Mitt Romney with a Drawl or GW Bush's twin?

Rick Perry is a “big government” politician.He is just Mitt Romney or George W Bush redux. Here are a few stats about the man.

When Rick Perry became the governor of Texas in 2000, the total spending by the Texas state government was approximately $49 billion. Ten years later it was approximately $90 billion. How's THAT for reducing the size of government?

He has run a humongous, mind boggling deficit, and run the Texas debt into the ionosphere. The debt of the state of Texas is out of control. According to usdebtclock.org, the debt to GDP ratio in Texas is 22.9% and the debt per citizen is $10,645. In California (got that? CALIFORNIA??), the debt to GDP ratio is just 18.7% and the debt per citizen is only $9932. Texas gov't total debt has more than doubled since Rick Perry became governor. You don't think we have had enough of this kind of crap?

Perry claims that he has a “track record” of not raising taxes. He has repeatedly raised taxes and "fees" while he has been governor. These overall tax rates (call em what you will) are significantly higher than before he took office

You hear a lot about the "Texas miracle" during the recession. It is mostly hype. Even with the oil boom Texas has a HIGHER unemployment rate than 23 other states.

Back in 1988, Rick Perry supported Al Gore for president. In fact, Rick Perry actually served as Al Gore’s campaign chairman in the state of Texas that year. He was recruited to the Republican Party by that champion of smaller government and principled political theorist Karl Rove.

Texas now has one of the worst education systems in the nation. It is centralized, top down, bureaucratic, and almost the ENTIRE creation of Rick Perry (though the mechanism of this creaky ossified dinosaur has been in place for years). The following damning indictment is from Barbara Bush:…. Texas ranks 36th in the nation in high school graduation rates. An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma. Texas ranks 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores. Texas ranks 33rd in the nation on teacher salaries, but the educational bureaucrats are extremely well paid.

The fact that Rick Perry attended the Bilderberg Group meetings in 2007 is enough for me in and of itself to vote against him. If anything screams "PWNED BY THE INTERNATIONAL BANKERS" it is this. You don't have to believe in the Bavarian Illuminati or be a Bircher to to know that the Trilateralists, Bilderbergers, and CFR crowd are a group of internationalist thugs who put the interests of large banks before sovereign national interests.

Texas has the highest percentage of workers making minimum wage out of all 50 states. In 2007, 221,000 residents of Texas were making minimum wage or less. By 2010, that number had risen to 550,000. I recognize that the recession makes taking ANY work necessary for many. But DOUBLING the minimum wage workers?

Rick Perry often gives speeches about illegal immigration, but when you look at the facts, he has been incredibly soft on the issue. If Rick Perry does not plan to secure the border, then he should not be president. He has the longest border with Mexico of any state, and has repeatedly done NOTHING on the issue.

Of MOST concern to me, Perry actually issued an executive order in 2007 that would have forced almost every single girl in the state of Texas to receive the Gardasil vaccine before entering the sixth grade. Perry would have put parents in a position where they would have had to fill out an application and LITERALLY ASK FOR AN EXCEPTION (not guaranteed) or simply submit to an injection of their child with an untested and unproven vaccine. Since then, very serious safety issues regarding this vaccine have come to light. Fortunately, lawmakers in Texas blocked what Perry was trying to do. According to Wikipedia, many were troubled when “apparent financial connections between Merck and Perry were reported by news outlets, such as a $6,000 campaign contribution and Merck’s hiring of former Perry Chief of Staff Mike Toomey to handle its Texas lobbying work.”

Don't drink the kool aid.