Texas needs a change. Texas governor Rick Perry has played politics with policies that have material impact on real middle class Texan’s lives. As a Texan with a wife with a pre-existing condition, I was appalled that he refused the the Healthcare Reform funds for the high risk healthcare pool. He refused the stimulus fund to assist the unemployed which actually would have assisted our economy as whole, then he hypocritically used stimulus funds to claim a balanced budget. The Houston Chronicle made the right choice.
Texas faces an unprecedented budget deficit estimated at $21 billion, faltering health care and public education systems, and demands for new energy sources and transportation funding. For nearly a decade, Rick Perry — the longest-serving governor in Lone Star history — has been at the helm of an increasingly wayward ship.
Texas can’t afford four more years of Perry’s leadership.
The governor has shown a distaste for dealing with budget details, fobbing them off on the Legislature and even suggesting in a recent news conference that Comptroller Susan Combs had better uses of her time than issuing deficit projections.
Fortunately, voters have the opportunity to replace Republican Perry with former Houston Mayor Bill White, a Democrat with credentials as a successful lawyer, corporate CEO and public servant who demonstrated his management capabilities and hard-work ethic during a six-year tenure at City Hall.
As he did in Houston, White can bring innovative financial solutions, a passion for environmental protection, and a strong bipartisan and ethical commitment to a governor’s office tarnished by charges of cronyism, partisanship and catering to contributors at the expense of constituents.
"Today our state is being run like a political machine to perpetuate Rick Perry in office," said White during his screening with the Chronicle editorial board. Gov. Perry has declined to meet with Texas newspaper editorial boards.
"People want a governor who can bring people together to get things done," White continued. "Leadership is not dividing the state into red teams and blue teams, playing people off against each other. Leadership is not having citizens and journalists have to pry information out of the government when it’s funded by the taxpayers."
Texans need a governor committed to transparency and willing to discuss the issues of the day with citizens and media. Perry has ducked debates with White, using the dodge of demanding that the Democrat release his tax returns not only for his mayoral tenure but years before. Meanwhile, he has shrouded his own financial dealings that have made him a millionaire in a blind trust.
White promises to expand the governor’s role in planning the state budget and making state agencies more efficient in their financial planning. He points to the Texas Department of Transportation’s budget mismanagement as symptomatic of the problems that have created the looming deficit.
"DOT was so preoccupied with the corrupt land grab known as the Trans-Texas Corridor that it lost sight of basic management and getting people from where they live to where they work," said White. "In 2008 for an extended period of time they did not know where their budget was within $1.1 billion." According to the candidate, that miscalculation resulted in numerous roadway construction projects across the state being canceled.
As mayor, White fought hard to force the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to strengthen monitoring of air quality around industrial facilities. If he wins the governorship, White said he would quickly defuse the confrontation with the federal Environmental Protection Agency that threatens to take away the state’s ability to set air quality standards. He contends the conflict was concocted by Perry to burnish his image as a states-rights proponent.
White would make improving public education one of his highest priorities as governor. He points to statistics showing the state to be next to last in the nation in the percentage of adults with high school diplomas and 45th in SAT scores. He wants to expand pre-kindergarten programs and boost career and technical training for high school students.
"This state is not doing a good job of training people for high-wage jobs," said White. "God made us with different talents, and the job market requires different skills."
When he was mayor, White and his wife Andrea participated in campaigns to encourage students to return to school by visiting young people at their homes. If elected governor, White would work with local school districts to set up job banks with local employers to hire students who must work to generate family income.
With state college tuition skyrocketing by 93 percent since 2003, White pledges to advocate for more affordable two- and four-year programs, and for measures to cut the cost of class textbooks by using free open-source and on-line materials where possible.
