Saturday, May 14, 2011

Gingrich Would Make America Like Texas

Newt Gingrich (pictured) announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination a couple of days ago. And almost immediately he gave voters an excellent reason to make sure that he never gets into the White House. On Wednesday he told Fox News' Hannity, "I know how to get the whole country to resemble Texas." That one statement should be enough to scare the hell out of American voters.

It should scare voters because it shows that Gingrich, like most of his fellow Republican politicians, cares only for his corporate and Wall Street buddies and not the 90-95% of Americans who are still being hurt by the Republican recession. Texas may look like heaven to corporate bigwigs since it is a low-wage, anti-union, anti-corporate tax state, but it certainly doesn't look that way to ordinary citizens. Consider the following:

* Texas has a very regressive tax system, depending mainly on sales and property taxes. This means that the poor and the working class (and the middle class) pay a far larger share of their income in taxes than the rich do.

* Texas has the largest number of low-wage (and low-benefit) workers of any state in the nation.

* Texas is the biggest polluter in the nation (and if it was a country would be the seventh largest polluter in the world).

* Texas has the largest percentage of its citizens without health insurance of any state -- about 30% of its population.

* Texas is among the worst "per pupil" funders of public education in the nation (and will be even worse after the education cuts being made in the current legislative session).

* Texas currently has one of the biggest budget deficits in the nation -- about $27 billion for the next biennium.

* Texas has the largest prison population in the nation (and executes more people than any other state).

* Texas is seventh in the nation in the percentage of its population living in poverty.

* Texas leads the nation in the percentage of high school drop-outs (about 30%).

* Texas is among the state leaders in teen pregnancy -- and is first in teen second pregnancies.

I could go on, but you surely get the picture by now. Texas is far from the conservative paradise that idiots like Newt Gingrich would like you to believe it is. I just have one question for American voters.

Do you really want America to be like Texas?

5 comments:

  1. bloody hell im not even American and that premise scares the crap out of me. if the US were made like Texas i can only wonder just how many more wars (than the ones already on your plate!) will be deemed necessary to 'fix the worlds problems'.

    please do NOT elect this prat to the POTUS. apart from all the rest of his odious personal problems he will take down the nation as well.

    yeesh. /shudders/

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  2. Newt Gingrich is the epitomal jackass candidate - arrogant, ignorant, totally conviced of his own righteous b.s. He should disappear quickly.

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  3. Texas is and always have been the LAST place I would want to live. My son just graduated from UT Arlington and got a job in DC - he couldn't get out of that state fast enough. Governor Rick Perry is the epitome of the current Rep gov who are expediting our country into a 3rd world nation. I live in Florida and every day chastise the stupid voters who elected Rick Scott. Newt G has no, none, nada, zero chance of being elected - but then I said the same thing about the medicare fraud king - Rick Scott.

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  4. I'm from Texas, and I don't want Texas to be like Texas...

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