The Texas governor and GOP presidential hopeful is on the brink of getting indicted for corruption.
Gosh, the 2016
primaries are a long way off, but look out: Here comes Texas Governor Rick
Perry — riding his state’s taxpayer dollars into another GOP presidential bid.
Technically, he’s not
campaigning. Yet he’s popping up from New York to California,
holding press conferences, running TV ads, meeting with money people, and
telling everyone how terrific he is. In other words: campaigning.
But the governor is
used to tapping the public treasury to feather his own nest — and he has recently
tapped it again to the tune of $450 an hour.
That’s for a high-dollar lawyer he’s hired at taxpayer expense to try to save
his bacon — and salvage his presidential fantasies.
He doesn’t mention it
on his out-of-state “praise Perry” tour, but the governor’s on the brink
of being indicted for corruption back home.
This mess involves the
governor’s clumsy attempt to stop an investigation by the state’s ethics office
into one of his pet slush funds that funneled taxpayer money to his corporate
campaign donors. Last year, using a personal lapse by the director of the
ethics office as an excuse, Perry simply
vetoed the office’s
entire funding.
No office, no
investigation, no problem!
Clever, huh? Except
that other funding was made available, so that investigation continues. And
then a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate Perry’s ham-handed veto,
so now his indictment looms. This could take the wheels off his road show.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is
a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the
populist newsletter, The Hightower
Lowdown. OtherWords.org
