Spending, then bashing, stimulus money

Gov. Rick Perry took his road show to Oklahoma yesterday and vowed that if he – shudder – were elected president, there would be no stimulus programs.

Perry’s stimulusbashing, of course, is a glaring inconsistency in his campaign, and it remains to be seen how long he will try to get away with it. Texas, under Perry’s watch, eagerly accepted several billion dollars in federal stimulus money in 2009 to help balance the state budget while letting Perry keep bragging about holding the line on state taxes. Maybe he figured the good folks in Tulsa didn’t know about that.

And, just a few months ago, Perry accepted another $830 million in federal stimulus funds to save (at least temporarily) some educators’ jobs. That was after he had spent several months playing politics over the issue.

The article about Perry’s speech to the Tulsa Press Club notes that the governor “shed little new light on his campaign’s economic plan.”

That’s because he doesn’t have one. He does have a lot of trite ideological rhetoric, though.

-From customwire.ap.org