Texas Government ‘IS’ A Business???

The Iconoclast received a press release from Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs recently entitled “Running Government Like the Business It Is.” In the release, the Comptroller flatly stated: “As the state’s Comptroller responsible for Texas’ finances, acting as tax collector, chief accountant, revenue estimator and treasurer, I can assure you it IS a business. To run it even better as the business it is, we must tap the talents of men and women with business training, skills and perspectives.

“While our overall business fell by 1.7 percent last year, as measured by our gross state product, we still outperformed our ‘competitors’ in places like California and New York.”

We’ve known for a long time that Texas government, under the rule of Gov. Rick Perry, often dishes out vast numbers of taxpayer dollars to big corporations to “help” them locate here.

But to have the Comptroller issue a statement that government “IS” a business makes you wonder where the line is drawn. When do you become a corporate state (another term for “fascist” state)? You either are or you are not.

Since when does the State take on making money for big corporations that, incidentally, contribute to officeholder political campaigns?

Are the “taxpayers” stockholders?

Where are our dividends?

They are most certainly not co-mingled with the high insurance rates we pay, or taxes on just about everything we buy, or in “agencies” that do lip service only and never pursue complaints.

The dividends do not exist in the infrastructure and appropriate maintenance of roadways, nor in extremely high unemployment taxes, nor in a political education system that’s gone to pot.

No, Combs, a former porn writer, described the populace here as “customers.”

What a put-down!

— W. Leon Smith