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Rick Perry, The First Socialist Governor of Texas?

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Buried in the avalanche of information in yesterday’s Dallas Morning News story showing the interlocking relationships between contributions to the governor and investments from the Texas Enterprise Fund is another astonishing revelation — worth a story in itself. Texas under Rick Perry has been secretly risking tax dollars in high-tech investments.

The tech fund is structured so that the state gets the right to buy stock in each company that receives an award. The state can cash in when a company is sold or goes public. That has happened at least once. CardioSpectra Inc., which was $1.35 million in 2006, was bought by Volcano Corp. in 2007. Perry spokeswoman Cesinger placed the return on the state’s investment at $2.2 million. [my italics]

The governor’s office would not reveal how many shares the state owns in any other companies, how many shares the state can buy in each company, and the current value of its portfolio.

George W. Bush and Barack Obama have been savaged for propping up Chrysler and GM (“Government Motors”) with taxpayer money. But at least everybody knew about it. Meanwhile, even as he has railed against Washington, Rick Perry has been running his own socialist enterprise — and refuses to disclose anything about it. Apparently by making a large contribution to the governor, an investor can not only get a loan from the governor’s fund, but get a side-by-side equity investment as well. Meanwhile, the governor claims not to know who his fellow investors are, while his office — in the same article — says they know perfectly well who the investors are.

The Texas Legislature — controlled by Republicans — allows this? Were its Republican members even aware of it? Or is government investment in private business only socialism when Democrats are in control? I have accused the Texas  GOP of hypocrisy before, but I did not know until yesterday how deep the rot goes.

 Tea Partiers, you have your work cut out for you. In the next few weeks before the election, I hope you are up in the faces of Republican legislators demanding to what they knew and when they knew it. Or maybe we need to replace the entire lot with Democrats. I doubt they would have the nerve to run this kind of mercantilist racket from the governor’s office.

No wonder Rick Perry refuses to debate. What else doesn’t he want his own party to know?

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