Gravel for Brains Abbott
In case you didn’t hear, we’re digging up roads in Texas and replacing them with gravel because we can’t afford the damn upkeep on roads.
Texas is so poor that we can’t even afford to go window shopping. Somalia? Richer than Texas and with better government to boot.
Now I know that we can afford to send Governor Perry all over the country with his shiny face making teevee commercials bragging about low taxes in Texas and those same commercials soon become fodder for late night comedians. We can afford that.
We can also afford to turn our noses up at $1 billion for Medicaid. Since those people will be treated in emergency rooms for free, everybody’s health insurance, local taxes, and medical bills will go up. But we don’t need no damn $1 billion of our own tax dollars coming back to Texas. No sireee.
And the latest we can afford is $4 million for Attorney General Greg Abbott to sue the federal government so he can run for Governor on the evils of the federal government.
But that ain’t all —
Abbott’s office additionally has spent nearly $1.9 million defending the state in another case brought by minority and civil rights groups over redistricting. That amount is not included in the $4 million tally, which includes only lawsuits Abbott initiated.
I know y’all were all excited when Rick Perry decided not to run for Governor again. I’m just tellin’ ya: Greg Abbott is Rick Perry with a mean streak. We have jumped from the frying pan into the pits of hell.
Texas cannot afford roads but we most certainly can afford Republican political campaigns with our tax dollars.
And that makes us Texas Proud!
By refusing to expand medicaid benefits Texas will not receive $100 billion in federal funding over 10 years to help pay for those benefits. All we had to do was contribute $1 billion each year for 10 years. Gov. Perry announced, when he refused the expansion, that there were ways at the state level to make up the funding deficiency and still provide the same level of indigent health care. That matter was never addressed in the last session of the legislature.
TXDOT announced yesterday that Texas cities will have to spend their own money to repair state roads and highways within their corporate limits. The cost to the cities: $186,000,000.
Before the last session TXDOT stated that it would take $5 billion just to do what is needed right now, and that most of the roads needing repairs were damaged by trucks and equipment belonging to the oil and gas industry.
Some funding was restored to public schools in Texas in the last legislative session. However, the funding is lower than it was five years ago. Texas ranks 49th in per student funding in public schools.
Taxes for corporations were lowered $1.6 billion in the last session of the legislature and even more than that in each of the legislative sessions since Perry became our governor.
State fees for everything from filing a deed at the courthouse to hunting and fishing licenses have been increased considerably under Perry’s governance.
1Cautionary tale. Alaska was happy when Snowdrift Snookie resigned and her hand-picked predecessor took over. SP 2.0 is infinitely worse than Caribou Barbie. He has undone all progress made through bi-partisanship and has throttled Alaska Dems like nutters have done in Texas. Parnell actively carries water for big oil as guv. He was an attorney for Exxon after the Valdez debacle and many of the current lege work for big oil as their main jobs. No conflicts of interest seem to exist in Alaska politics.
2Sounds like the devil you know is gonna leave you with the devil you don’t. What more could go wrong in Texas?
3If that kinda stuff makes y’alls proud then Texas is a mighty peculiar kinda place. I hope it isn’t contagious.
4Everywhere else in ‘Murrica there are “Road Use Taxes”. Apparently Governor GoodHair is against those, too? Seems only fair that if Big Oil breaks the road, Big Oil fixes the road. What’s wrong with that picture?
5We’re repaving roads all over Maryland. Maybe Governor O’Malley should share tips for successful governing with GoodHair? Or is he too far gone for any help at all?
Don’t get me started. HOWEVER (I took a deep breath) remember that in rural Texas, folks just meet the county commissioner for coffee at the local cafe and ask would he please drop by with the road grader and fix the roads downtown, never mind the ones by the trailer parks. The difference between rural and urban folks in Texas is that folks in cities don’t got road graders or shovels. Y’all ain’t never heard of INDEPENDENT til you hear about a bunch of the rural folks in Texas. THEY DON’T WANT NO GUMMINT INTERFERENCE. They’ll just have a prayer meeting. I’m in faVor of prayer but God has rules too, like use your smarts. God doesn’t have a road grader either.
6Juanita Jean, you are so correct! Abbott has a mean streak, and it encompasses his whole darn body. He only cares about hisownself and those who donate the big bucks to his campaign.
7So, y’all are telling me that the two sand pit companies can destroy my county road and my county commissioners will not ask them to fix what they mangled…….we were here first..If I had known they were going to strip mine on my road…..
8As Juanita Jean Herownself has said “Republicanism is just a political justification for being greedy.” and they “never, ever want government to do anything unless it is them or their immediately family who is suffering?” When the lady is right the lady is right.
9Regressing paved roads to gravel is really the only sensible solution until the Texas Repubs find a way to use poor people as paving material.
10The title for this post is perfect! God help us.
11Well, it looks like there are 30 towns in Texas that won’t need roads to them, since there won’t be any water for people to live there.
12“More than 30 towns in West Texas will soon be out of water as a direct result of diverting their underground water supplies for use in hydraulic fracking. Largely unregulated fracking, it should be said. Largely unregulated fracking that is definitely putting arsenic into the ground it happens to be drying out. “
In the final analysis,religious nutters will just claim it was god’s will that the water be used to enrich the few and poison the ground. Apparently their omnipotent lord prefers the well to do over the general public.
13jeebus loves me and approves
my job killing,financial moves
when I ask for more and more,
god speaks thru rethuglicans and they say sure.
Feed the rich and ignore the poor
until there are no poor nomore.
Blessed then is rw greed
to hell with those truly in need.
Halle-freaking-luyah!
Greg is not a good attorney which is why he keeps losing. The State of Texas is going to have to pay some of the plaintiff attorney fees in the redistricting cases. Greg’s hobby of suing the federal govt. and pursing bad lawsuits is costing the State of Texas a great deal of money
14Is this what Perry’s “great Texas economy” has brought us?
15mike from iowa: “Feed the rich and ignore the poor until there are no poor nomore.” That just about says it all for those good ol’ “christian” republicans, doesn’t it? I’m not sure if they’re trying for a plutocracy or a theocracy, or God forbid, a combination of both.
16Am I just “misremembering” (to quote a past Guber) that Goodhair did a lavish upgrade on the mansion and now doesn’t have the bucks to resurface paved roads with something other than gravel?
17I’ve seen this info in several places, but nobody’s said how much this “alteration” of road surface is going to cost.
I’d also like to know who’s brother-in-law owns the gravel company they’ll be using…
18Busted windshields. Pits, dings, cracks. 30 mph. Oh, there will be some seriously rained-off Repugs when those roads get converted.
The phrase Dumb as Rocks comes to mind.
19From experience,as a former farmer,gravel eats up tires a whole bunch quicker than pavement. Undercarriage and rocker panels take a beating and rust out quicker,too. Not to mention washboards and shocks/struts.
20Somebody unconfuse me! I just saw where Rickster actually is accepting $$ for Obamacare whilst badmouthing it at the same time.
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