Governor Rick Perry Must Go!!!!!!!!!

[white cloud]

Secessionist Texas Governor Rick Perry has stood against hardworking Texans from his initial arrival in the Governor’s Office. From the murder of an innocent man, to extremely high homeowner and health care insurance rates; skyrocketing college tuition and forcing eminent domain to grab Texans’ land, puts Perry as the worst Republican to lead Texas in recent history. Perry welcomed the endorsement of Sarah Palin, “I can see Russia from my house”, who quit the Alaska Governorship

Texans pay the highest homeowner insurance rates in the nation, an average annual premium of $1,409 per year, and nearly twice the national average of $804. (Source: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)Perry permitted the industry to double overnight the premiums paid by Texas homeowners and refused to rein in exorbitant rates from his biggest campaign contributors. (Source: Mcblogger.com)
>>>>>>>>>
http://www.americaforpurchase.com/republicans/governor-rick-perry-must-go/

[Nancy Boy]

1. Excellent

That's an excellent source of information as to why Perry is wrong for Texas. It shows where his loyalties lay, not with the common Texan, but those who make money off the common Texan's back. Thanks for posting it.

Perry has a decade of failed policies that anyone can see around them, unless they're quite stubborn. Considering many of his policies are Republican at their core (such as deregulation and privatization of the public), replacing Perry with Hutchison would do nothing. That needs to be drilled into people's head from now until White is elected governor and both Perry and Hutchison disappear from Texas politics forever.

[sonias]

2. Texas Watch - a good source of information on home owner's insurance

Insurance Reform Information Center
TexasWatch.org

For far too long, insurers have been taking advantage of Texas homeowners. Texans pay the highest insurance premiums in the country. In fact, the average premium for a Texas homeowner is nearly twice the national average. At the same time, insurance policies have been continually whittled away, providing less and less coverage for more and more money. This has resulted in massive overcharges for everyday Texans.

Texas Watch has conducted a scientific state-wide poll of Texas homeowners, and found that a whopping 85% support regulation of the insurance industry and 87% want state leaders to simplify the market through standardized forms.

A Brief History of Homeowners Insurance in Texas - A Texas Watch Report, February 2009
(snip)
The result has been five years of massive profits for insurers. The loss ratios for every single year since SB 14 – including the year during which insurers saw increased claims from Hurricane Rita – have produced profits that meet (2003 and 2005) or far exceed those that are considered healthy. The loss ratios for those years were as follows:

o 2003: 58.7%
o 2004: 27.8%
o 2005: 56.8% (this year included the majority of claims for Hurricane Rita)
o 2006: 34.0%
o 2007: 36.5%

Shockingly, the five year average loss ratio – since passage of SB 14 – is a mere 42.7%.

As is clear from these huge profits, insurers have benefited greatly from insurance reform in Texas as enacted by SB 14. Consumers, however, cannot claim the same. Since 2003 when forms were deregulated, consumers have been paying more money for less coverage. Texans still pay the highest homeowners rates in the nation – higher than Florida with its constant hurricanes and higher than California with its mudslides. According to the most recent data as compiled by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the national average for homeowners insurance is $764. In Texas, the average homeowner pays $1372 – 80% above the national average – for the same coverage.

Our insurance regulation agency, Texas Department of Insurance (TDI), and our Texas laws are all stacked for the insurance companies - not the ratepayers.

Sonia

[sonias]

3. Another reason why Perry must go

AAS 1/12/2010
Texas will not compete for coveted education money

Gov. Rick Perry is expected to announce Wednesday that Texas will not compete for a highly coveted piece of the $4 billion federal education grant program known as Race to the Top, state officials say.

A major policy announcement is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at a Houston education center.

Texas could snag as much as $700 million, if it were to win one of the select few awards aimed at fostering education reform.

Many states have been going to great lengths to improve their chance at winning some of the grant money. Not Texas.

Both Perry and Education Commissioner Robert Scott have harshly criticized the program’s rules, and Scott suggested that one provision was a harbinger of a federal takeover of public schools.

Perry can't put aside his partisan political motivation to pick up some much needed money for Texas school kids. If he can't game the system - he won't play.

Once again he leaves a huge amount of money on the table. It's either the Perry way or no way. He would rather leave kids uneducated, under-insured and hungry than to take money from the Federal government.

He is so nuts! :crazy:


Sonia

[onestepforward]

4. Don't forget about our unregulated electricity.

We have some of the highest rates in the country! Just one more way Texans were screwed.

[Blue Texas Voter]

5. Perry Is also a land stealer!

Gov. Perry also tried to do the largest land grab in the nations history, in a early morning vote at 1:am one morning via phone he had his cronies vote on the Trans Texas Corridor, this would have took large masses of land from ranchers and farmers ( I really think he just wanted a highway named after him), he also awarded the contract to a foreign country-Spain. This project would have came through the middle of my families property-land that has been in my family for generations, he was going to use the " IMMENENT DOMAIN" law, with the help of my husband and thousands like him this project was stopped dead in it's track.

I wonder how much money Perry lost on this deal? He needs to go as Governor, he is nothing more than a Bush Clone and we all know what HE did to America.:rant:

[sonias]

6. Whatever he lost on that land deal he makes up for in other places

Perry gambles a lot in the background. We just don't get all the details from the media. Here's just one small example of how Perry games the system in his favor.

The Texas Observer May 2009
Reappraising the Governor
Rick Perry's private tax protest.

Long before he got national attention for secessionist foreplay at Tax Day "tea parties," Gov. Rick Perry quietly launched a personal tax revolt. In March 2001, Texas’ new governor bought an exclusive lot on Lake LBJ’s Horseshoe Bay. Horseshoe Bay Republican state Sen. Troy Fraser sold Perry the Hill Country tract six months after Fraser bought it, along with an adjacent one, in the ritzy Peninsula development. Horseshoe Bay Resort’s Web site calls the Peninsula its "most prestigious address," adding, "Only 10 legacy waterfront estates lie behind its magnificent gated entrance and the Italian fountains with their distinctive lion head statuary."

When Perry received his first property-tax assessment for this "prestigious address," the lion in the Governor’s Mansion shook his majestic mane and issued a roar of protest. The Burnet Central Appraisal District had pegged the lot’s value at $414,700 for tax purposes. After Perry protested, the district slashed its appraisal to $313,762, the price the governor said he paid to Fraser.

(snip)
According to Burnet appraisal district Chief Appraiser Stan Hemphill, attorney Colleen McHugh of the defense firm Bracewell & Patterson (now Bracewell & Giuliani) filed a protest on the governor’s behalf in November 2001. At the time, McHugh was Perry’s chair of the Texas Public Safety Commission. The protest argued that Perry’s lot was worth $100,000 less than the appraised value. In December 2001, days after Bracewell announced it had recruited Perry Chief of Staff Barry McBee as a lobbyist, the district agreed to ­reappraise Perry’s lakefront lot at the stated purchase price. That first year, the devaluation lowered Perry’s tax bill from $8,418 to $6,308. Over its six-year life, the lower appraisal kept more than $14,000 in the governor’s pocket that he otherwise would have payed as taxes to local ­government entities. (More than 60 percent of the district’s tax money goes to the Marble Falls Independent School District.)

He's our Napoleon.

Sonia