Texas Fiscal Prowess Just A Vision, Not A Fact

  If one listens to the Republican Party  ( Tea Party ) then you’d think that the state of Texas has their budget all in order and that they did it by cutting taxes. That is a load of crap.

  By   LaFeminista     Mon May 16, 2011     Original

Texas “the national laboratory for bad government”

~Molly Ivins.

Looks like the Tea Party are going to find out if their policies work in Texas.

Pretty radical stuff, no increase in revenue and a 25% cut in the State budget, I suggest all Americans keep an eye on Texas

Spending cuts to public schools, already among the nation’s most poorly funded, could mean some 100,000 teacher layoffs, pre-K programs decimated and schools closed

Huge cuts to Medicaid could push an estimated 60,000 senior citizens out of their nursing homes.

As the 2009 Texas Legislature galloped out of Austin, Fox News’s Neil Cavuto interviewed a triumphant Governor Perry, trumpeting Texas’ fiscal marvels. At the bottom of the screen, the scroll read: Texas Cuts Taxes; Still Balances Budget and Socks Away $9 Bil.

Yep and ended with a $23 billion shortfall.

Texas has long be heralded as an economic miracle by the right, looks more like an economic disaster to anyone who has stopped wearing rose tinted glasses...

David Walker, the county attorney in the conservative Houston suburbs of Montgomery County, testified that his county had just built a treatment center to divert mentally ill offenders from jail. “If there must be budget cuts, let’s not cut human beings,” he said. “My Lord Jesus tells me, ‘What you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me.’….If it means raising taxes, then raise mine first.”

Not a chance David they are swinging the ax and still trying to find ways of making $250,000 yachts tax exempt.

Bill Hobby, the former lieutenant governor, was marveling at the extremes to which the Texas Republicans have gone. “There’s an evil mutant gene in the Republican Party,” Hobby said. “I don’t know if there’s any cure for it. I guess you can only hope the disease runs its course before it kills the patient.”

Let's hope for the rest of America this madness is limited to Texas, and to Texans I hope they get through this mess in one piece.

This is the right's American Dream in all its glory, crank up a deficit by giving away the riches of the State to a few; then try and stem the flow of blood by hurting the poor.

Imagine this on a national level, let us hope the first results of this feeding frenzy of greed are plain for all to see before next years elections. This is what they want for the whole country and it is a step back into the 19th century.

Technorati Tags: Texas,Economy,Budget Cuts,Taxes,Austerity,Current Events,Republican Party,Tea Party

Republicans Changing Medicare Reform Message

  Thus far the Republican Party American Taliban have been having a difficult  time in conning the American people into accepting their Medicare reform plan as put forth so far. So, what is their solution to get America believing that their plan will not kill Medicare? Different wording, of course.

Talking Points Memo has said that the American Taliban budget mastermind Rep. Paul Ryan and his other partners in crime will be re-launching their Medicare plan under a different meme.

House Republican leaders plan to relaunch their proposal to turn Medicare into a privatized voucher program. Leading the charge will be the GOP budget's architect, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who is scheduled to deliver an address on the topic at the Economic Club of Chicago on Monday....

Ryan will have to choose his message carefully in order to reassure the conservative base that the GOP's appetite for cuts is undiminished while reassuring moderate Republicans in swing districts that the issue won't wreck their re-election prospects....

Republican freshmen, who powered the GOP to the majority last year, did not abandon the budget, but became increasingly alarmed that criticisms of their plan were gaining traction. At one point a group of Republican lawmakers held a press conference calling for a bipartisan truce on attacks over entitlements. As participants conceded in a joint letter, many of them had run campaign ads reassert their support for the plan. But Speaker John Boehner hinted the same day that "political realities" made it difficult to gain traction. The Medicare proposal looked close to dead after a crucial House chairman, Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), announced he would not advance Ryan's plan through his Ways and Means committee.

      New messaging from the Repugnicans would imply that they will come up with some form of the same bull only in different speak hoping that Americans really are still stupid enough to like their idea.  Gee, I hope not.

Technorati Tags: Medicare,Budget Cuts,Republicans,American Taliban,Paul Ryan,Current Events,Politics