Rick Perry: A Crony Capitalist?

Rick Perry; "I will work everyday to make Washington, DC as inconsequential in your lives as I can"


Today Rick Perry entered the Republican primary field. The long serving Texas governor brings excitement to the race but considerable baggage. By all standards Rick Perry has been an outstanding governor. His state has prospered while the national economy has floundered. The Wall Street Journal has an article that is not very flattering to Perry; Rick Perry's Crony Capitalism Problem. In 2005 Texas created the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, a sort of government run venture capital fund that invested in startup high tech firms in Texas. The article details several instances of public money being given to companies with less than scrupulous attention paid to the viability of the companies. Some political donors did well and many of the startups failed.


Congressman Darrell Issa of California is no Rick Perry fan. Many jobs have fled California for business friendly Texas. “Rick Perry’s entire claim to fame is that he kicked our ass. You guys can laugh...But his entire claim to fame is all the jobs he created. He took almost all of them from us.” Issa goes on to say Mitch Daniels was his candidate. “He was my candidate because I saw him leave the Bush administration, go back to Indiana and become hated. As governor he was hated by every Republican delegation. Mike Pence, one of the most conservative ones, wanted him just gone. He was just destroyed in the Indiana Republican Party because his reforms were too harsh.“Now today they love him in Indiana because he took a state that doesn’t have a fundamental advantage over Michigan, or Ohio or the other surrounding states and he put them in a better position by real tough love."


Ok no one expected Rick Perry to please everyone. I clearly prefer him to Romney. Michele Bachmann is better than both but I do wish the lady from Alaska would run.