Roughly one in three of the top Perry donors had business interests that secured grants, tax subsidies or project approvals under his administration, the Post review found. Five donors gained both an appointment and a state boost to their specific company or interests
– Related story –
The Atlantic | By Conor Friedersdorf | How Rick Perry got rich while working government jobs – Gov. Rick Perry's boots must have some sturdy straps. In the mid-1980s, when he began serving as a Texas state representative, he earned roughly $45,000 per year. He spent the next couple decades in government jobs. And now? Unlike most of us, Perry hasn't yet filed his 2010 tax return. But his net worth is in the low seven figures – in fact, he earned over $1 million dollars in 2007 alone, although he made just $150,000 as governor, a job that tends to take up all of one's time.
Note: Gov. Perry is out courting deep-pocketed political donors for his presidential bid while wildfires consume massive land areas inside Texas and the apocalyptic-size drought has brought the state's agriculture industry to its knees. Comparing images of Rome burning while Nero fiddles will be inescapable for Perry. Ironically, Mother Nature herself (some may say God) could become the biggest impediment to his angelic quest for the White House.
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Washington Post
Read the complete story
By Carol D. Leonnig
Thursday, September 1, 7:33 AM
Just before Labor Day weekend, two San Antonio multi-millionaires will co-chair a $25,000-a-couple country club fundraiser for Republican Gov. Rick Perry, an event meant to persuade business leaders beyond Texas to help their friend win the White House.
Texas business legends Peter Holt, owner of the San Antonio Spurs, and Billy Joe “Red” McCombs, an auto and real estate magnate and former sports team owner, are typical of the large campaign donors who helped Perry raise more cash than any Texas governor. Together, these two men with diverse business interests personally donated more than $936,000 to Perry’s campaigns, in a state that does not limit the amount individuals can donate to local politicians.
Perry’s ability to raise $102 million in his gubernatorial campaigns from this network of wealthy Texans has helped him position himself as a leader in the Republican presidential field. Veteran campaign hands say that in national fundraising, Perry must lean heavily on this old network while expanding it beyond Texas.
He also will have to deal with mounting criticism that his administration has rewarded large donors with favors that have enhanced their personal and business interests. Public interest groups contend that the linkage is too strong to be explained by the business-friendly climate that Perry has worked hard to create.
“Perry has taken it to a whole new level,” said Public Citizen’s director in Texas, Tom Smith said. “Time after time, there’s often a direct link between Perry’s decisions and payments to his campaign coffers.”
Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the governor alone does not make the decisions that helped certain businesses. Independent state officials and commissions are often involved, he said.
16 comments:
The constant barrage from the Roundup has convinced me that Perry is my man for President. It seems the liberal press is having the s#!ts over his candidacy which means he is a serious threat to their little world. I think anyone would be an improvement over what we have now. I was beginning to worry about the candidates the Republicans had come up with but now it it's clear that Perry is electable and can beat the socks off the incumbent. Thank God!
To anonymous knee jerk: Having an opposite reaction to something you dislike is not a sound way to make important decisions. In that, you mirror Mr. Perry.
You have already and others of the wacko conservative ilk will also fall into the liberals strategic trap. Rick Perry has too much junk in his closet to ever be elected president of the United States by sane people and independents. Most voters with an ounce of intelligence understand that.
John Huntsman is the real dark horse simply because he is a mild mannered reality-based conservative businessman and former governor, who happens to believe in science-based facts and evolution.
It is telling when the media finally calls out our politicians on their blatant special interest rewarding of campaign favors they are called the "liberal press."
What do we call it when the same media calls Obama an "Uncle Tom" for not standing up to the Republicans or when Rush Limbaugh calls Obama the "black cloud over the White House."
Is that the racist press or the hateful right wing press?
Labels like the "liberal press" always comes out from the helpless and exposed right wing when the press is finally doing their job as investigative journalists.
When Obama is called out for pandering to Wall Street bankers and/or rolling over on the health reform "public option" or the US budget - or hides in Washington during the demonstrations in Wisconsin, is that the liberal press attacking a liberal?
Or how about David Frum, the very smart and savvy conservative ex-Bush speechwriter. When he calls out his fellow Republicans on their lies in his on-line FrumForum, is he part of the "liberal press."
No, that is investigative media analysis that holds politicians accountable for their hypocrisy.
More often than not, right wingers call the media the "liberal press" when some journalist is intelligently doing their job as an aggressive competent critic.
Believe it or not, at least some journalists are still doing what we expect a good journalist to do.
All politicians are pathological liars. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to catch them in their lies.
If Anonymous thinks telling the truth about Perry or any politician is liberal, thank God we have liberals.
I am a conservative but I am not a supporter of Perry. Too many right-wingers simply look the other way when it comes to Perry and his suspect land deals, his cronyism in making appointments from Railroad Commission to UT Board of Regents (see Coleen McHugh who helped him lower his tax bill on that Horseshoe Bay property) and his Gardasil moment, which came after his former Chief of Staff Mike Toomey was hired to lobby for Merck, the drug company who manufactured Gardasil.
There are just too many instances of sweetheart deals and reciprocal appointments and grants from the Texas Enterprise Fund. It shows a pattern of cronyism which explains how Perry was able to become a millionaire over these last 25 years or so as a "public servant".
And his various money-making ventures, whether a land deal that "happens" to net him huge profits or investments in companies with big-time donors or other political insiders, the heavy lifting is always being done by others around him, while Perry sits in the governor's seat tossing favors from his chum bucket.
Well said Retrocon!
@ Independent forever
I agree with you on Jon Huntsman I wish it was possible for him to move in as a frontrunner as he seems to be a solid candidate, but with the current political climate I don't foresee that happening.
@ rocky
Your constant whining in the comments section is getting old.
Last shadow Anonymous,
Is it whining because you don't like reading comments you don't agree with - or because you don't understand what I say?
Or don't you like facts and honest analysis that confronts hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness?
Please explain why you consider it whining. And please put YOUR name up so I know who considers me a "whiner."
I won't bite.
Or, you can always watch Fox instead of reading the Roundup.
Btw, I would hope Huntsman gets the Rep nomination. He is maybe the only one who will get the intelligent independent voter.
I met Mr. Multimillionaire Peter Holt back when he was just a hippie, just my friend Ann's big brother. Now he gives money to put people like Rick Perry in the White House. This is just sad.
That boy has gone places no one would have guessed, though their dad DID own Holt Caterpillar even then, so I guess it would have been difficult to end up poor.
...too bad he turned into a Republican. He was a fun boy back in the day!
Besides agreeing with the observation that someone in this and other threads always needs to have the last word (RB?), I also agree with Forever Independent that Huntsman is the most sane/tame horse in the current stable of GOP presidential candidates.
Pick any of the others (Ron Paul excepted) and the Doomsday Clock (the old Cold War Mutual Assured Destruction time keeper?) will have to be reactivated to three minutes before midnight. I wouldn't trust my children's and grandchildren's future with any one of those extreme right-wing megalomaniacs as far as I could throw them.
Jobs, the economy, environmentalism, the war on terror, taxes and debt, all run a distant second in my book to having a sane, centered, compassionate and honest President for my country. Its one reason I am thankful that John (PTSD) McCain lost in the last election.
Peace(?) and Sanity(?) First said:
"Jobs, the economy, environmentalism, the war on terror, taxes and debt, all run a distant second in my book to having a sane, centered, compassionate and honest President for my country."
First, no US President is ever honest. If they were honest, they would never be elected.
Second, Obama is at least a "sane, centered, and compassionate President."
And just so I don't get the last word, I ask you:
Can only a Republican president be "sane, centered, compassionate?
Please share with us how Obama is not sane, centered, and compassionate. And how Huntsman would be.
Heck if Obama isn't doing anything worth a spit in the White House for the economy, why in tarnation are the GOP, right wingers and tea party people so wound up??? Doing nothing and saying NO to everything is the only thing they know. They should be happily supporting the reelection of their kindred spirit Obama.
Rick Perry became a millionaire during his 10-year reign as Texas Governor.
In other words, he used his position as Governor to secure his own fortune.
Nothing more needs to be said about this special interest moron and he needs to be thrown out of politics and then he can become a corporate executive for one of the companies he earned his fortune from, like Merck or Austin Energy or UT or some such supporter.
Most of the anonymous comments on this blog stand on their own and their posters don't have to slap their names on them to satisfy their bloated egos.
Most of them can also get by with a single post on any particular topic.
Nacho "Lemming" for sure.
Nacho = Not YOUR
for sure!
"The Republican Party has become a seriously dysfunctional political machine that thinks with their asses."
Intelligent debate?
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