The Texas governor, who joined the Republican primary race over the weekend, said regulations and overspending by Washington are preventing people from getting back to work.
"If you don't have the resources coming in where the private-sector job creators are creating wealth, then your economy is going to go in the toilet, which is exactly what has happened in America over the last three years with this monstrous debt," Perry said.
"My message is Mr. President, set the people free, set the people free to get back to work, set the people free from these regulations," Perry told Fox News, calling for a "moratorium" on new federal regulations.
Perry says 40 percent of the nation's new jobs have been created in Texas since June 2009. He attributes that record to low taxes, few regulations and predictability that attracts employers to the state.
But Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said Sunday Perry is overstating his role in Texas' success and Obama's stimulus package gets much of the credit.
"It's extremely difficult for him to deserve credit for that job creation when you have rising gas prices that created oil jobs that he had nothing to do with, when you had military spending as a result of two wars that created military jobs that he had nothing to do with, when you have the Recovery Act championed by President Obama that created jobs in Texas that he had nothing to do with," Wasserman Schultz said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"So it is way overblown to suggest that the job creation in Texas is squarely on the shoulders of his policies," she said.
But back in Iowa, Perry said discipline is key, and he wants to go to Washington to stop the spending and pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. He added that he won't be bashful about using the veto pen.
In 2007, as Texas governor, Rick Perry issued a mandate, forcing young girls to be vaccinated against the cancer-causing Human Papillomavirus (HPV.) Perry didn’t use the power of his office to educate, cajole or persuade–he used it to force his healthcare initiative on the children of Texas. Sounds like another guy’s healthcare initiative a few years later–except we know that conservatives fought ObamaCare tooth and nail, partly because of its infringements on personal liberty and the government’s mandate which forces citizens to buy government-approved insurance.
Jazz Shaw, writing at Hot Air’s Green Room, defends Perry and cautions, “If the first casualty of war is truth, the first casualty of politics is common sense.”
Shaw trots out many arguments in defense of Rick Perry’s actions: how safe the vaccine was, whether it was needed, opposing Perry’s mandate consisted of “politics rather than science.” Everything except the obvious: Perry cut parents out of the loop and forced their daughters, whether sexually active or not, to submit to the State of Texas’ will.
Hardly a conservative position, but hey: it might be a police state action, but at least it’s being run by our guy. Does the term “police state” sound a bit harsh? What about all of the laws, regulations and Orwellian features which became the law of the land under “Our Team” (i.e., when the Republicans were in control of Washington), which later morphed into the abuses of the Obama years? Oh, it was Obama; that was the problem.
Every forced action by the state can ALWAYS be rationalized by “good intentions”–and later abused by the Evil Opposition when they get into power.
That lesson was learned when Ronald Reagan championed the RICO laws. Civil libertarians at the time warned of their great potential for abuse and conservatives dismissed those concerns as liberals being “soft on crime.” Later, when RICO treated abortion protesters as organized crime participants, some conservatives had to admit that the civil libertarians were right.
Perry does have the advantage of claiming he’s a Christian–just like George W. Bush did. Of course, Bush’s claim was plainly nonsense to anyone remotely acquainted with Christianity.
Perry was recently attacked by one of the Kennedy Klan for practicing a selective Christianity. Is Rick Perry as Christian as He Thinks He Is? That MUST mean that the Texas governor is a Christian, right? Social conservatives who don’t pay attention and use the “attacked-by-a-progressive” standard for evaluating a candidate’s bona fides will continued to be fooled–and disappointed–by GOP candidates who throw around buzzwords like “God” and “prayer.”
These are only a few items from the Rick Perry record; there are more, if conservatives will look past the rhetoric of another politician willing to say anything and everything in pursuit of power.
The prognosis from this corner: Positioned against Obama, Rick Perry looks like a heavyweight and will have some conservatives drooling. But his record promises something completely different: disappointment; sure to infuriate conservatives, if he ever achieves a national office.
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