By Faith Chatham - DFW RCC - Sept. 27, 2007
TxDOT and Rick Perry say there's no way to build and maintain roads and bridges in Texas without tolls yet TxDOT is spending billions of dollars on lobbying and ad campaigns. TxDOT "mislabeled" millions of dollars of PR spending as engineering.
The Governor's manion needs renovating. The State is spending $9,900.00 a month to rent Rick Perry a mansion. Taxpayers are footing the $1000.00 pet deposit for Perry's dog.
The real danger isn't the probablity of the dog damaging the mansion. It's the reality that this Governor and those he has in charge of policy and spending are "doing it to the people of Texas!"
Conservative? Definitely not.
Prudent? Absolutely not.
Legal? Probaby since the Governor's veto and threat of veto helps determine what remains legal or becomes legal!
Moral? That's for you to determine.
Personally, I see it as absolutely obscene that it was proposed, let alone approved to spend nearly $120,000 a year rent for a residence for ANY ELECTED official.
Who's the landlord? Perhaps we should follow the money and examine the relationships between those who located and approved this property and those who contributed to the decision makers. There may be no conflict of interest. Again there may be.
Money to assist Texans on the Gulf Coast whose homes and businesses were damaged by Hurricane Rita remains undisbursed. It is taking YEARS for Gov. Perry's administration and FEMA to distribute the money in Texas! (The excuse cited is they were trying to be sure that there was not graft and corruption and fraud! Perhaps we should put the people who have been so careful to insure that there is no "fraud" in the Rita distributions in charge of spending in the Governor's office and for administration costs by TxDOT.
Ironically, as time for TxDOT to be reviewed by the Sunset Review Committee nears, some rumblings are circulating about whether Texas should retire the Sunset Review committee!
The real question is whether the Sunset Review Committee will have the integrity to honestly assess corruption, mismanagement, and misappropriation of taxpayers funds and TxDot's failure to deliver necessary services.
