The State of the State

"Friends" of Rick Perry are running some rather hard-hitting adds against Princess KB lately, calling her, basically, a communist codling whore.

I think the reason that ex-Senators rarely get elected to executive offices is because the nature of the senate makes the member learn to compromise, which especially in Texas, means certain death at the hands of demagogues who never compromise on anything, except whose tree to hang the nigger in.

It would be useful for people to pay attention to the current tea-bagger meme of the "Texas Economic Miracle," which sustains the govenor's current national popularity with wingers, who imagine that Texas is doing great now because we, unlike all the other losers, have stuck to the principals of free-market capitalism.

It is difficult to know how healthy the Texas economy really is because the state is notorious for keeping lousy stats, or no stats that the public can view. In terms of one indicator, the records of deaths and disease, infant mortality, hospital ER visits, etc., which one would expect to rise since Texas has more uninsured per population than any other in the country, but the state has no available statistics in this area after 2006.

A look at the US Dept. of Labor figures show that Texas, on the average, has unemployment that has gone up about 1.3% in 2009.

I know a few things that are circumstantial that might indicate that things are worse than what is being let on. For instance, new claims for Social Security Disability and SSI in Texas are up 63% in one year! Medicaid and CHIPS applications have risen in commencerate terms as well. The homeless population in my town has exploded - they seem to be everywhere. My local charities are struggling with overwelming requests for assistance, and are for the most part broke.

The thing I see most prevelant is that nobody seems to have any money, and banks aren't loaning any.

I hope things are getting better for everybody, I really do. But the idea that Texas is THE model for every state's recovery deserves greater scrutiny.