May 30, 2015

Ted Cruz’s rainy day socialism: How a right-wing fanatic learned to stop worrying and love redistribution

Ted Cruz’s rainy day socialism: How a right-wing fanatic learned to stop worrying and love redistribution

"Overall, and disaster relief funds aside, more than 33 percent of Texas’ revenue comes from the federal government. One third of all the money Texas spends on its people during a typical year is, in fact, redistributed from taxpayers in Chicago, Manhattan, Hollywood, San Francisco (home of the terrifying “San Francisco Values”) and, of course, Honolulu, the not-real-America birthplace of our “profoundly dangerous” socialist president. Rewinding to the Great Recession, Texas received $6.4 billion in funding, as requested by former Gov. Rick Perry, from the Recovery Act; which, by the way, has been referred to as the “failed stimulus” by Cruz and others. The redistributed stimulus money balanced the Texas budget and preserved its rainy day fund. In total, Texas was the third-highest recipient of stimulus funds, totaling more the $33 billion.

If Cruz, Abbott and other conservative Texans plan to comport themselves as members of the party of personal responsibility, the least they could do is to man-up and own their socialism."