“Democratic comptroller nominee Mike Collier says GOP rival Glenn Hegar bragged to a tea party interviewer last year that he was proud of the Legislature’s 2011 budget cuts to public schools. Collier… said it’s “embarrassing and unacceptable” that Hegar “takes pride in cutting education.” “Hegar does not share our values…” said Collier according to the Dallas Morning News.
In addition to claiming the Democrat took the comments out of context, the paper reported that “Hegar says some school superintendents thanked him for the 2011 cuts, saying the reductions provided cover for them to make necessary – but presumably unpopular – trims of inefficient local spending – “Happy to be the scapegoat,” Hegar tells the interviewer [in the video.],” according to the report.
I’ll be the first to admit that the Democrat nominee for Texas Comptroller is right – Glenn Hegar and Republicans do not share his values of constantly growing government by throwing money by the billions at a bloated public school system when the state and nation was in dire financial straits as was the case when the budget being discussed was adopted.
Texas has come roaring back from economic recession unlike most of the nation and very much unlike the states run at the time by Democrats like Mike Collier.
In those states legislatures refused to tighten their belts and soaked taxpayers, already suffering huge unemployment, with tax increases. Why? Because to the Democratic Party public education spending is like immigration policy – it’s less about being effective in achieving the mission of the program and more about buying votes.
Hegar and the Texas GOP set us up for a much quicker economic turnaround. And guess what? That benefited public schools too.
