FollowUp 1: Rick Perry Double Dipper

Let me confess now that Governor Perry is the candidate that I like least of all of the 2012 contenders.  This has nothing to do with disagreement over issues, and we disagree on most issues.  This is about liars and cheaters.  If Mr. Perry were one of my students, I would be documenting every time he lied and every time he cheated to make sure the "F" would stick.

It is bad enough that many candidates don't understand certain issues.  Mr. Perry alters data when facts don't match his agenda.  He is hypocritical about government spending.  The most recent example is one of hiding information and hypocrisy regarding travel expenses.

In June, the Governor asked the legislature to hide travel expenses related to his security entourage.  The Houston Chronicle reported the story.

Gov. Rick Perry's office has asked lawmakers hammering out details of a school finance bill to include an unrelated provision that would keep secret the expenses of the Department of Public Safety team that provides security when he and his wife, Anita, travel.

This is not necessarily about trivial amounts of money for a state.

Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News writer Peggy Fikac reported last October that Texas taxpayers had spent close to $1 million for security during 23 foreign trips taken by the Perrys over a seven-year period.

In August, the Washington Post reported that legislation was passed and will keep the public from knowing the travel costs the Governor Perry accrues during the campaign until after the November 2012 election.  The article also discussed more of the burden that Mr. Perry is on the Texas taxpayer.

Although security around public officials has been tightened considerably since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the secrecy that surrounds Perry’s travels is unique, according to Ken Bunting, executive director of the Missouri-based National Freedom of Information Coalition.

And the governor’s critics contend that it has as much to do with politics as safety — especially after the embarrassment for Perry when taxpayers learned that they had been paying for scuba gear and golf cart rentals for officers who accompanied Perry and his wife to the Bahamas in 2004.

On Christmas Day, the Texas Tribune reported that Mr. Perry's security contingent is now costing Texas taxpayers as much as $400,000 each month.

Aside from President Obama, Perry — the only sitting governor in the 2012 race — has the largest security contingent, and apparently the only one on the Republican side financed by taxpayers.

Weeks before he officially announced his presidential bid, Perry said it was appropriate for the Texas Department of Public Safety to pay for his security and called any criticism of his government-provided protection a “diversion.” He also said that Texans would benefit from his travels.

“I’m going to be promoting Texas,” Perry said in July, as he began to traverse the country. “I’m going to be traveling to places where the Texas story needs to be told, and we will tell it.”

If the state of Texas is to benefit from their governor's travels, they are in need of a better spokesman than Rick Perry.  Aside from fumbling at numerous speeches and his failure to place his name on the Virginia primary ballot, Governor Perry calls for smaller government and tightening government expenditures while simultaneously spending large amounts of Texas tax dollars for his national campaign and endeavoring to hide much of that information from the public.

Rick Perry is a liar, a cheater, and a hypocrite.  He is not worthy of the office of the President of the United States.

Thanks to Joe My God for the heads up.

18 December 2011, Original Pedantic Political Ponderings post.