At $2.6 million, it might not be considered much of a bargain, but the Texas Department of Public Safety actually performed two services while on Gov. Rick Perry’s wanna-be-president security detail.
The first one was obvious, if pricey. The invaluable second was to remind taxpayers who has their best interests at heart when it comes to spending the money government coerces from them.
Gov. Perry spends nearly six months on the inaptly named stump, surrounded by DPS officers. He then returns to his home state and brazenly refuses to refund to taxpayers the cost for his protection.
Texas taxpayers know this because of the vigilance of Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, the leader of the opposition party in the House, the Texas Tribune reports.
"One way to protect taxpayers' money is by not spending it unnecessarily," Farrar wrote in a letter to the governor obtained by the Tribune. "But, if someone discovers tax dollars have been spent unnecessarily, it should be reimbursed either to general revenue or directly to taxpayers."
The necessity of the Texas governor’s security has been a matter of DPS policy at least as far back as 1999 when Gov. George Bush ran up a $3.9 million security bill he left behind for taxpayers on his way to Washington.
This DPS policy and all state agency policies are subject to review, revision and abrogation by Farrar and her colleagues in the House and the Senate.
Courageous Republicans, too, have come to the aid of taxpayers, flaying the cost of security for the Democrat-in-chief as he frolicked with his family on Hawaiian beaches.
Clearly, the cost of security for our candidates is out of control, as any Democrat can tell you when there are Republicans to protect or when important Democrats need protecting.
And just as clearly, it won’t be the Republican or the Democratic national committees relieving our burden.
Perhaps the more important question is whether or not candidates need all this security to begin with. The answer might come from the remaining Texan in this presidential race.
During the Iowa caucuses in December, a reporter for the National Journal was taking advantage of the breakfast buffet at the Embassy Suites hotel when in walks Ron Paul. Alone.
Paul made his way along the buffet line and sat down for breakfast, just himself and a copy of USA Today. When the reporter walked over to get an exclusive, Paul executed his own security at no charge to any taxpayer.
"Right now, the only thing that bothers me,” he told the reporter, “is people who don't respect my privacy enough to leave me alone for five minutes when I'm eating breakfast."
Gov. Perry spends nearly six months on the inaptly named stump, surrounded by DPS officers. He then returns to his home state and brazenly refuses to refund to taxpayers the cost for his protection.
Texas taxpayers know this because of the vigilance of Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, the leader of the opposition party in the House, the Texas Tribune reports.
"One way to protect taxpayers' money is by not spending it unnecessarily," Farrar wrote in a letter to the governor obtained by the Tribune. "But, if someone discovers tax dollars have been spent unnecessarily, it should be reimbursed either to general revenue or directly to taxpayers."
The necessity of the Texas governor’s security has been a matter of DPS policy at least as far back as 1999 when Gov. George Bush ran up a $3.9 million security bill he left behind for taxpayers on his way to Washington.
This DPS policy and all state agency policies are subject to review, revision and abrogation by Farrar and her colleagues in the House and the Senate.
Courageous Republicans, too, have come to the aid of taxpayers, flaying the cost of security for the Democrat-in-chief as he frolicked with his family on Hawaiian beaches.
Clearly, the cost of security for our candidates is out of control, as any Democrat can tell you when there are Republicans to protect or when important Democrats need protecting.
And just as clearly, it won’t be the Republican or the Democratic national committees relieving our burden.
Perhaps the more important question is whether or not candidates need all this security to begin with. The answer might come from the remaining Texan in this presidential race.
During the Iowa caucuses in December, a reporter for the National Journal was taking advantage of the breakfast buffet at the Embassy Suites hotel when in walks Ron Paul. Alone.
Paul made his way along the buffet line and sat down for breakfast, just himself and a copy of USA Today. When the reporter walked over to get an exclusive, Paul executed his own security at no charge to any taxpayer.
"Right now, the only thing that bothers me,” he told the reporter, “is people who don't respect my privacy enough to leave me alone for five minutes when I'm eating breakfast."
***
Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter at @marktxwatchdog.
Keep up with all the latest news from Texas Watchdog. Fan our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Scribd, and fan us on YouTube. Join our network on de.licio.us, and put our RSS feeds in your newsreader. We're also on MySpace, Digg, FriendFeed, and tumblr.
Photo of Gov. Rick Perry in Iowa by flickr user IowaPolitics.com, used via a Creative Commons license.
Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org or on Twitter at @marktxwatchdog.
Keep up with all the latest news from Texas Watchdog. Fan our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Scribd, and fan us on YouTube. Join our network on de.licio.us, and put our RSS feeds in your newsreader. We're also on MySpace, Digg, FriendFeed, and tumblr.
Photo of Gov. Rick Perry in Iowa by flickr user IowaPolitics.com, used via a Creative Commons license.
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