Think Progress: [...Texas] is racking up debt at a faster rate than the national government and in greater amounts than most other states.
Perry regularly attacks President Obama for engaging in “too much spending” and running up too much debt, but as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Mitchell Schnurman writes today, Texas’ refusal to raise taxes has led to its own debt ballooning faster than Washington’s:
From 2001 to 2010, state debt alone grew from $13.4 billion to $37.8 billion, according to the Texas Bond Review Board. That’s an increase of 281 percent. Over the same time, the national debt rose almost 234 percent. [...]
Still, the trend is undeniable. While Texas lawmakers have refused to raise taxes — and often criticize Washington for borrowing and spending — the state has been paying for much of its expansion with borrowed money.
While the state has had to borrow for infrastructure building to keep up with rapid population growth, as Schnurman points out, Texas didn’t have two wars, the budget-busting Bush tax cuts, recession-combating measurs, and other big-ticket national expenditures. And Texas’ “borrowing isn’t slowing.”
The state’s debt belies Perry’s boisterous rhetoric on his economic stewardship. While conservatives boast of Perry’s “Texas miracle,” California, which Perry often bashes as the antithesis of his approach, has seen faster GDP per capita growth than Texas under Perry. Meanwhile, Texas’ obstinate refusal to raise taxes helped create the largest budget shortfall in the state’s history, leading to devastating cuts to government services — one town had to lay off its entire police force — and Perry using budget gimmicks and federal stimulus dollars to balance his budget.
At his appearance before the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans on June 18th , Texas Gov. Rick Perry crowed that the Republican Super Majority 2011 legislative session balanced the 2011-13 state budget while leaving billions in reserve. Perry told the Republican Leadership Conference:
"To preserve our job-friendly climate, the Texas Legislature didn’t raises taxes this last legislative session while balancing their budget and maintaining essential services. And I might add, that new budget leaves $6 billion in a rainy day fund."In January, state Comptroller Susan Combs predicted the rainy day fund would have a balance of $9.7 billion by the end of August 2013. That figure was later whittled to $6.4 billion after legislators took $3.2 billion from the rainy day fund in April to cover a deficit in the current 2009-2011 budget that runs through August 31, 2011.
In January 2011 Texas Comptroller Susan Combs projected a $27 billion deficit for fiscal 2012-2013. State lawmakers then proposed an austere budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal years that cut $31 billion in spending from public schools, colleges, collage students, Medicaid and social services, public safety (police and prisons) and transportation. That austerity budget cut $7.8 billion from health and human services and $8 billion for K-12 public schools.
On June 28, 2011 Gov. Perry signed a $172 billion budget passed by the super Republican majority Texas House and Senate. The budget signed by Gov. Perry cuts $15 billion from the level of spending last authorized in the 2009-11 state budget. The largest individual cut was to public education, which lost over $4 billion over the biennium.