Rainy Day fund... Rick is against using it... Susan Combs, Jim Pitts are for it...

Did these peeps not learn anything from the year 2010? Voters actually want cuts to government... tapping the rainy day fund is the easy way out... it may be sprinkling and even raining in Texas, but it's not really storming right now... yet Susan Combs our Comptroller wants to tap the rainy day fund... and so does the budget go to guy in the House Rep Pitts....

Meanwhile Rick is on record opposing using the rainy day fund... whether Rick gets his way or Combs and Pitts get their way, there will still be cuts... and some people will still be upset about those cuts either way... but with Rick's way, we shrink government and preserve the rainy day fund for a real emergency... with Susan Combs' way or Jim Pitts' way we shrink government less and don't exactly preserve the rainy day fund for the future...

Even the liberal Texas Observer sees what is going on here as a fight for what the tea party asked for in the 2010 elections (link). Excerpt follows...

The staunch fiscal folks may not have had such a great day.

Thursday morning, several GOP leaders on the Appropriations Committee pushed for bringing more dollars into the budget, rather than trying to remedy the state's $27 billion shortfall through cuts to state agencies and services. Increased revenue isn't popular with the "Tea Party" philosophy that government spending is largely wasteful. The committee discussion went against the "cuts-only" approach that many hard-line conservatives have promoted, including Gov. Rick Perry.

[SNIP]

But with one of the most conservative Texas Legislatures in recent memory, featuring a two-thirds Republican majority in the House, many expected hard-line social and fiscal policies: anti-abortion bills along side efforts to cut government programs, for instance. Bu while the social conservative bills are moving forward at quite a clip, there's clearly a softer stance on such fiscal policies. The budget cuts will undoubtedly be widespread and painful, but at least a vocal GOP contingent is working to minimize some of them. 

I'm not sure that's exactly what the Tea Party had in mind. 

It seems like a pretty easy choice to me... keep hands off the rainy day fund, cut spending, and let's roll... be fiscal conservatives or risk backsliding into parity with Democrats...