Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, recently gave his State
of the State address boasting that Texas was the “envy” of the rest of the
United States. Perry described how employers “from across the country and
around the world understand that the opportunity they crave can be found in
Texas.”
Of course, Perry was speaking to wealthy capitalists
seeking the “opportunity” to make massive profits at the expense of Texas
workers. For Texas workers, however, life is increasingly difficult as the
bosses and their government demand more and more resources from the working
class.
In
response to a whopping $27 billion budget shortfall, Perry is encouraging the
House and Senate to whack spending by “streamlining organizations” and
eliminating “wasteful spending.” Even though Perry proclaimed that “[t]aking
more money away from Texas families
… is not the
answer to our challenges,” he urged the legislature to literally rob the poor
to pay the rich.
Before these proposed budget cuts, Texas stood last in the
national ratings for state expenditures at $3,831 per capita. There simply is
no waste in Texas’ government services. Currently, the Texas legislature plans
to pilfer $31 million from Texas’ elderly, disabled and students. Life for the
majority of Texans is about to get much worse.
Texas legislators have made their priorities clear. They
will not consider raising taxes even though taxes in Texas are the seventh
lowest of all states. They have also refused to utilize Texas’ $9.4 billion
rainy day fund. Instead, they vow to balance this enormous deficit solely on
the backs of Texas workers. Their budget directly eliminates 10,000 state jobs, but that is only the
beginning.
Education on the chopping block
In his State of the State speech, Perry bragged that “[t]he
quality of education in our state is getting better…” while he directed the
legislators to slash public education funds by $7 billion from last year’s
spending. As a result of these huge cuts, hundreds of teachers and support
staff will be laid off, schools will be closed and class sizes will explode.
Costs will be passed on to local communities, which will result in higher property taxes.
The Houston Independent School
District alone is faced with slashing a fifth of its working funds—between $203
million and $348 million. HISD Superintendent Terry Grier described these
enormous cuts as causing “serious harm to classrooms.” Under current Texas
school finance formulas, these cuts are $9.8 billion short of what is needed.
Adding to the illogic of this budget is that no
consideration has been given to Texas’ ever-growing number of students,
property value declines or the loss of $3.3 billion from expired federal
stimulus money.
In regard to Texas colleges, Perry noted: “[W]e’ve experienced
enrollment growth over the last two years higher than any time in Texas
history. Our public institutions had 200,000 more students enrolled in 2010
than they did in 2008.”
Rather than responsibly supporting this growth, Texas legislators plan to
drastically cut it off.
Specific plans are to reduce funds for higher education by
$1.7 billion, or 7.6 percent, from 2010 levels. Their plan calls for shutting
down four community colleges and cutting community college funding by $142
million from the last budget cycle.
Even some state legislators expressed concern about the college closures. State Rep. Jim Keffer called
it “the height of irresponsibility.” Moreover, the current plan is to
reduce state grants by serving 69
percent fewer students, which will result in dropping 24,000 existing
grants. At these funding levels, two out of three new students will be refused
Texas grants in all Texas colleges.
The assault on Texas workers does not end with Texas
students. The budget proposal continues its attack on the sick, elderly and
disabled. Even though current Medicaid physician and hospital fees are too low
for most Texas providers, the budget will knock the fees 10 percent lower. The
result will be that nursing homes and clinics will be forced to close.
In the best-case scenario, the elderly will be forced into
overcrowded facilities.
The elderly, disabled and sick will have no alternative but to seek medical
care at already overcrowded, high-cost emergency rooms where they will have
long waits or be turned away completely. The burden of these costs will fall on
local communities with tight budgets of their own.
Using the same irresponsible planning strategy that was
used for public schools and colleges, the legislature has not considered
population growth or rising medical costs in their proposal. They do not even
take into account the $4.3 billion federal stimulus reduction that was utilized
last year. In total, the new budget will cut $16.1 billion in health and human
services spending or 24.6 percent of the current, already inadequate services.
The rulers in Texas are blatantly protecting capitalists’
wealth over Texas children, students and the vulnerable disabled and elderly.
By denying children a proper education, by denying students access to a degree,
and by denying health care
and housing to elderly and disabled Texans, the capitalist government has once
again chosen to bail themselves out at the expense of everyone else.
Perry said that Texas will “never walk away from our freedom.” But Perry has no problem depriving other Texans of theirs.
