There’s also the fact that, once upon a time, Perry served in elective office as a Democrat, albeit a conservative one. He even was the Texas chairman of Al Gore’s 1988 Democratic presidential primary bid. And in the 2008 GOP primary, he endorsed Rudy Giuliani, a candidate whose positions on gun control, abortion and gay rights are, by the standards of today’s Republican party, downright liberal.
4. He opposes federal stimulus money.
Five Myths
A feature from The Post’s Outlook section that dismantles myths, clarifies common misconceptions and makes you think again about what you thought you already knew.
Rick Perry is a serious contender for the Republican presidential nod. Here are five things you need to know about him.
Perry made headlines during the 2009 legislative session when he turned down $555 million in federal stimulus funding to extend unemployment insurance , citing the strings attached, and he has made a talking point out of the “failed stimulus.” But Texas took more than $17 billion in stimulus money in 2009 to balance the budgets from that biennium and the previous one. Perry defends the decision by saying Texas is a donor state — and, true enough, it sends more money to Washington than it gets back in benefits and services — but the fact is, he kept the state solvent by taking what he now rails against.
5. He has presided over an unqualified economic miracle.
When Perry says Texas has less than 10 percent of the nation’s population but has created more than 40 percent of its jobs in the past two years, or that more jobs have been created in Texas in the past decade — that is, on his watch — than in all 49 other states combined, he’s not exaggerating. In an election that’s likely to be about jobs and the economy first and foremost, he has quite a record to run on. But there’s more to the story than those top-line statistics.
The unemployment rate in Texas, for instance, was 8.4 percent as of Friday — less than the federal unemployment rate but worse than that of 25 other states, and it could move up a tick or two after Sept. 1, when budget cuts passed during the most recent legislative session will reduce the public employee rolls. Texas has more minimum-wage jobs than every state other than Mississippi, a superlative you brag about if you don’t care about what kind of jobs you create and are only trying to run up the numbers. And growth in public sector (i.e., government) jobs in Texas has been 19 percent over the past 10 years, vs. just 9 percent growth in private-sector jobs.
That doesn’t diminish the feat that Perry can say he accomplished: The state he has led weathered the terrible recession better than just about any other. But, as in some of the better movies we’ve seen, the plot thickens.
Evan Smith is the editor in chief and the chief executive of the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news organization based in Austin.
Want to challenge everything you know? Visit our “Five myths” archive.
Read “Five myths about George W. Bush,” “Five myths about Sarah Palin,” and “Five myths about Ronald Reagan.”
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