Perry talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. He is just another big spending Texas Governor.
While Perry's book is riddled with criticisms of spending on many federal programs, his lobbyists worked to extract federal funds for Texas from those same programs. According to lobbying disclosure reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate, Perry's lobbyists focused heavily on two topics: transportation appropriations and federal health care funding.
The transportation appropriations lobbying paid off: Texas received $754.4 million from 231 earmarks included in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005 (SAFETEA-LU), according to a database held by the nonpartisan budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense. Perry's administraiton also touted an increase in the rate of return on Texas' gas tax dollars to 92 percent under the SAFETEA-LU legislation.
"[SAFETEA-LU] came at the height of the go-go years of earmarking access," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It was get while the getting's good."
Ellis pins much of Texas' lobbying success on former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas). "Certainly DeLay was of the earmark persuasion," Ellis explained. "He was a major proponent of using earmarks to reward and protect incumbents."
In "Fed Up!", Perry also lampooned the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President George W. Bush. Perry wrote, "While putting the federal government in the pharmacy business, Medicare Part D just expanded a broken program further."
What "Fed Up" doesn't mention is that Perry's administration, and the outside lobbyists he hired, reported lobbying on that same prescription drug bill. As a result, they successfully increased federal funding for Texas' health care services by more than $350 million, thanks to a provision included in the bill's conference report, which was crafted behind closed doors. The Medicare prescription drug bill also included $250 million for Texas to reimburse providers of emergency services for undocumented.
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