Why I endorsed Rick over Kay... Wall Street Journal says he is vindicated...

Kay, you have some 'splaining to do! Remember back earlier this year when Rick rejected half a billion dollars in stimulus dollars to expand the Texas unemployment insurance system? Remember how you criticized him for rejecting those federal dollars? Remember how you and your campaign brought it up several more times over the course of the year... criticizing Rick for his decision?

Rick was right. Kay, you were wrong. It's not just that you were wrong. It's the WAY you were wrong and didn't know you were wrong... you are just off base...

The Wall Street Journal has the definitive word on the issue (link). Excerpt follows...

A few governors, such as Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Rick Perry of Texas, had the foresight to turn down their share of the $7 billion for unemployment insurance, realizing that once the federal funds run out, benefits would be unpayable. "One of the smartest decisions we made," says Mr. Daniels. Many governors now probably wish they had done the same.

Second, stimulus dollars came with strings attached that are now causing enormous budget headaches. Many environmental grants have matching requirements, so to get a federal dollar, states and cities had to spend a dollar even when they were facing huge deficits. The new construction projects built with federal funds also have federal Davis-Bacon wage requirements that raise state building costs to pay inflated union salaries.

Worst of all, at the behest of the public employee unions, Congress imposed "maintenance of effort" spending requirements on states. These federal laws prohibit state legislatures from cutting spending on 15 programs, from road building to welfare, if the state took even a dollar of stimulus cash for these purposes.

[SNIP]

Now, in an election year, Congress wants to pass another $100 billion aid package for ailing states to sustain the mess the first stimulus helped to create. Governors would be smarter to unite and tell Congress to keep the money and mandates, and let the states adjust to the new reality of lower revenues. Meanwhile, Mr. Perry and other governors who warned that the stimulus would have precisely this effect can consider themselves vindicated.

As the Prairie Pundit sez, Rick is vindicated and it will be interesting to see how Kay backtracks on the issue (link). Excerpt follows...

In Texas where Perry turned down some of the spending as discussed above his opponent in this year's primary, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, suggested he was wrong to do so. Now that events proved Perry correct, she will probably have to revise and extend her original assessment of the issue.

Kay's new tack on this issue has been to say that Rick took billions in stimulus, and that he shouldn't have done that... but he was wrong to not take the half billion in stimulus that he rejected... the difference was the obligations the money created... when it came to the stimulus for unemployment insurance it would have created lots of new obligations for many years... and I have no doubt that the other stimulus dollars probably created certain obligations as well those were a lot more difficult to predict... and they may or may not be there in the end... while the unemployment stimulus was clear cut.

Remember this confusing couple of videos from Kay trying to explain that she agreed but disagreed with Rick back in March?

Confused? Since that day Kay has only gotten more confusing... but she is just sure that Rick was somehow wrong and she was right.

It sounds more like Kay is playing what a certain 4 year old girl I know likes to play... the opposite game. You say one thing, she finds the opposite and says it. That game gets fun when you can find something without an opposite... she gets pretty creative...

This was the issue that really made me realize that the two... Rick and Kay... really were philosophically different and would govern differently... and not just different in personality or style only. Since I started supporting Rick back in August it became abundantly clear that the unemployment stimulus was not the only issue where Kay just is way off the mark... granted after August maybe I was more open to hearing those things from Rick's side and less open to Kay's explanations... but I think I am obviously not alone.