Another Texas Two-Step: Governor Goodhair Declares, Michael Burgess Scares

By Manifesto Joe

As of this writing, Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry still hadn't given the South Carolina speech that is said to be the one that will make his bid for the presidency official. I'm presuming that he will do just that.

Goodhair keeps indicating that he wants to go national with The Texas Way. That's great -- if you're already rich. Texas has a pretty decent Third World economy. I would advise y'all in the rest of the U.S. to try to stick with the First World formula. The Third World path has definite limitations.

Sure, there have been plenty of jobs created in Texas during the nearly 11 years Goodhair has been governor -- low-wage, service-sector jobs, mostly. The state has become a veritable magnet for illegal immigrant labor. It's been estimated that if you got rid of all the workers who are here illegally, about a third of the restaurants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area would have to close. Seems like everybody in the Anglo culture here has a few anecdotes about things like, approaching somebody in a restaurant or supermarket only to be told, "No habla Ingles."

(Fortunately, "Donde esta el bano?" was a common tourista question I remembered from Spanish class.)

Creation of such crummy jobs is about all Texas can point to for recent bragging rights. During Goodhair's time in office (he's the state's longest-serving governor, unfortunately), basics such as education, health care, per capita income and infrastructure of all kinds have suffered. The state ranks relatively low in any rankings of such sectors. ("Thank God for Mississippi!" one school official is reported to have said.)

Our public universities, led by the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems, are BIG, like everything in Texas. They are also notoriously mediocre. Even New York City's public college system, designed mainly for disadvantaged students, is considered at least marginally better than what the state government supports here.

Goodhair should know about academic mediocrity -- he's a graduate of A&M's College Station flagship, and he even did some time on academic probation while he was there.

Then there's his beef with the federal government. He has hinted strongly at secession, yet he whines when he doesn't immediately get federal money, like when wildfires burned up a lot of ranches and rural subdivisions.

Among other things, the state's debt has approximately doubled in a decade, and the $25 billion shortfall that the Legislature "dealt with" during this biennial session was by far the largest in Texas history.

Hey, but we still have no state income tax! Instead, we have very high sales taxes and user fees. And the property taxes can be pretty steep, thanks to all those medical bills the taxpayers have to cover so that our charity hospitals and clinics can treat the millions of uninsured people.

Don't get the idea that I hate Texas -- hell, I'm a native South Texan, and there is much in this culture that I know I would miss if I relocated to some politically sane place like Vermont. I have my own recipe for the best chili con carne in the world, and there's nothing like a big platter of sizzling fajitas, prepared by someone who really knows how. Shiner Bock gets my vote as one of the best beers around, and the wines of West Texas are getting better all the time. I'm indifferent to the Dallas Cowboys, but I have to admit to feeling a little pride when the Texas Rangers made it to the World Series for the first time in franchise history last fall.

But we ought to face it -- Texas is a good place mainly for those lucky enough to be born rich. If you live in a gated community and can afford to send your kids to private schools and colleges, you don't notice it much when a lot of the basics begin to fall apart. Well, maybe when you fail to miss a big pothole in the road while driving that swell new Lexus to the country club, one notices then.

Rick Perry thinks Texas should be a model for the rest of the nation. Il Doofus -- not coincidentally Perry's predecessor as governor -- just about halfway took the U.S. to that very place during eight years in office. If the American people are stupid enough to want someone to really finish the job, then Goodhair's their man. He's been one of the lousiest governors we ever had, and it would be fitting for him to be the Republicans' successor to Il Doofus, who in Texas started the job that Perry has pretty well finished here.

I just hope the rest of the country is wise enough not to do what Texans have done.

Step Two: Burgess wants to impeach Obama so that the latter's agenda can be stopped

Yep, that's what U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville (Dallas area), told a Tea Party gathering in Keller, Texas, a few days ago. I don't remember him elaborating as to exactly what the charges would be, but he did say that it would be a great way to save the republic, or something like that, by bringing President Obama's agenda to a grinding halt.

Reporters tried to get Burgess to follow up on this. At first he responded awkwardly, then his office suddenly stopped taking any phone calls on the subject. He's been silent ever since.

Here's a link to a UPI report on the subject.

You may recall that Burgess was one of the "lawmakers" in Congress who wanted to block government regulation that would require light bulbs to be more energy-efficient. Here's a link to my post on that.

The voters in Texas sure know how to pick 'em.

A stock response from Republicans would be to point out that there were Democrats who wanted to bring articles of impeachment against Il Doofus. I honestly wish that could have happened. In that case, during the 2002-03 run-up to the Iraq invasion, we had a president who was pretty clearly lying to us about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He got the U.S. into a war that, so far, has cost nearly $800 billion and nearly 1.5 million Iraqi lives. War crimes charges on the international scale might have been good, too.

Unfortunately, Il Doofus didn't leave quite enough evidence to bring impeachment charges. As always, he left open the possibility that he was merely ignorant and foolish.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.