Update on Texas spending

From the National Review’s Katrina Trinko, September 15, 2011:

“But factor in inflation and Texas’ population boom, and the uptick in spending becomes significantly more reasonable. The same analysis by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the Romney campaign used as a source for the 17-percent spending growth each budget cycle reported that “once adjusted for population and inflation, that rate falls to 4.2 percent.” But that rate includes federal dollars sent to Texas. Subtract that, and Perry has decreased spending — the first time any Texas governor has done so since World War II. “When you exclude federal dollars, state spending adjusted for population growth and inflation actually has gone down by 6 percent,” FactCheck.org reported on Perry’s record.”

Texas is among the lowest spending per capita compared with other states, with the 4th smallest spending to GDP ratio in the country. In the meantime, our economy is strong, and would be the 15th in the world if we were a nation.

Remember that much of that growth is Federally mandated: the Frew Medicaid settlement, the education mandates, and all the money we spend on border security and housing illegal alien criminals the Feds won’t catch at the border. Then, there were Katrina, Ike, huge floods and other natural disasters like last month’s fires.

Yet, we saved $9 B in our rainy day fund to pay unexpected costs in the next two years. The easy thing would have been for the Governor to release all that money into the budget calculations. And yet, he looked ahead, paid this year’s debts and saved for next year.