White and the "Forces of Darkness"

Well, it has begun. The general election campaign for the Governor of Texas. Democratic nominee Bill White, former mayor of Houston, who styles himself as a "businessman who gets results", referred to Republicans as "the Forces of Darkness" and has taken up the Obama mantra of the need for "Change." The question is, does he represent change we can believe in?

According to the Dallas Voice, a homosexual website, Bill White participated in every Gay Pride Parade in Houston during his tenure as mayor of Houston and voted against the Texas Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. He said, "My personal position has been the same as was expressed by President Obama in the last campaign...I did vote against the state constitutional amendment in protest of wedge issue politics."

White has also criticized Governor Perry, along with Lt. Governor Dewhurst and House Speaker Strauss, for requiring all state agencies to identify and implement 5% budget cuts immediately in light of the economic outlook of an $11 billion shortfall facing the state next year. While that may seem very reasonable to most of us taxpayers, since that is how we would respond when faced with falling income, White called that move a "Soviet style" response. Huh? Later White refused to rule out raising taxes and said he had to first, "look under the hood," of the state budget to assess the problem. Of course, he will not say he is going to cut spending either. So what is his plan??

Hmmmmmm, this all sounds familiar. In 2003, when Governor Perry, Lt. Governor Dewhurst, and Speaker Craddick inherited an economy in which the state faced a $10 billion shortfall, the Democrats were clamoring for an income tax and saying the only choice was to raise taxes. Governor Perry and the Republican leadership instead cut spending and took a LOT of heat for that from the media and Democrats. However, our economy recovered quickly and we are in better economic shape today than most other states. I think most voters would expect to cut spending and not follow the Obama model of trying to tax and spend our way out of the recession.