“As it has to many East Texans, news of the death of Rep. Charlie Wilson came as a blow to me.

“His drive to free Afghanistan is a testament to the adage that one person can make a difference. His prescient desire to help rebuild that nation will long be remembered by all who seek to win the peace that must inevitably follow conflict.

“Karla and I will keep Mrs. Wilson in our thoughts and prayers.

To our departed friend and fellow Democrat, Godspeed.”

Statement: There they go again, 2030 plan includes wildly inflated and  unrealistic transportation costs

TYLER-”First it was $50 billion. Then it was $82 billion. Now Rick Perry’s TXDOT is saying they need $332 BILLION? There is no one at TXDOT who has any credibility on transportation funding. Rick Perry has himself repeatedly lied about the need for toll roads and changing our funding mix. Todd Staples went one step further and actually helped pass legislation that made it easier to convert public highways to toll roads, mostly because we ‘couldn’t afford any other type of road’.

The truth, as always, is that we need to index the gas tax and that can make up the difference between what TXDOT needs and what revenue will currently be available. However, we cannot grant this governor and this agency a wish list of everything they want. TXDOT should have to justify their needs which are then appropriated by the Texas Legislature in each biennium’s budget. TXDOT should not drive this state further into debt. That being said, this most recent number is just as reliable as any of the other numbers.

It’s time for real justifications, not more of these ridiculous studies designed to generate ever larger numbers that do nothing but scare Texans into accepting the sale of our roads. We certainly can’t trust TXDOT, Rick Perry or Todd Staples.”

“Hank thanks Ambassador Schieffer for his service to our country and for running. Hank appreciates the Ambassador’s continued desire to serve our state and wishes him well in future endeavours.

However, a call to leave the Governor’s race and endorse another unannounced candidate fails to resonate with Hank. He got in this race because he believed no one in the field could both win and energize Democrats in order to help elect Democrats to downballot offices at all levels. That remains the case today. Hank is fully committed to this race and will see it through to an honorable conclusion.”

“Anyone who says they are shocked by her announcement hasn’t followed the lengthy trail of broken promises she’s left in her wake, starting with her promise to serve only two terms. She is an unreliable and undependable public servant who dodges and weaves as it suits her political ambitions. Senator Hutchison has left her supporters and contributors holding the bag once again.”

“A private matter between two people, lawfully married in another state, and a Texas judge has unnecessarily become a media spectacle due to the poor judgment of Attorney General Greg Abbott who decided to interject his office into a simple divorce.

General Abbott made the decision to waste taxpayer money on a matter that clearly did not involve his office. I call on him to quit wasting state funds on an attempt to score political points.

The judge, in this instance, was completely in the right and deserves the full- throated support of every Texan and all of our state officials for her effort to make this as simple a process as possible.

The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution [Article IV, Section 1] stipulates that states recognize contracts from other states. The marriage bond is universal. If you are married in another state and live in or move to Texas, you can get divorced here. A same-sex couple should not receive treatment from our courts that differs in any way from the treatment given any other couple. For General Abbott to say that appealing the decision will ‘defend the traditional definition of marriage’ is a fallacy.

This is precisely the problem with state government today: politicians placing their own interests and prejudices ahead of the best interests of all Texans.”

“Governor Perry’s decision to remove and replace three very competent members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission with three partisan ideologues should surprise absolutely no one.

This was a political decision by a Governor who wanted avoid criticism of the horrendous record Texas has regarding the execution of the innocent. The Governor’s decision should make it crystal clear to every Texan that justice in this state is controlled by the whims of an out-of-control Governor desperate to retain his grip on power.

Governor Perry’s actions were wholly unacceptable. Texas deserves better.”

After months of dissatisfaction with the slow progress and escalating cost of overhauling the way wholesale electricity is uploaded to the ERCOT grid, the Public Utility Commission today relented and approved a proposal to more than double the surcharge for the project.

The panel unanimously agreed to raise the surcharge for the long-delayed nodal project from 16.9 cents per megawatt hour to 37.5 cents.

Hank says:

“The PUC’s decision to nearly double the nodal project surcharge is typical of what has happened throughout Governor Perry’s administration. He appoints lobbyists from the industries themselves to the boards regulating the industries, and consumers get slapped in the face with higher costs.

When I’m governor, this will not happen. Energy lobbyists will have no place on the Public Utility Commission in my administration.”

“Texas has a higher percentage of its citizens living without health insurance than any other state in the nation.  Instead of working constructively to do something about this problem, Governor Perry and Senator Hutchison behave like children on a school playground—each one peevishly blaming the other for our state’s problems. Or Washington. Or the 10^th Amendment. Basically, doing anything BUT acknowledging their own failure and disregard for their fellow Texans.

One thing you also haven’t heard them say is how they’ll solve the health insurance crisis in Texas. Whether or not the President’s national healthcare plan becomes a reality, we have to do something about health insurance in Texas. We lead the nation in the number of uninsured children. We rank 46^th out of the 50 states when it comes to the number of people covered by employer-funded healthcare plans.

That’s inexcusable. During the 24 years Rick Perry has held public office, and during the 18 years Kay Bailey Hutchison has held statewide office, neither has demonstrated the courage Texas needs to pull our state up by the bootstraps from the health insurance sinkhole. These two have more than four decades of government experience between them, and this is the best we get? Allowing health insurance lobbyists to control the agenda in their offices? Campaign coffers filled with money from health insurance interests?

I applaud the folks in Washington who are trying to do something to ease healthcare costs in an effort to help small businesses and ordinary Texans who have been abused for decades by greedy insurance companies. Insurance companies need aggressive competition and fair but strict regulation so consumers are protected and prices don’t skyrocket out of reach of ordinary Texans. Here in Texas, the first step toward making sure that happens is reforming the Texas Department of Insurance. As your governor, I will transform this agency, in cooperation with the Legislature, to make the Texas Insurance Commissioner an elected office held accountable to the voters, and not the governor.”

Health Insurance In Texas: A State Of Crisis

The following are facts related to Texas’ health insurance crisis for your use. All sources are cited.

Pay To Play. Texas Governor Rick Perry has received more than $1.2 million dollars from the insurance industry for his campaign war chest. (National Institute On Money In State Politics. LINK.) While Perry has been governor, he has done nothing to increase access to healthcare for ordinary Texans, and his “leadership” on tort reform and insurance “reform” have translated into no healthcare savings or better access to care for ordinary Texans. (Texas Observer. “Baby, I Lied.” LINK.) U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has taken more than half a million dollars from the insurance industry for her Senate campaigns (Center for Responsive Politics, LINK)

Want Medical Care? Got Money? Under Governor Perry’s watch in Austin and during Senator Hutchison’s time in Washington, six Texas cities have earned the dubious distinction of being among the 20 most expensive cities in the United States for medical care: Houston (20), Lubbock (18), Dallas (13), Corpus Christi (10), Harlingen (5), and McAllen (2). Healthcare is more expensive in Harlingen than it is in Los Angeles. (Forbes, “America’s Most Expensive Places For Healthcare.” LINK.)

First Equals Last. Texas ranks first in the nation in the percentage of uninsured children. (Kaiser Family Foundation. LINK.) Texas ranks first in the nation when it comes to the percentage of the state’s population without insurance (ibid, LINK), and in the percentage of the non-elderly who are uninsured. (ibid, LINK.) Texas ranks 46th in the nation in terms of the population with employer-based healthcare insurance. (ibid, LINK.)

Bad Votes. Senator Hutchison vote against requiring wealthy Medicare beneficiaries to pay a greater share of their Medicare Part D premiums. A couple making over $164,000 per year would have been expected to pay a little over $10 per month more than they paid before. (Bill S.Amdt.4240 to S.Con.Res.70 ; vote number 08-S063 on Mar 13, 2008.) Senator Hutchison also voted against requiring negotiated prices on Medicare Part D drugs. (S.3 & H.R.4 ; vote number 2007-132 on Apr 18, 2007.) She also voted against negotiating bulk purchases for Medicare prescription drugs. (S.Amdt. 214 to S.Con.Res. 18 ; vote number 2005-60 on Mar 17, 2005).