Wealthy donors and corporate-funded foundations, for example, have flown him to the Bahamas for scuba diving, to Paris, Rome and Dubai for business promotion and to San Diego, Calif., for the one-time Texas A&M yell leader to attend an Aggies Muster for expatriate A&M graduates.
There was a trip to Istanbul for the Bilderberg conference hosted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. A trip to the Middle East had on its schedule meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Jordan's King Abdullah and a "breathtaking sunset cruise on the Red Sea."
Perry, who took office in 2000, said in a recent interview with the Houston Chronicle that his only motivation as governor is to affect public policy: "This is not about me. It's not about whatever the people would perceive as the perks of being governor ... I get to go do a job every day that makes a difference in people's lives. I find that very satisfying."
Below is a glimpse of some of the gifts worth over $250 Perry received in 2007 and 2008.
James Leininger, San Antonio investor: hunting trip
Rocky Carroll, Houston boot maker: Republican Governors Association boots
John Nau, Houston beer distributor: transportation
Frank Yturria, Brownsville rancher: lodging
George Rodrique, painter New Orleans: Blue dog print
James Huffines, Austin banker and appointee to the University of Texas board of regents: Transportation for Anita Perry.
Larry Vinson, Albany, Tx.: hunting trip and transportation
Larry Martin, Houston: hunting trip
Dr. John Estes, Abilene: boots.
David Weeks, media consultant: Anita Perry and one child. Concert tickets.
David Nance, CEO Introgen Theraputics Inc. of Austin: Hunting trip
James Leininger: Air travel, room and board.
Peter Holt, Blanco Caterpillar dealer and owner of the San Antonio Spurs: Rick and Anita Perry and one child. Basketball tickets.
Peter Holt: Rick and Anita Perry and one child. Basketball tickets.
Phil Adams, Bryan, insurance and appointed by Perry as a Texas A&M regent: Rick and Anita Perry. Transportation and tickets to Big 12 basketball tournament.
Dan Freidkin, Houston auto dealer: hunting trip for Rick and Anita Perry.
That sure is a lot of lavish and fun for a modest cotton farmer from West Texas. It must be really hard to give up that kind of opulence and luxury to return to the ordinary and every day challenges of farming and a life style in which one has to purchase one's own airline tickets and pay for one's cleaning lady.
And while our modest cotton farmer Perry is busy wining and dining with the rich and famous, Texas manages to earn a brand new feather in its cap.
Drums rolling.
Ta da!
Texas now ranks 50th in providing unemployment benefits for the jobless. Peggy Fikac of the Houston Chronicle reports:
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Texas ranks 50th in the percentage of unemployed people receiving benefits. In the past 12 months, 31 percent of the jobless got benefits.
Great. We already hold first place in having the most uninsured residents. Our K-12 schools rank second to last nationwide. And, according to a recent study in the Economist about the two faces of Texas, not one of our three biggest cities has a tier-one university to its name.
Red McCombs is no bleeding-heart liberal. A lumbering giant of a man and one of Texas's crop of a couple of dozen billionaires, he built his fortune by buying and selling everything from car dealerships to football teams. But he gets distinctly emotional about the poor performance of Texas's educational system. "The biggest blight on our state", he thunders, "is the terrible graduation rate from our high schools. Shame on us! It's been that way for 30 years, and it's getting worse. Have we been greedy, ignorant, uncaring? Maybe all of those things."
Mr McCombs is not alone. Almost everyone interviewed for this report expressed concern about the poor state of Texas's public schools and the mediocre record of its universities. Stephen Klineberg, professor of sociology at Rice University in Houston, puts it bleakly: "If we fail to turn our education system around, we will find that a whole generation has been locked out of the jobs market." The drop-out rate from Texas's schools is high across all three of the main racial groups, white, black and Hispanic, but it is the Hispanic drop-out rate that worries people most.
Low educational standards continue spell trouble for our well-being and future.
In contrast to those Forbes ratings, the Kauffman Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship, puts Texas only 18th in its ranking of states' ability to take advantage of America's "transformation into a global, entrepreneurial and knowledge- and innovation-based New Economy". Texas falls down in a number of categories, most of them to do with education.
Kauffman ranks Texas 41st for the education level of its workforce as well as for the average education level of recent arrivals from elsewhere in America, suggesting that too many of its newcomers are chasing low-end jobs. A committee on education appointed by Mr Perry concluded in January that "Texas is not globally competitive" and gave warning that it "faces a downward spiral in both quality of life and economic competitiveness".
And now we have another plum to boast about. It is really, really hard, if not impossible, for the jobless to obtain unemployment benefits.
Don Baylor of the Center for Public Policy Prioirites and Andrew Stettner of the National Employment Law Project contend the agency culture is discouraging.
"To a large degree, they kind of make it as hard as possible for you to apply," Baylor said. He said that creates an attitude of "Why even bother applying? Either you're not going to qualify or they're going to make you feel not very good about applying."
Despite the fact that Perry said his office was not about him, it is indeed everything about him.
Perry, who took office in 2000, said in a recent interview with the Houston Chronicle that his only motivation as governor is to affect public policy: "This is not about me. It's not about whatever the people would perceive as the perks of being governor ... I get to go do a job every day that makes a difference in people's lives. I find that very satisfying."
Perry does not care a hoot about the unemployed, the uninsured and the under-educated.
Perry will not change his stand on the $555 million for expanded unemployment benefits. The Guv believes it is more wise to borrow the shortfall funding from the evil doing federal government in Washington.
Since an election is on the horizon, this issue, like so many others, has become a political football.
Politicians play games to raise money for themselves while the jobless, the uninsured and the under-educated struggle to hold on.
Kay Bailey Hutchison, who voted against the federal stimulus bill altogether, recently criticized Rick Perry for turning down the unemployment dollars. We are obviously getting close to the silly season of campaigning. When else would the pot call the kettle black and think such hypocrisy would go unnoticed?
Tom Schieffer, the Democratic candidate for governor is the only one of the three who makes any sense about expanded unemployment funding, although I don't understand his problem with imposing a permanent expansion program. If the need exists wouldn't it be better to address it rather than ignore it?
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Tom Schieffer, who says Texas should have taken the extra money and could have done so without a permanent program expansion, said, "It looks like we won the race to (have) the worst unemployment benefits in the country, and that's a tragedy for people that are hurting right now"
If this was not about you, Guv, and others running for office, you would take fewer trips, hunt less frequently and refuse the boots and other gifts extended to you by folks who want a piece of you in exchange. You would stop the silly nonsense chatter and clown theatrics about secession. When you go to this level of foolishness you bring nothing but shame and ridicule to the people of Texas. Folks outside of Texas believe you and your supporters are locked in a plantation mindset in which you would love nothing better than for the state to become an independent country comprised of rich, powerful masters and poor, disenfranchised slaves.
If this were really not about you, Mr. Perry, you would do your job by actually caring about plights of people who gave you the privilege to serve as the governor.
So far it seems that you prefer the company of your rich and famous friends. And while you jet set around with your closest and dearest friends, what are the unemployed supposed to do? Are you telling them to eat cake?
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