Today’s headline in the Dallas Morning News says it all: “Texas business groups ally to counter tea party influence in GOP primaries.” Ironic, since the tea party arose to counter those establishment groups working to undermine our economy and liberty!
Who is trying to shut out Texas conservatives?
Texas Association of Realtors
Texas Chemical Council
Association of General Contractors
American Council of Engineering
Texans for Lawsuit Reform
Texas Hospital Association
Texas Bankers Association
Texas Medical Association
Texas Association of Builders
This is exactly the same thing happening right now in DC, with big-government “business” groups seeking to undermine the popular work of reform-minded senators like Ted Cruz. It’s just that rather being a story on Fox News about distant happenings in liberal Washington, it’s playing out right here at home.
The fight isn’t “there,” it’s here. Are you ready?
These “business groups” are the people who feed from the government trough, and worry that their rent-seeking ways are being revealed. As we had previously reported about this “Texas Future Business Alliance,” they’re going to be engaging in elections and hiding their true goals.
They are calling what the Wall Street Journal identified as a 25 percent increase in state spending “conservative.” The legislators they are protecting as “conservatives” are the ones who every single conservative group—and even a series of non-partisan studies of the Texas House and Senate from Rice University—show to be the most liberal of Republicans!
The DMN and these “business groups” are presenting a typically false choice, as our Ross Kecseg put in an email to me this morning: “Spend profusely or have no infrastructure at all.”
Just a few years ago we were told that Texans’ had to take on $4 billion in debt so that we could cure cancer. So far, no cancer cures have emerged . . . but revelations of cronyism and potentially criminal behavior have been uncovered in the scheme.
Fortunately, Texas’ Republican primary voters are smarter than the pro-cronyism lackeys give them credit. In 2012, 93 percent of primary voters gave their support to a ballot measure calling on state spending to be constitutionally restricted to no more than the sum of population growth and inflation.
Similarly, taxpayers have strongly supported zero-based budgeting—which requires government budgets to start from zero rather than what was spent last time as a way to set priorities and ensure waste is kept at a minimum.
Both proposals are anathema to these “Future Alliance” cronies. They need bloat to continue unabated, knowing many of their contracts, programs and projects cannot withstand such scrutiny.
Because these guys know Texans expect conservative governance, they will say anything to sound conservative… even as they work — in the words of the DMN—”to counter” those very principles.
As you might expect, the “business alliance” is also among the biggest supporters of Speaker Straus. They want to campaign as conservatives, even while legislating like liberals.
They want to turn Texas purple: Republican “red” in name, but Democrat “blue” in policy outcomes.
The big-spending cronies know their desired goals are unpopular, so they have resorted to lying about themselves. As each of us begin focusing on the primary elections, we must look past the stump speeches and labels by demanding evidence of convictions.
