Texas
Related: About this forumThe Future of ‘Corporate Welfare’ in Texas after Rick Perry
Is it too early to consider Rick Perrys legacy? Some state lawmakers already are, at least indirectly.
Legislators are considering what to do with some of the guvs signature programs, the big corporate subsidy funds that have been plagued by charges of cronyism and inefficiency since their inception. Funding for the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, in particular, is dwindling due to lawmakers reluctance to keep pouring dollars into what some critics consider Perrys corporate welfare accounts. The Observer, for example, reported on a $12 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant to Chevron for a Houston office tower that the company had announced years before. Chevron, in fact, planned to spend the money not to create new jobs, which were already in the works, but on generous moving costs for its employees.
Overall, the Texas Enterprise Fund alone has doled out more than $500 million in grants since the Legislature created it a decade ago. In 2010, the Observer foundin a story appropriately titled Slush Funthat 20 of the 55 Enterprise Fund companies had either given money directly to Perrys campaign or donated to the Republican Governors Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group that Perry presided over in 2008.
All of that is on Rick Perry. But its up to the Legislature and the next governoreither Wendy Davis or, more likely, Greg Abbottwhether to shut down the funds, or modify them.
More at http://www.texasobserver.org/future-corporate-welfare-texas-rick-perry/ .
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)The shaft to the rest. He could have taken the Medicaid expansion but then the funds would have gone to the poor and there is no way that could happen. After all the stimulus money went to balancing his budget so he could brag about it. He tries to get companies to relocate in Texas but took his eyes off of the ball and Wisconsin got a defense contract.
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)Texas has become a cesspool of fomenting shit.