Perry's 2001 remarks on study of joint health plan with Mexico get scrutiny

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Ten years ago, Gov. Rick Perry spoke at a border summit held in South Texas. It's a safe bet that few remember his comments that day, back in the halcyon days before the war on terror.

But some Texas tea party adherents have dusted off the Perry text and found an objectionable reference to a legislatively required study of "the feasibility of bi-national health insurance," or coverage of both U.S. and Mexican residents along the border. Not to mention some other friendly gestures Perry made that day toward Mexico, including a boast about how he'd just signed a Texas DREAM Act that granted in-state college tuition rates to the children of illegal immigrants who are academic achievers. "Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate," he said. Perry also spoke glowingly of how the Legislature in 2001 passed a children's Medicaid simplification bill and increased funding for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

"More checking under the hood needed before we buy the car," tea party activist JoAnn Fleming of Tyler wrote this week. A blogger weighed in with similar criticism in this post on RedState.com. Alice Linahan, a North Texas tea party activist and media aggregator, circulated the comments. She later told me in an email, "Rick Perry is like most politicians right now. They are beholden to their large donors vs. the voters who put them in office."

You can be the judge of Perry's remarks, available here on the governor's office website.

Perry campaign spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger downplayed the reference to bi-national health insurance.

"A bill was passed by the Legislature that authorized a study to look into this issue, which ultimately concluded there were numerous barriers to accomplishing that idea, and the Legislature took no further action on this concept," she said.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/08/perrys-2001-remarks-on-us-mexi.html

[peejay 327]

Rick Perry has a lot of to answer for. He has a public record that can help him or haunt him.

Unlike Obama who basicly had nothing when he ran. And now Obama has a public record that can haunt him too. He is no longer an obscure politician without a past or a vague past. Obama got elected because of who he wasn't rather than who he really is. Now that we know what he is all about he can't hide behind his obscurity and bullshit hype anymore.

Obama has a lot to answer for too.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Notice how peejay spends one ambiguous and rather nonjudgmental sentence on Rick Perry and the subject at hand, which is uncharacteristic of his usual vitriol), but then writes a whole paragraph of vitriol for Obama.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Notice how peejay spends one ambiguous and rather nonjudgmental sentence on Rick Perry and the subject at hand, which is uncharacteristic of his usual vitriol), but then writes a whole paragraph of vitriol for Obama.

I think he must keyword search, he only posts or responds to articles regarding illegals.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Sousuke