Grumpy Lion

The Republican darling from Texas who wants to gather to himself all the perks of the White House and will tell any lie and live any hypocrisy to get him there, and has for all his life taken every taxpayer dollar he can get his grubby hands on, is taken apart by Jim Hightower in this piece over at Common Dreams.

A taste:

Worse, probe even a millimeter into the million-jobs number that he is sprinkling around like fairy dust, and you’ll learn that Perry’s jobs are mostly "jobettes" that can’t sustain a family. They come with very low pay, no health care or pension, and no employment security, labor rights or upward mobility — many are only part-time and/or temporary positions.

Here’s a particularly revealing stat that the Perry pixies don’t want us to see: On his watch as governor, Texas added more minimum wage jobs than all the other 49 states combined. More than half a million Texans now work for $7.25 an hour or less. He can brag that he’s brought Texans down into a tie with Mississippi for the highest percentage of workers reduced to poverty pay.

And Hightower notes that Perry has spent pretty much his entire life sucking at the public teat.

So when this taxpayer-supported lifer flits into your town to declare that he will slash public benefits and make government "as inconsequential as possible," he means in your life, not his.

#