Texas House Slashes Perry's Budget

Weeeeelllllllll, doggies, governor. You want Texas to leave the union? Let's see you pull that stunt off with a ZERO budget for your office operations over the next two years. (And it's the whole House, not just the Democrats, who voted for this.) Oh, and as a plus, we're gonna gut NCLB. Never thought I'd say this. GO Texas LEGE! (and Senators? Don't even think about rolling this back. The national embarrassment of the Texas Governor's office's last two occupants really needs to be refuted.)

"That's the headline: 'Two days after governor says we ought to secede, House zeroes out the governor's budget,' " said Appropriations Committee vice chairman Richard Raymond, D-Laredo.

To which this native Texan responds, in order to maintain family-friendly language, AB-so-frackin'-lutely. Particularly given where the money will go instead:

Cuts to Perry's budget were proposed by House Democratic caucus chairwoman Jessica Farrar of Houston, who siphoned $4 million away for veterans' programs, and Rep. John Davis, R-Houston. He took $18.7 million more, for community mental health "crisis services" that try to keep the mentally ill out of jail and emergency rooms.

Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, noted that Farrar had seven floor amendments that would sweep funds from Perry's office or the state-federal office in Washington that he controls.

When asked why Republicans didn't object to zeroing out the GOP governor's budget, King said, "We were just trying to avert any unnecessary gamesmanship."

Taylor said Democrats were "trying to make the other side make bad votes that they can use in the campaign or PR."

Farrar denied trying to put GOP members on record rejecting money for deserving Texans such as veterans and the needy.

"I was looking to do something for people in hard economic times," she said.

That's Dallas Morning News reporting, and they're a serious GOP paper. The comments are worth reading too, if you're interested in finding out how real people feel about Rick Perry.