Grading Texas

That distinction, based on my quick reading of the day’s news clips, belongs to rightwing activist Michael Quinn Sullivan, who views the state budget strictly in terms of big numbers and political opportunity, not actual, living people.

In a story in The Dallas Morning News about the deep cuts proposed in the initial House budget plan, Sullivan was quoted as denouncing “crisis mongering” by critics of the proposal.

“Taxandspend liberals would have us believe that all music, joy and laughter will fade away unless legislators hike spending and raise taxes,” he said.

Well, that probably won’t be the case at Sullivan’s house, as long as he can make a living stirring the pot of antigovernment folks who don’t need public health care, think they don’t need the public schools and don’t really give a twit about the future of Texas. But laughter and joy may be suppressed in the households of laidoff teachers or state employees or workingclass families who lose health care coverage for their children, real people who may become real victims to budgetcutting numbers. And, there will a lot of those if agitators like Sullivan have their way.

What’s more, parents who suddenly discover that their children’s grade school classrooms have become stuffed with 30 or 35 kids each also may find a big chunk of their joy replaced by anger.

In case you don’t know, this is the same Michael Quinn Sullivan who managed to antagonize most Republican members of the Texas House by trying to stir up public opposition to Speaker Joe Straus because Straus actually believes the world is round.

The TSTA building, only a couple of blocks from the Capitol, shook a bit when the National Guard’s cannons were fired this morning during the inaugural ceremony. I assured one of my colleagues we weren’t under attack, at least not from the National Guard. It was merely the traditional 19gun salute afforded Gov. Perry to commemorate the beginning of his umpteenth term.

Besides, the guns, even if they were pointed in our direction, were firing blanks. Unfortunately, as far as the public schools and school teachers were concerned, so was Perry’s inaugural speech. In four and onehalf pages (doublespaced) of text, the governor devoted one sentence to anything that could be construed as public education.

It was, “We must continue investing in our people, developing young minds, grooming and attracting the best and brightest in the fields of science and medicine, giving individuals the tools and the freedom to prosper.”

Wow. That line almost set the podium afire.

Predictably, Perry spent many more sentences bashing the policymakers in Washington, vowing to cut spending and predicting a miraculous (if would have to be) new century of historic success for our state.

An inaugural address is supposed to be thematic, laying out an officeholder’s priorities in broad strokes. If so, education is very low on the governor’s agenda. Indeed. Maybe those big guns were pointed at us, and maybe the loud boombooms were a notsosubtle message.

The prospects of deep cuts to important public services are bad enough for millions of workingclass Texans without Gov. Rick Perry continuing to make cavalier statements that insult the people he was elected to serve. The most recent example occurred yesterday when the governor, at a news conference, ridiculed the “proponents of Armageddon” for “needlessly” raising concerns about the anticipated spending reductions.

In the first place, the concerns were prompted by Perry’s repeated insistence that a revenue shortfall, now projected as high as $27 billion, be bridged with spending cuts and spending cuts alone. So far, the governor has even ruled out any expenditures from the Rainy Day Fund to help ease the emergency.

Secondly, being worryfree about financial “Armageddon” comes easily for a governor with a sixfigure state salary, a large, taxpayerpaid staff at his beck and call and a $10,000permonth, taxpayerpaid mansion to call home.

But a personal form of “Armageddon” may very well be at the door for the custodians, secretaries and other nonprofessional staffers who will start losing their jobs in the Vidor ISD this month, mainly because Perry and the Legislature have refused to adequately fund the public schools. By the time a new state budget is drafted, something akin to Armageddon also may be breathing down the necks of thousands of newly unemployed teachers and state employees. And, it may be a reality for thousands of lowincome, working parents who will see their kids lose health care coverage because of cutbacks to CHIP.

The only optimistic note from yesterday’s news conference was a vague hint that Perry – prompted by Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden – may take a look at the underperforming margins tax. Efforts to milk more revenue from that source, however, are sure to prompt howls of outrage from many business people.

But Perry should tone down the rhetoric. The political campaign, at least the governor’s race, is over. It is time to govern, not sound like a yakshow host on Fox.

http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/legislature/stories/011311dntexperrydewhurststraus.a94a8e20.html#

http://orangeleader.com/topstories/x233958489/VidorISDtobeginreductionofworkforceJan31

I posted a blog item last week about how parents and other taxpayers – including people who normally don’t want any part of the political world – are beginning to realize that they and their children will be the ultimate victims of the deep budget cuts being championed at the state Capitol by Gov. Rick Perry and some Republican legislators.

Well, the lights continue to blink on.

While Perry was in Austin, trying to downplay the seriousness of a revenue shortfall as high as $27 billion and poohpoohing any notion of spending any part of the state’s Rainy Day Fund to help ease the emergency, more than 800 of his angry and concerned constituents were trying to squeeze into the Fort Bend School Board’s meeting room in Sugar Land.

Why? Fort Bend ISD, one of hundreds of budgetstrapped school districts across the state, is considering closing several schools.

In Austin, on Tuesday night, about 300 people attended a parents’ meeting to protest the possible closure of one of several schools that Austin ISD is considering shutting down. In each case, hundreds of school kids’ lives will be disrupted, their new schools will be more crowded and teachers’ jobs will be lost.

Every day, the news clips include several stories of school districts’ budgetary woes, all traceable to the governor’s and the Legislature’s failure to adequately and equitably fund the public schools. The recession hasn’t helped, but the basic problem is a school finance failure at the statehouse.

This morning’s clips also included discussions of possible layoffs in El Paso ISD and various costcutting possibilities in San Antonio ISD, including layoffs, a shorter school week and consolidating some specialty schools.

“You couldn’t spend enough to make some of those groups happy,” Gov. Perry told the Houston Chronicle in an interview on the same day the Fort Bend parents besieged their local school board.

“Those groups” obviously include Fort Bend parents and thousands of others throughout the state who soon will be barging in on their local school boards when their neighborhood schools also are threatened with closure.

All the peaceful, public activism is good. But now it’s time for these parents to turn their attention to the root of the problem – the Capitol. There is a lot of room for peaceful rallying on the Capitol grounds or even outside the governor’s office. Let Perry hear and see how unhappy his everyday constituents really are.

The governor didn’t even see fit to make education funding an emergency on the first day of the session. But he did give “emergency” status to legislation protecting private property rights and ending the practice of “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants, both hotbutton priorities of conservative Republican primary voters.

Some say Perry is keeping his options open for a 2012 presidential run. I say it’s time for him to quit dreaming and start listening to the thousands of everyday Texans who want an adequately funded public education system.

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/capacitycarecostsarefactorsinaustinschool1179509.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7376607.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7375326.html