Texan Taxpayers Foot The Bill For Perry's Presidential Run

Running for president is a very, very expensive business. You have campaign workers, media buys, travel, security, polling and a wide variety of other costs that can number in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

Luckily, for Texas Governor Rick Perry, he’s found a way to defray some of those expenses. Charge them to his constituents.

According to the Washington Post, Perry has brought on Texas law enforcement to help out with his security, scouting out the sites that events will be held at ahead of time, providing extra enforcement while he’s in attendance. The costs for those additional hours are of course being passed on to the state budget and paid for with the state’s gas tax and vehicle registration fees.

How much is this extra security costing the state? Well, conveniently enough, no one knows. Records of the governor’s security costs have been kept under wraps for years, with the Department of Safety declaring that releasing the info could jeopardize Perry’s safety.

Presumably, they don’t just mean because Texans would be so angry to see how much money it is that he might get hurt.

Those records will be concealed even longer, despite numerous attempts to get them released, thanks to a bill passed in a special session that state records must be kept closed another 18 months. Which just happens to be until after the 2012 election has ended.

What is Perry keeping secret, and how much is his protection really running? It may be a long time before we ever find out, but it looks like Texans will need to keep doing a lot of driving to cover it.

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Read more: 2012 presidential election, rick perry

Photo from Gage Skidmore via flickr creative commons

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Eternal G.

11:07PM PDT on Sep 27, 2011

Ouch!

send a green star

Stephanie P.

9:45AM PDT on Sep 19, 2011

This is the same guy who carries a loaded weapon when he jogs. Isn't he a good shot?

Bill R.

8:09PM PDT on Sep 18, 2011

What are we complaining about, perry campaign being supported by taxpayers dollars, well do I suggest we compare what taxpayer dollars he uses to what taxpayer dollars Obama is and will use. Obama has spent more on Machelle and overseas vacations than Perry will ever spend on his campaign .

Stacey W.

9:12AM PDT on Sep 15, 2011

Best bet? Vote Huntsman in the primaries. Use the GOP's trick against them and decide who their candidate will be, for them! They did it with Hillary, and so we got Obama. Wonder it they are happy now? lol Heck, it's my party and I can't figure out what the heck they are thinking about besides their pocketbooks. Huntsman at least is moderate and will do not so much harm. The same of which cannot be said for the rest of the GOP, Tea Baggers basket of nuts.

Don I.

4:04PM PDT on Sep 6, 2011

@Steven B, - COntinued -
* The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that less reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.
------------End of Overview ----------

4:03PM PDT on Sep 6, 2011

@Steven B,
- Continued -------------- S&P Overview of Downgrade- Their own words ---------
United States of America Long-Term Rating Lowered To 'AA+' On Political Risks And Rising Debt Burden; Outlook Negative

Overview:
* We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA' and affirmed the 'A-1+' short-term rating.

* We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from
CreditWatch negative.

* The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.

* More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

* Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics any time soon.

* The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating t

3:58PM PDT on Sep 6, 2011

@Steven B,
"I wish YOU could comprehend the truth or, .. at least not try to obscure" and twist "it", .. "but with YOUR mentality and IQ that is definitely ANOTHER" Democrat "bridge to nowhere". Your comment to Diane O. works both ways.

I've pasted the actual S&P Overview on the downgrade event to refresh your memory. I've also pasted a link to the actual text S&P used when announcing the downgrade. Feel free to read the whole text before trying to claim your spin is what was said. Also, can you please point out where the Tea Party is/was ever mentioned in their report? The Democrat and Republican parties WERE specifically mentioned, as was the Obama Administration. Included in the statements text is the following: "Standard & Poor's takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might conclude is appropriate for putting the U.S.'s finances on a sustainable footing."

--------- Link to Complete S&P Text ---------------
http://www.standardandpoors.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobheadername3=MDT-Type&blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3DUS_Downgraded_AA%2B.pdf&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobheadername1=content-type&blobwhere=1243942957443&blobheadervalue3=UTF-8

------------- S&P Overview of Downgrade- Their own words ---------

United States of America Long-Term

Janice R.

1:06PM PDT on Sep 6, 2011

So, how do we prove that the boy has committed this crime? ?How do Texans recall this man after proving it? THAT certainly would take the wind out of his political ambition.
We can comment all day, but unless we strive to get something done about a problem, it is just so much smoke.

Bruce K.

8:44AM PDT on Sep 6, 2011

Money? We all paid a fortune for O'Bama's campaign Bus....Made in Canada!

Diane O.

3:05AM PDT on Sep 6, 2011

I'm not trying to pin Texas's educational woes on the immigrants. What I was doing was showing that they impact the problem. There's a large problem with teenage pregnancy, quitting school, etc.