if primary rivals make it stick.
"Expect this to be used against Perry frequently," said Schier.
4. Toll roads
Yes, the Texas governor is against taxes. But what about user fees?
Some conservatives chafe at Perry's endorsement of expanded toll roads in Texas, a concept they consider a back-door tax increase.
5. The Trans-Texas Corridor and private property rights
Property-rights purists have never forgiven Perry for supporting the ill-fated Trans-Texas Corridor. Not only was it another toll road, they say, it would have resulted in the government seizing about 81,000 acres of rural land through its "eminent domain" powers.
6. Forced immunizations
Some anti-government types wonder how Perry can square his condemnation of Washington power grabs with his own 2007 executive order requiring that sixth-grade girls in Texas be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus, a sexually transmitted disease that has been found to cause cervical cancer.
Perry now describes his action as a mistake.
"That particular issue is one that I readily stand up and say I made a mistake on," he said. "I listened to the Legislature … and I agreed with their decision (to overturn the order). I don't always get it right, but I darn sure listen."
7. The state's debt
The governor rails against government borrowing in Washington. But during his time in charge of the state government in Austin, state borrowing has more than doubled.
According to PolitiFact, a nonpartisan fact-checking website, "Texas had $34.08 billion in outstanding bonds and notes" at the end of the 2009 fiscal year, up from $13.7 billion at the end of fiscal 2001, Perry's first year as governor.
8. Rudy Giuliani
Given a choice of true conservatives - including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee - Perry chose Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, as his 2008 presidential favorite.
Yes, Giuliani is a tough-on-terror, tough-on-crime fiscal conservative. But he's a strong advocate of gay rights. He once even dressed up in drag. And he's pro-choice.
9. Democratic days
If endorsing a pro-choice, pro-gay-rights Republican from New York City isn't enough to raise conservatives' hackles, how about this: Perry once was a Democrat. Yes, he was a conservative Democrat. And yes, almost everybody in West Texas not named Bush was a Democrat back then.
"I never met a Republican until I was 25," Perry explained to Iowa Republicans on Monday.
10. Al Gore, Version '88
Not only was Rick Perry a Democrat, he actually endorsed Democrats for president. Like Al Gore. He even served as Gore's Texas presidential campaign chair.
"This was Al Gore before he invented the Internet and got to be Mr. Global Warming," Perry said Monday in Iowa. "In 1988, when you looked at the candidates, Al Gore was the most conservative candidate that was out there."
Despite his occasional disagreements with others on the right, Perry won the votes of almost every Republican conservative in his 2010 re-election race against Democrat Bill White.
"I had questions about some of those positions," said Cathie Adams, former chair of the Texas Republican Party. "But when you are looking at a country in crisis, as we are, you have to have a broader perspective."
[email protected].
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7701971.html
By RICHARD S. DUNHAM WASHINGTON BUREAU
Aug. 18, 2011, 4:19AM
WASHINGTON — Rick Perry has counted on the staunch support of Texas conservatives during his two decades of statewide triumphs in Texas. He's an anti-tax, anti-spend, anti-regulation, anti-Washington stalwart.
So why are some conservative bloggers and activists warning others on the political right about a Perry presidential candidacy?
"Before Republicans start salivating too heavily, it is important to examine Perry closely," says conservative talk-show host David Zublick. "His conservative bona fides leave much to be desired."
That view is a distinct minority on the right, and it is a situation that Perry advisers find laughable.
"I find it humorous that anyone who looks at the governor's record could doubt his conservative credentials," says Dave Carney, Perry's top political strategist. "Those folks really need to get out of the sun, hydrate and seek medical assistance if this condition continues."
Here are ten things about the Texas governor that cause at least some conservatives to turn red:
1. The 10th Amendment conundrum
Perry has often spoken - and written - about his fundamental belief that all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government in the Constitution belong to the states.
"You either have to believe in the 10th Amendment or you don't," the governor said last month at a ceremonial bill-signing in Houston. "You can't believe in the 10th Amendment for a few issues and then something that doesn't suit you say, 'We'd rather not have states decide that.'?"
That's fine with conservatives when he's talking about environmental regulation or health care mandates. But when Perry crossed the line and said he was "fine" with New York adopting a law legalizing same-sex marriage, the Religious Right erupted, saying the federal government had the power to trump states' rights on abortion and gay marriage, among other social issues.
"His comments were inartful and disappointing," Gary Bauer, president of American Values, told Real Clear Politics.
Perry quickly amended his Houston declaration, saying he favored constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage and criminalizing abortion, but the entire episode left some conservatives uneasy.
2. Immigration
Perry has managed to anger some on the left and the right on the hot-button subject of immigration. Liberals complain about his support for legislation cracking down on so-called "sanctuary cities" and his demands for additional troops along the Mexican border. But he's been blasted by conservatives, too, for what they see as being insufficiently tough on illegal immigrants. Among their complaints: Perry's support for undocumented immigrants paying in-state tuition at Texas' state colleges and universities.
"To punish these young Texans for their parents' actions is not what America has always been about," Perry told the New Hampshire Union Leader on July 24.
According to some of his immigration critics, Perry's cardinal sin was his 2010 comment that he had concerns about portions of Arizona's tough immigration enforcement law and "it would not be the right direction for Texas."
"Governor Perry is very eager to appear tough on illegal immigration, but upon closer inspection he's part of the problem," said William Gheen, who runs the North Carolina-based political action committee Americans for Legal Immigration.
3. Some higher taxes
Although he signed an anti-tax pledge in 2009 and now says he's against all tax increases, Perry has raised taxes in the Lone Star State a half-dozen times since becoming governor, though several of the tax increases were part of larger tax reform measures that lowered other taxes. Those paying higher taxes after Perry became governor include some Texas companies, cigarette and smokeless tobacco users, and fireworks purchasers.
Steven E. Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota, says the tax issue could hurt Perry if primary rivals make it stick.
"Expect this to be used against Perry frequently," said Schier.
4. Toll roads
Yes, the Texas governor is against taxes. But what about user fees?
Some conservatives chafe at Perry's endorsement of expanded toll roads in Texas, a concept they consider a back-door tax increase.
5. The Trans-Texas Corridor and private property rights
Property-rights purists have never forgiven Perry for supporting the ill-fated Trans-Texas Corridor. Not only was it another toll road, they say, it would have resulted in the government seizing about 81,000 acres of rural land through its "eminent domain" powers.
6. Forced immunizations
Some anti-government types wonder how Perry can square his condemnation of Washington power grabs with his own 2007 executive order requiring that sixth-grade girls in Texas be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus, a sexually transmitted disease that has been found to cause cervical cancer.
Perry now describes his action as a mistake.
"That particular issue is one that I readily stand up and say I made a mistake on," he said. "I listened to the Legislature … and I agreed with their decision (to overturn the order). I don't always get it right, but I darn sure listen."
7. The state's debt
The governor rails against government borrowing in Washington. But during his time in charge of the state government in Austin, state borrowing has more than doubled.
According to PolitiFact, a nonpartisan fact-checking website, "Texas had $34.08 billion in outstanding bonds and notes" at the end of the 2009 fiscal year, up from $13.7 billion at the end of fiscal 2001, Perry's first year as governor.
8. Rudy Giuliani
Given a choice of true conservatives - including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee - Perry chose Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, as his 2008 presidential favorite.
Yes, Giuliani is a tough-on-terror, tough-on-crime fiscal conservative. But he's a strong advocate of gay rights. He once even dressed up in drag. And he's pro-choice.
9. Democratic days
If endorsing a pro-choice, pro-gay-rights Republican from New York City isn't enough to raise conservatives' hackles, how about this: Perry once was a Democrat. Yes, he was a conservative Democrat. And yes, almost everybody in West Texas not named Bush was a Democrat back then.
"I never met a Republican until I was 25," Perry explained to Iowa Republicans on Monday.
10. Al Gore, Version '88
Not only was Rick Perry a Democrat, he actually endorsed Democrats for president. Like Al Gore. He even served as Gore's Texas presidential campaign chair.
"This was Al Gore before he invented the Internet and got to be Mr. Global Warming," Perry said Monday in Iowa. "In 1988, when you looked at the candidates, Al Gore was the most conservative candidate that was out there."
Despite his occasional disagreements with others on the right, Perry won the votes of almost every Republican conservative in his 2010 re-election race against Democrat Bill White.
"I had questions about some of those positions," said Cathie Adams, former chair of the Texas Republican Party. "But when you are looking at a country in crisis, as we are, you have to have a broader perspective."
[email protected].
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7701971.html
Perry's Texas: Transportation needs trail behind
By PATRICIA KILDAY HART and GARY SCHARRER AUSTIN BUREAU
Aug. 16, 2011, 9:57PM
Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7700376.html#ixzz1VPo2UkSP
Editor's note: This is the first of four stories looking at the state of Texas infrastructure under the tenure of Rick Perry, the longest-serving governor in state history.
One week a year.
That's how much time the average urban Texan loses to traffic delays on one of the state's increasingly overburdened highways, according to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute.
While Gov. Rick Perry likes to brag that "people are voting with their feet" by moving to Texas for its pro-business, low-tax policies, the state's austere budgets have done little to keep pace with a population that has grown by nearly 1,200 new residents every day for the last 10 years.
After a decade of Perry-style frugality the Texas welcome mat is growing increasingly threadbare as the state struggles to accommodate a booming, young populace hoping to travel its roads, get educated in its schools, drink its water and access its health care system.
During Perry's tenure, the state has postponed investment or turned to debt to finance critical infrastructure needs, experts say. With Perry making a run for the Republican nomination for president, the national media and American public will judge the trade-offs and choices he made — and the consequences for Texas.
More than any other issue, Texas' transportation policies illustrate its growing pains.
As governor, Perry advocated the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor, an ambitious transportation scheme that relied on foreign investment and tolls for financing. It was abandoned after the outcry from property owners whose land would have been claimed by eminent domain.
Since then, the state has relied heavily on issuance of bonds to build highways. For the first time in history, the Texas Legislature this year appropriated more cash to pay for debt service than to pay for actually building new roads: $850 million per year versus $575 million.
$488 billion needed
Lawmakers also approved the use of $3 billion approved by voters in 2007 for road construction, but the Texas Department of Transportation estimates the state must pay $65 million in annual financing costs for every $1 billion it borrows through the sale of bonds.
The state began borrowing money in 2003 to pay for roads and will owe $17.3 billion by the end of next year, contributing to the rapid escalation of total state debt, from $13.4 billion in 2001 to $37.8 billion today.
The money will cover just a fraction of the transportation needs identified by planning experts. The Texas Transportation Institute two years ago placed the state's highway construction needs through 2030 at $488 billion. The state pays for road construction through vehicle registration fees and the gasoline tax. Gas tax revenues, however, have declined in recent years as Texans drive more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Like Perry, Ken Allen, a retired H-E-B grocery company executive, sees the state's population growth as a positive: "Every one of those new Texans comes with a mouth and a stomach and they are a potential customer for our business."
Those additional residents, however, present a challenge, he said at a 2009 state Capitol press conference.
"While we are sitting immobilized in congestion, we are spending expensive diesel and our engines are putting undesired emissions into our Texas air," he said.
Improved Texas roads would lower "the cost of commercial transport and, in the case of H-E-B, that "means we land product on the shelves in our stores at a lower cost and we can sell those products at a lower cost to the shoppers in our store."
Costs to motorists
Recently, University of Texas engineering professor C. Michael Walton wrote a Houston Chronicle guest column warning of the consequences of neglecting state highways. "If there are no changes to policies or funding levels between now and 2035, the average household will pay almost $6,100 per year for additional travel time associated with traffic congestions and detours, increased fuel purchases and additional vehicle maintenance expenses due to worsening road conditions," he wrote.
According to the TTI study, the typical Texas household currently pays $232 in taxes and transportation-related fees annually. If the Legislature approved a modest tax hike, say increasing a household's annual cost by $402, the typical household would enjoy a return on the investment of $2,440 in benefits each year by reducing the costs associated with additional travel time.
All bond money spent
Perry in 2007 derailed a plan by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, to permit a "local option" gas tax increase permitting voters to approve gas tax hikes for specific projects in their communities.
Carona's successor as Senate Transportation Chairman, Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, warned his colleagues the state is running out of money for new construction, but defended the decision to pay for roads with bonds, comparing it to a mortgage on a home.
Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, the Texas House's expert on transportation, argued during the legislative session that borrowing costs the taxpayer more in the long run. "The conservative thing to do would be to limit borrowing capacity and put more cash in," he said.
Having spent all the bond money approved by voters, lawmakers next session will not be able to fund any highway construction - unless they ask voters to approve more debt.
Thursday: Health care
Friday: Water
Saturday: Public education
[email protected]. [email protected]
Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7700376.html#ixzz1VPnwbcLl
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7700376.html
By PATRICIA KILDAY HART and GARY SCHARRER AUSTIN BUREAU
Aug. 16, 2011, 9:57PM
Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7700376.html#ixzz1VPo2UkSP
Editor's note: This is the first of four stories looking at the state of Texas infrastructure under the tenure of Rick Perry, the longest-serving governor in state history.
One week a year.
That's how much time the average urban Texan loses to traffic delays on one of the state's increasingly overburdened highways, according to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute.
While Gov. Rick Perry likes to brag that "people are voting with their feet" by moving to Texas for its pro-business, low-tax policies, the state's austere budgets have done little to keep pace with a population that has grown by nearly 1,200 new residents every day for the last 10 years.
After a decade of Perry-style frugality the Texas welcome mat is growing increasingly threadbare as the state struggles to accommodate a booming, young populace hoping to travel its roads, get educated in its schools, drink its water and access its health care system.
During Perry's tenure, the state has postponed investment or turned to debt to finance critical infrastructure needs, experts say. With Perry making a run for the Republican nomination for president, the national media and American public will judge the trade-offs and choices he made — and the consequences for Texas.
More than any other issue, Texas' transportation policies illustrate its growing pains.
As governor, Perry advocated the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor, an ambitious transportation scheme that relied on foreign investment and tolls for financing. It was abandoned after the outcry from property owners whose land would have been claimed by eminent domain.
Since then, the state has relied heavily on issuance of bonds to build highways. For the first time in history, the Texas Legislature this year appropriated more cash to pay for debt service than to pay for actually building new roads: $850 million per year versus $575 million.
$488 billion needed
Lawmakers also approved the use of $3 billion approved by voters in 2007 for road construction, but the Texas Department of Transportation estimates the state must pay $65 million in annual financing costs for every $1 billion it borrows through the sale of bonds.
The state began borrowing money in 2003 to pay for roads and will owe $17.3 billion by the end of next year, contributing to the rapid escalation of total state debt, from $13.4 billion in 2001 to $37.8 billion today.
The money will cover just a fraction of the transportation needs identified by planning experts. The Texas Transportation Institute two years ago placed the state's highway construction needs through 2030 at $488 billion. The state pays for road construction through vehicle registration fees and the gasoline tax. Gas tax revenues, however, have declined in recent years as Texans drive more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Like Perry, Ken Allen, a retired H-E-B grocery company executive, sees the state's population growth as a positive: "Every one of those new Texans comes with a mouth and a stomach and they are a potential customer for our business."
Those additional residents, however, present a challenge, he said at a 2009 state Capitol press conference.
"While we are sitting immobilized in congestion, we are spending expensive diesel and our engines are putting undesired emissions into our Texas air," he said.
Improved Texas roads would lower "the cost of commercial transport and, in the case of H-E-B, that "means we land product on the shelves in our stores at a lower cost and we can sell those products at a lower cost to the shoppers in our store."
Costs to motorists
Recently, University of Texas engineering professor C. Michael Walton wrote a Houston Chronicle guest column warning of the consequences of neglecting state highways. "If there are no changes to policies or funding levels between now and 2035, the average household will pay almost $6,100 per year for additional travel time associated with traffic congestions and detours, increased fuel purchases and additional vehicle maintenance expenses due to worsening road conditions," he wrote.
According to the TTI study, the typical Texas household currently pays $232 in taxes and transportation-related fees annually. If the Legislature approved a modest tax hike, say increasing a household's annual cost by $402, the typical household would enjoy a return on the investment of $2,440 in benefits each year by reducing the costs associated with additional travel time.
All bond money spent
Perry in 2007 derailed a plan by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, to permit a "local option" gas tax increase permitting voters to approve gas tax hikes for specific projects in their communities.
Carona's successor as Senate Transportation Chairman, Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, warned his colleagues the state is running out of money for new construction, but defended the decision to pay for roads with bonds, comparing it to a mortgage on a home.
Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, the Texas House's expert on transportation, argued during the legislative session that borrowing costs the taxpayer more in the long run. "The conservative thing to do would be to limit borrowing capacity and put more cash in," he said.
Having spent all the bond money approved by voters, lawmakers next session will not be able to fund any highway construction - unless they ask voters to approve more debt.
Thursday: Health care
Friday: Water
Saturday: Public education
[email protected]. [email protected]
Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7700376.html#ixzz1VPnwbcLl
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7700376.html
Larrry
Well-known member
flounder said:
Now what did you say obamas accomplishments and good points were. Must have missed it.
Mike
Well-known member
Let me see if I understand this. No money for roads. Perry finds way through tolls and foreign investment to build roads. People do not want more road taxes yet stop the trans Texas Corridor. Still fussing about more roads.
Do I understand it? :lol:
Do I understand it? :lol:
Noisy Protesters Confront Perry in New Hampshire
by Jay Root
Keywords: Texas Governor Rick Perry, Environmental Problems and Policies, Perry for President, Rick Perry Issues, Rick Perry Politics
Enlargephoto illustration by: Jay Root / Todd Wiseman
Protesters in Portsmouth await Perry's arrival at Popovers restaurant Thursday, where Texas Governor will meet with voters.
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Rick Perry came to press the flesh with voters here Thursday — but outside a local café, Popovers On The Square, he ran instead into a vociferous protest of his view that Medicare and Social Security are a "Ponzi scheme."
It wasn't much better inside, where Perry took heated questions from Democrats about his conservative stands on Social Security, global warming and evolution. There did not seem to be a single Republican in the place.
"For his first public interaction, it probably could have been better orchestrated," said former state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, a Democrat who politely confronted Perry inside the café. "This is probably the most Democratic city in the state. I don't know where his supporters are."
Perry staged two events in New Hampshire Wednesday that were open to reporters but not to the general public. On Thursday Perry was doing random voter "meet-and-greet" events for the first time here. It did not generate the kind of enthusiasm that was evident earlier in the week in South Carolina and Iowa.
"That just goes with the territory when you're on the campaign trail," said Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan. He said Portsmouth was a "liberal bastion" and that the governor did not mind mixing it up a bit on important issues.
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"The governor is on a quest to introduce himself to the people of New Hampshire," Sullivan said. "We're happy to have robust debates and discussions on public policy issues."
Perry got a much friendlier reception later in Dover at Harvey's Bakery and Coffee Shop where he had lunch with New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Jack Kimball. Afterward, he said he thought Perry is an "excellent candidate" and the Texas governor appears to excel at retail politics. "I think he thoroughly enjoyed this," Kimball said. "This is something I think is right up his alley."
In Portsmouth, Clark spoke with Perry for several minutes inside Popovers, after the Texas governor ate a few bites of the crispy brown pastry from which the café derives its name. The Democrat told him that she believed there is a consensus that human activity contributes to global warming.
"The jury is still out," Perry told her, she said.
It was obvious that this would be a confrontational, hostile crowd before the governor's entourage even arrived. Right after Perry walked into a small courtyard leading into Popovers, protesters loudly began chanting "Hands off our Medicare!" One man was screaming the phrase as Perry attempted to chat with voters.
"Stop the union busting, Perry!" he yelled. A variety of placards were bobbing up and down as they shouted. One, taking a line about Social Security out of Perry's book "Fed Up!," said "My Financial Security is NOT a Ponzi scheme."
Perry has argued that Medicare and Social Security are essentially "bankrupt." He told Newsweek last November, "I think every program needs to stand the sunshine of righteous scrutiny. Whether it's Social Security, whether it's Medicaid, whether it's Medicare. You've got $115 trillion worth of unfunded liability in those three. They're bankrupt. They're a Ponzi scheme. "
Local police did not allow the poster-carrying protesters inside, but retired construction worker Bill Merrow, who depends on Social Security, pressed a blue placard onto the window, making it easily visible inside a few feet away from where Perry was speaking.
"Another Texas Idiot For Sale," it said.
One protester, retired federal employee Larry Drake, said he was befuddled that Perry came to the heavily Democratic city, and predicted the Texan would have a tough sales job in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary early next year. Mitt Romney, former governor in neighboring Massachusetts, is making the state a huge priority.
"I think Perry's Texas swagger is not going over well in New England, and I think he's dialing it back," Drake said. "It's a whole different environment … It may work somewhere else."
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2012-presidential-election/protesters-confront-perry-new-hampshire/
March 16, 2010 7:22 AM
Social Security to Start Cashing IOUs
By CBSNews
(AP) The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.
It's time to start cashing them in.
For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits - billions more each year.
Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes - nearly $29 billion more.
Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs - in the form of Treasury bonds - which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices.
Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn't be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.
Social Security's shortfall will not affect current benefits. As long as the IOUs last, benefits will keep flowing. But experts say it is a warning sign that the program's finances are deteriorating. Social Security is projected to drain its trust funds by 2037 unless Congress acts, and there's concern that the looming crisis will lead to reduced benefits.
"This is not just a wake-up call, this is it. We're here," said Mary Johnson, a policy analyst with The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group. "We are not going to be able to put it off any more."
For more than two decades, regardless of which political party was in power, Congress has been accused of raiding the Social Security trust funds to pay for other programs, masking the size of the budget deficit.
Remember Al Gore's "lockbox," the one he was going to use to protect Social Security? The former vice president talked about it so much during the 2000 presidential campaign that he was parodied on "Saturday Night Live."
Gore lost the election and never got his lockbox. But to illustrate the government's commitment to repaying Social Security, the Treasury Department has been issuing special bonds that earn interest for the retirement program. The bonds are unique because they are actually printed on paper, while other government bonds exist only in electronic form.
They are stored in a three-ring binder, locked in the bottom drawer of a white metal filing cabinet in the Parkersburg offices of Bureau of Public Debt. The agency, which is part of the Treasury Department, opened offices in Parkersburg in the 1950s as part of a plan to locate important government functions away from Washington, D.C., in case of an attack during the Cold War.
One bond is worth a little more than $15.1 billion and another is valued at just under $10.7 billion. In all, the agency has about $2.5 trillion in bonds, all backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. But don't bother trying to steal them; they're nonnegotiable, which means they are worthless on the open market.
More than 52 million people receive old age or disability benefits from Social Security. The average benefit for retirees is a little under $1,200 a month. Disabled workers get an average of $1,100 a month.
Social Security is financed by payroll taxes - employers and employees must each pay a 6.2 percent tax on workers' earnings up to $106,800. Retirees can start getting early, reduced benefits at age 62. They get full benefits if they wait until they turn 66. Those born after 1960 will have to wait until they turn 67.
Social Security's financial problems have been looming for years as the nation's 78 million baby boomers approached retirement age. The oldest are already there. As that huge group of people starts collecting benefits - and stops paying payroll taxes - Social Security's trust funds will shrink, running out of money by 2037, according to the latest projection from the trustees who oversee the program.
The recession is making things worse, at least in the short term. Tax receipts are down from the loss of more than 8 million jobs, and applications for early retirement benefits have spiked from older workers who were laid off and forced to retire.
Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, says the crisis has been years in the making. "If this helps get people to look more seriously at that in the nearer term, that's probably a good thing. But it's only really a punctuation mark on the fact that we have longer-term financial issues that need to be addressed."
In the short term, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will continue to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes for the next three years. It is projected to post small surpluses of $6 billion each in 2014 and 2015, before returning to indefinite deficits in 2016.
For the budget year that ends in September, Social Security is projected to collect $677 billion in taxes and spend $706 billion on benefits and expenses.
Social Security will also collect about $120 billion in interest on the trust funds, according to the CBO projections, meaning its overall balance sheet will continue to grow. The interest, however, is paid by the government, adding even more to the budget deficit.
While Congress must shore up the program, action is unlikely this year, said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., who just took over last week as chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees Social Security.
"The issues required to address the long-term solvency needs of Social Security can be done in a careful, thoughtful and orderly way and they don't need to be done in the next few months," Pomeroy said.
The national debt - the amount of money the government owes its creditors - is about $12.5 trillion, or nearly $42,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. About $8 trillion has been borrowed in public debt markets, much of it from foreign creditors. The rest came from various government trust funds, including retirement funds for civil servants and the military. About $2.5 trillion is owed to Social Security.
Good luck to the politician who reneges on that debt, said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who is now president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
"Those bonds are protected by the full faith and credit of the United States of America," Kennelly said. "They're as solid as what we owe China and Japan."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/16/politics/main6302588.shtml
Social Security is Short of Funds Because Politicians Spent It
Fund should have $3.7 surplus in 2018 from what baby boomers have paid
March 21, 2005 – The reason the Social Security Trust Fund is expected to start showing a deficit in about 2018, rather than a surplus, is because the money paid in – primarily by the baby boomers – has been spent by the politicians. When Al Gore proposed in his campaign for President to create a "lock box" to protect these funds only for Social Security, George W. Bush countered that he would do the same. It did not happen. Like his father and President Clinton, he used the funds for other government expenses.
"The baby boomers have contributed more to Social Security than any other generation," says economist Allen W. Smith. "They have prepaid the cost of their own retirement, in addition to paying the cost of the generation that preceded them."
Smith points out that the baby boomers have kept their end of the bargain, which was proposed by the Greenspan Commission and enacted into law in 1983. "The higher taxes that were part of the 1983 'solution' to the baby boomer problem have generated the annual Social Security surpluses anticipated so far, and they will continue to do so until 2018," Smith said.
According to Smith, by 2018, the baby boomers will have paid enough extra taxes to have generated a $3.7 trillion reserve in the trust fund, which would be sufficient to pay full benefits until 2042 when the youngest of the boomers would be 78 years old.
"Our government should be thanking the baby boomers for their extra sacrifice and special contributions," Smith continued. "But instead, President Bush is trying to use them as scapegoats for the government's failure to save and invest the Social Security surplus."
Smith says that when it became public knowledge in 2000 that President George H.W. Bush had initiated the practice of spending Social Security surpluses for other programs, and that Clinton had continued that practice, protecting the Social Security surplus became a major campaign issue.
According to Smith, Al Gore promised to put all future Social Security surpluses in a "lockbox" to be used only for the payment of Social Security benefits, and candidate George W. Bush promised to do the same.
"More than $600 billion of Social Security surplus has been generated since the 'lockbox promise' went into effect," Smith said, "so there should be at least that much in the trust fund today. But President Bush says the lockbox holds nothing but empty promises."
"How can this be?" Smith asked. "Bush's promises to protect Social Security were clear and specific."
According to Smith, Bush stated in his radio address to the nation on February 3, 2001, "My plan will keep all Social Security money in the Social Security system where it belongs." And, in his February 27, 2001 State of the Union address, Bush said, "To make sure the retirement savings of America's seniors are not diverted in any other program, my budget protects all $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social Security, and for Social Security alone."
"Despite these promises, President Bush has been raiding the trust fund since he took office," Smith said, "and he no longer tries to conceal what he has done. In an effort to muster support for his privatization proposal, he has been openly admitting to the raiding of the fund."
Smith said that President Bush first publicly acknowledged misusing Social Security money in a Washington speech on February 9, 2005, in which he said, "The money-payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."
"There may be 'no trust' when it comes to Bush's handling of Social Security money," Smith argued, "but there most certainly is a trust fund. That fund is empty today because President Bush has used the money to pay for tax cuts, the war in Iraq, and many other programs. So, instead of trying to blame the baby boomers for Social Security's current problems, Bush should stop spending Social Security money on other programs and repay the money he has already spent."
Click to More Senior News on the Front Page
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com
http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/SocialSecurity/5-03-21SSFundsSpent.htm
On Wednesday February 9, 2005, President Bush openly admitted that surplus Social Security revenue, generated by the payroll tax, is spent on other government programs. President Bush's exact words, as quoted in the official White House Press Office's news release, were: "Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund—in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money—payroll taxes—going into Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."
On the following day, during a speech in Pennsylvania, President Bush said, "Now one of the myths about Social Security is there's a pile of money sitting there accumulating …That's not the way the system works. Every dime that goes in from payroll taxes is spent. It's spent on retirees, and if there's excess, it's spent on government programs. The only thing that Social Security has is a pile of IOUs from one part of government to the next."
This was a clear admission by the President of The United States that all Social Security surplus money had been spent and that the Bush administration was continuing to spend Social Security money each and every day. The president was verifying everything I had been saying for the past four years. I expected that the president's acknowledgment would make the Social Security trust fund fraud the leading news story the following day, but it was barely covered by the media....
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/12/social-security-a-decade-of-deceit/
Now, one of the myths about Social Security is there's a pile of money sitting there accumulating, because you put money in, the government saves it for you, and then when you retire you get it out. That's not the way the system works. Every dime that goes in from payroll taxes is spent. It's spent on retirees, and if there's excess, it's spent on government programs. The only thing that Social Security has is a pile of IOUs from one part of government to the next. This is a pay-as-you-go system.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/gwbushstmts5.html#02102005a
by Jay Root
Keywords: Texas Governor Rick Perry, Environmental Problems and Policies, Perry for President, Rick Perry Issues, Rick Perry Politics
Enlargephoto illustration by: Jay Root / Todd Wiseman
Protesters in Portsmouth await Perry's arrival at Popovers restaurant Thursday, where Texas Governor will meet with voters.
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Rick Perry came to press the flesh with voters here Thursday — but outside a local café, Popovers On The Square, he ran instead into a vociferous protest of his view that Medicare and Social Security are a "Ponzi scheme."
It wasn't much better inside, where Perry took heated questions from Democrats about his conservative stands on Social Security, global warming and evolution. There did not seem to be a single Republican in the place.
"For his first public interaction, it probably could have been better orchestrated," said former state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, a Democrat who politely confronted Perry inside the café. "This is probably the most Democratic city in the state. I don't know where his supporters are."
Perry staged two events in New Hampshire Wednesday that were open to reporters but not to the general public. On Thursday Perry was doing random voter "meet-and-greet" events for the first time here. It did not generate the kind of enthusiasm that was evident earlier in the week in South Carolina and Iowa.
"That just goes with the territory when you're on the campaign trail," said Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan. He said Portsmouth was a "liberal bastion" and that the governor did not mind mixing it up a bit on important issues.
The Tribune thanks our Supporting Sponsors
"The governor is on a quest to introduce himself to the people of New Hampshire," Sullivan said. "We're happy to have robust debates and discussions on public policy issues."
Perry got a much friendlier reception later in Dover at Harvey's Bakery and Coffee Shop where he had lunch with New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Jack Kimball. Afterward, he said he thought Perry is an "excellent candidate" and the Texas governor appears to excel at retail politics. "I think he thoroughly enjoyed this," Kimball said. "This is something I think is right up his alley."
In Portsmouth, Clark spoke with Perry for several minutes inside Popovers, after the Texas governor ate a few bites of the crispy brown pastry from which the café derives its name. The Democrat told him that she believed there is a consensus that human activity contributes to global warming.
"The jury is still out," Perry told her, she said.
It was obvious that this would be a confrontational, hostile crowd before the governor's entourage even arrived. Right after Perry walked into a small courtyard leading into Popovers, protesters loudly began chanting "Hands off our Medicare!" One man was screaming the phrase as Perry attempted to chat with voters.
"Stop the union busting, Perry!" he yelled. A variety of placards were bobbing up and down as they shouted. One, taking a line about Social Security out of Perry's book "Fed Up!," said "My Financial Security is NOT a Ponzi scheme."
Perry has argued that Medicare and Social Security are essentially "bankrupt." He told Newsweek last November, "I think every program needs to stand the sunshine of righteous scrutiny. Whether it's Social Security, whether it's Medicaid, whether it's Medicare. You've got $115 trillion worth of unfunded liability in those three. They're bankrupt. They're a Ponzi scheme. "
Local police did not allow the poster-carrying protesters inside, but retired construction worker Bill Merrow, who depends on Social Security, pressed a blue placard onto the window, making it easily visible inside a few feet away from where Perry was speaking.
"Another Texas Idiot For Sale," it said.
One protester, retired federal employee Larry Drake, said he was befuddled that Perry came to the heavily Democratic city, and predicted the Texan would have a tough sales job in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary early next year. Mitt Romney, former governor in neighboring Massachusetts, is making the state a huge priority.
"I think Perry's Texas swagger is not going over well in New England, and I think he's dialing it back," Drake said. "It's a whole different environment … It may work somewhere else."
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2012-presidential-election/protesters-confront-perry-new-hampshire/
March 16, 2010 7:22 AM
Social Security to Start Cashing IOUs
By CBSNews
(AP) The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.
It's time to start cashing them in.
For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits - billions more each year.
Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes - nearly $29 billion more.
Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs - in the form of Treasury bonds - which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices.
Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn't be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.
Social Security's shortfall will not affect current benefits. As long as the IOUs last, benefits will keep flowing. But experts say it is a warning sign that the program's finances are deteriorating. Social Security is projected to drain its trust funds by 2037 unless Congress acts, and there's concern that the looming crisis will lead to reduced benefits.
"This is not just a wake-up call, this is it. We're here," said Mary Johnson, a policy analyst with The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group. "We are not going to be able to put it off any more."
For more than two decades, regardless of which political party was in power, Congress has been accused of raiding the Social Security trust funds to pay for other programs, masking the size of the budget deficit.
Remember Al Gore's "lockbox," the one he was going to use to protect Social Security? The former vice president talked about it so much during the 2000 presidential campaign that he was parodied on "Saturday Night Live."
Gore lost the election and never got his lockbox. But to illustrate the government's commitment to repaying Social Security, the Treasury Department has been issuing special bonds that earn interest for the retirement program. The bonds are unique because they are actually printed on paper, while other government bonds exist only in electronic form.
They are stored in a three-ring binder, locked in the bottom drawer of a white metal filing cabinet in the Parkersburg offices of Bureau of Public Debt. The agency, which is part of the Treasury Department, opened offices in Parkersburg in the 1950s as part of a plan to locate important government functions away from Washington, D.C., in case of an attack during the Cold War.
One bond is worth a little more than $15.1 billion and another is valued at just under $10.7 billion. In all, the agency has about $2.5 trillion in bonds, all backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. But don't bother trying to steal them; they're nonnegotiable, which means they are worthless on the open market.
More than 52 million people receive old age or disability benefits from Social Security. The average benefit for retirees is a little under $1,200 a month. Disabled workers get an average of $1,100 a month.
Social Security is financed by payroll taxes - employers and employees must each pay a 6.2 percent tax on workers' earnings up to $106,800. Retirees can start getting early, reduced benefits at age 62. They get full benefits if they wait until they turn 66. Those born after 1960 will have to wait until they turn 67.
Social Security's financial problems have been looming for years as the nation's 78 million baby boomers approached retirement age. The oldest are already there. As that huge group of people starts collecting benefits - and stops paying payroll taxes - Social Security's trust funds will shrink, running out of money by 2037, according to the latest projection from the trustees who oversee the program.
The recession is making things worse, at least in the short term. Tax receipts are down from the loss of more than 8 million jobs, and applications for early retirement benefits have spiked from older workers who were laid off and forced to retire.
Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, says the crisis has been years in the making. "If this helps get people to look more seriously at that in the nearer term, that's probably a good thing. But it's only really a punctuation mark on the fact that we have longer-term financial issues that need to be addressed."
In the short term, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will continue to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes for the next three years. It is projected to post small surpluses of $6 billion each in 2014 and 2015, before returning to indefinite deficits in 2016.
For the budget year that ends in September, Social Security is projected to collect $677 billion in taxes and spend $706 billion on benefits and expenses.
Social Security will also collect about $120 billion in interest on the trust funds, according to the CBO projections, meaning its overall balance sheet will continue to grow. The interest, however, is paid by the government, adding even more to the budget deficit.
While Congress must shore up the program, action is unlikely this year, said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., who just took over last week as chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees Social Security.
"The issues required to address the long-term solvency needs of Social Security can be done in a careful, thoughtful and orderly way and they don't need to be done in the next few months," Pomeroy said.
The national debt - the amount of money the government owes its creditors - is about $12.5 trillion, or nearly $42,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. About $8 trillion has been borrowed in public debt markets, much of it from foreign creditors. The rest came from various government trust funds, including retirement funds for civil servants and the military. About $2.5 trillion is owed to Social Security.
Good luck to the politician who reneges on that debt, said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who is now president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
"Those bonds are protected by the full faith and credit of the United States of America," Kennelly said. "They're as solid as what we owe China and Japan."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/16/politics/main6302588.shtml
Social Security is Short of Funds Because Politicians Spent It
Fund should have $3.7 surplus in 2018 from what baby boomers have paid
March 21, 2005 – The reason the Social Security Trust Fund is expected to start showing a deficit in about 2018, rather than a surplus, is because the money paid in – primarily by the baby boomers – has been spent by the politicians. When Al Gore proposed in his campaign for President to create a "lock box" to protect these funds only for Social Security, George W. Bush countered that he would do the same. It did not happen. Like his father and President Clinton, he used the funds for other government expenses.
"The baby boomers have contributed more to Social Security than any other generation," says economist Allen W. Smith. "They have prepaid the cost of their own retirement, in addition to paying the cost of the generation that preceded them."
Smith points out that the baby boomers have kept their end of the bargain, which was proposed by the Greenspan Commission and enacted into law in 1983. "The higher taxes that were part of the 1983 'solution' to the baby boomer problem have generated the annual Social Security surpluses anticipated so far, and they will continue to do so until 2018," Smith said.
According to Smith, by 2018, the baby boomers will have paid enough extra taxes to have generated a $3.7 trillion reserve in the trust fund, which would be sufficient to pay full benefits until 2042 when the youngest of the boomers would be 78 years old.
"Our government should be thanking the baby boomers for their extra sacrifice and special contributions," Smith continued. "But instead, President Bush is trying to use them as scapegoats for the government's failure to save and invest the Social Security surplus."
Smith says that when it became public knowledge in 2000 that President George H.W. Bush had initiated the practice of spending Social Security surpluses for other programs, and that Clinton had continued that practice, protecting the Social Security surplus became a major campaign issue.
According to Smith, Al Gore promised to put all future Social Security surpluses in a "lockbox" to be used only for the payment of Social Security benefits, and candidate George W. Bush promised to do the same.
"More than $600 billion of Social Security surplus has been generated since the 'lockbox promise' went into effect," Smith said, "so there should be at least that much in the trust fund today. But President Bush says the lockbox holds nothing but empty promises."
"How can this be?" Smith asked. "Bush's promises to protect Social Security were clear and specific."
According to Smith, Bush stated in his radio address to the nation on February 3, 2001, "My plan will keep all Social Security money in the Social Security system where it belongs." And, in his February 27, 2001 State of the Union address, Bush said, "To make sure the retirement savings of America's seniors are not diverted in any other program, my budget protects all $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social Security, and for Social Security alone."
"Despite these promises, President Bush has been raiding the trust fund since he took office," Smith said, "and he no longer tries to conceal what he has done. In an effort to muster support for his privatization proposal, he has been openly admitting to the raiding of the fund."
Smith said that President Bush first publicly acknowledged misusing Social Security money in a Washington speech on February 9, 2005, in which he said, "The money-payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."
"There may be 'no trust' when it comes to Bush's handling of Social Security money," Smith argued, "but there most certainly is a trust fund. That fund is empty today because President Bush has used the money to pay for tax cuts, the war in Iraq, and many other programs. So, instead of trying to blame the baby boomers for Social Security's current problems, Bush should stop spending Social Security money on other programs and repay the money he has already spent."
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http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/SocialSecurity/5-03-21SSFundsSpent.htm
On Wednesday February 9, 2005, President Bush openly admitted that surplus Social Security revenue, generated by the payroll tax, is spent on other government programs. President Bush's exact words, as quoted in the official White House Press Office's news release, were: "Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund—in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money—payroll taxes—going into Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."
On the following day, during a speech in Pennsylvania, President Bush said, "Now one of the myths about Social Security is there's a pile of money sitting there accumulating …That's not the way the system works. Every dime that goes in from payroll taxes is spent. It's spent on retirees, and if there's excess, it's spent on government programs. The only thing that Social Security has is a pile of IOUs from one part of government to the next."
This was a clear admission by the President of The United States that all Social Security surplus money had been spent and that the Bush administration was continuing to spend Social Security money each and every day. The president was verifying everything I had been saying for the past four years. I expected that the president's acknowledgment would make the Social Security trust fund fraud the leading news story the following day, but it was barely covered by the media....
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/12/social-security-a-decade-of-deceit/
Now, one of the myths about Social Security is there's a pile of money sitting there accumulating, because you put money in, the government saves it for you, and then when you retire you get it out. That's not the way the system works. Every dime that goes in from payroll taxes is spent. It's spent on retirees, and if there's excess, it's spent on government programs. The only thing that Social Security has is a pile of IOUs from one part of government to the next. This is a pay-as-you-go system.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/gwbushstmts5.html#02102005a
flounder said:
There is a BIG problem with the information you are reporting. It is wrong. The boarder has been underserved for years for a reason- the Texans you are counting aren't Americans. There is a big difference. And why would a doctor want to practice in an area that they won't be paid, but can still be sued in our legal system. You have some big holes in your argument. I'll help you fill them in.
Lets look at mal-practice costs vs expected salary. I'll see what I can find for you. There was a big story on this a while back about the astronomical cost of mal-practice insurance for MD's on the border.
What is also funny about your argument, is that Texas has some of the best hospitals and Doctors in the Nation. Ever heard of MD Anderson? I got to visit there a while back. Phenomenal care. The Internists at OU and every other hospital I visited in Oklahoma wanted to cut me. Went to MD Anderson as a second opinion and guess what? Haven't been cut yet, nor will I in the foreseeable future. Why? Because they are the Experts and are light years ahead of what I can get around here.
Try again!!!
A
Anonymous
Guest
okfarmer said:
And every time I hear a Texan or a Californian whining about illegals-- I always wonder why these illegals settled in these states- unless they found ideal conditions for living- and employees that would put them to work--WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW UNDER THE RONALD REAGAN SIGNED AMNESTY BILL OF 1986- better known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 .....
Could this be because of "greedy" employers breaking the law not wanting to pay a wage high enough to get legal employees - except illegal serfs- which they could jack around and dump anytime they didn't follow the Kingdoms every wish :???:
With good law abiding citizens involved that refused to hire illegals that law should have taken care of the problem....
hypocritexposer
Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
:lol: :lol:
Ya, me too. I've always wondered why they didn't hire a moving truck, after walking across the border, to take them and all their belongings to some far off state. Moving as far away from family is why they came to the US, in the first place, was it not
How many times have you seen any type of deportation in the last 2 years, 10 years,18 years or even 22 years?
I do remember as a fairly young kid, many illegals in my home town working in a small factory being deported ~ once every few years and the place was finally shut down. I know that the local grain elevator had some fines to contend with as well and lost a few employees. These were actual PROACTIVE raids that the local law enforcement conducted.
Who was in office back then a little over 22 years ago?
Because laws exist- doesn't mean that they are being enforced or defended. Just ask Obama. If your real honest with yourself, I'm sure you know a little something about this as well.
Keep trying...
I do remember as a fairly young kid, many illegals in my home town working in a small factory being deported ~ once every few years and the place was finally shut down. I know that the local grain elevator had some fines to contend with as well and lost a few employees. These were actual PROACTIVE raids that the local law enforcement conducted.
Who was in office back then a little over 22 years ago?
Because laws exist- doesn't mean that they are being enforced or defended. Just ask Obama. If your real honest with yourself, I'm sure you know a little something about this as well.
Keep trying...