That Governor Perry loves the stimulus shouldn’t be a surprise, despite his high-profile bleatings. He loves anything he can use to his political advantage.
Gov. Rick Perry rallied opposition to federal stimulus spending, but he now is the manager of one of the biggest pots of federal gold in Texas: crime grants to local law enforcement agencies.
And those grants have become an integral part of Perry’s political machine.
Perry in the past has decided what law enforcement agencies receive about $23 million a year in Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance grants. Now, because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Perry will have an additional $90 million to hand out.
While Perry’s office is the conduit for the federal money, the governor chooses which agencies receive the money and how it is spent. The political payoff has been great.
About $6 million in Byrne grants helped Perry win the endorsement of border sheriffs in 2006. Perry last year held a news conference to promote $557,000 in grant money he was giving to the San Antonio Police Department to target transnational gangs.
Every time Perry doles out the federal Byrne grants, he sounds like the money is his.
“Texas is tough on crime and remains dedicated to equipping our law enforcement with the resources necessary to protect our citizens and ensure the safety of our communities,” the governor said while handing out $2 million of the federal money to East Texas communities last year.
Perry created a controversy this year when he rejected $550 million in federal unemployment compensation funds, saying it had too many “strings attached,” but he later accepted more than $12 billion in stimulus funds to balance the state’s budget.
It’s amazing how much you can get done when you don’t feel the need to be truthful about who should get the credit for it, isn’t it? Perry, of course, isn’t the only stimulus-trashing Governor to act this way. The more they get called on it, the better.