Repubican Governors and Legislatures Lead the Way for Poverty in Their States -- Texas is #3

The poverty rate in Texas is 18.5% among the highest in the Country with 19% of Texans aged 25 and older are without a high school diploma.  

When I first saw the list of the ten worst states for food security, figured I would find my usual suspects in Red States and was pretty much correct.  Didn't figure Oklahoma was part of this as the cost of living here along with unemployment have been some of the lowest in the Country during the downturn and the slow recovery (thanks to the Congressional GOP) we are now experiencing.  Out of the ten worst states for food security homes, eight out of ten have Republican Governors.  The two states with Democrat  Governors have GOP legislatures.  In NV, they have a Republican Governor and Democrat legislature.  Of the ten states, only Ohio and Nevada voted for President Obama over former Governor Romney.

What happened to this great recovery we hear about from Texas Governor Rick Perry as Texas ranks 3rd in low food security homes at 18.4% but ranks 25th in median income at $49,392 almost $50,000. Looks like Texas Governor Perry and others are only looking out for the wealthy not the average Texan.  The poverty rate in Texas is 18.5% among the highest in the Country with 19% of Texans aged 25 and older are without a high school diploma.  This is the Great State of Texas we have to hear so much about here in Oklahoma?  Excuse me while I laugh at the irony of all of this after being force fed Texas is better then every other state for years.

Who would want to move to Texas today if you are a woman or a minority as Perry and his Administration have declared war on both.  If Texas is this bad now on the poverty side, wait until you see how much lower the hard right Republican Attorney General Abbot can send Texas if he becomes Governor.  If you think that Perry is bad, just wait until you see Abbott who IMHO could be the final nail for the Republicans in Texas as State Government starts turning blue.  Most Texas who still think don't like the hard right who is driving them over a cliff.  How long before business' start moving out of Texas because it is too hard right?

My home state of Ohio made the list at #10 thanks to Gov Kasich and the hard right legislature who are out of touch with a lot of the middle class in Ohio who come from blue collar households.  This is disgusting because when I grew up, Ohio was in the forefront for innovation and now the state is suffering at the hands of Republicans who don't seem to care as long as they get their donors and money.  Republicans have been systematically destroying the state economically for years with their hard right ideas for years.  Why would a union shop want to do business in Ohio?  It wasn't the best under former Governor Ted Strickland with a GOP legislature but the economy has done a nose dive under Kasich.  Time to vote out Kasich and the GOP Legislature along with Republican Governors and members of their state legislatures around the Country.

10. Ohio  (Gov Kasich (R), Republican Legislature, Obama) 

• Low food security homes: 16.1%
• Very low food security homes: 7.1% (3rd highest)
• Median household income: $45,749 (16th lowest)
• Pct. obesity: 29.5% (8th highest)

More than 16% of families in Ohio experienced low food security, meaning they had difficulty accessing food and had poor diet quality. This problem was even worse for some families. Ohio also had the third highest percentage of households in the nation, at 7.1%, that had experienced very low food security at some point. In these homes, at least one person had to reduce food intake or had their eating patterns disrupted by irregular access to food.

9. Tennessee (Gov Haslam (R), Republican Legislature, Romney)  

• Low food security homes: 16.2%
• Very low food security homes: 6.9% (5th highest)
• Median household income: $41,693 (6th lowest)
• Pct. obesity: 29.6% (7th highest)

More than 16% of Tennessee households faced food insecurity at some point. Like in most states, this number rose considerably from the decade before. In 2002, just 11.3% of households faced food insecurity at some point. Similarly, between 2002 and 2012, the average proportion of households facing very low food security more than doubled, from 3.3% to 6.9%. As of 2011, 17.6% of homes received food stamps or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, more than all but two other states. Also, according to Gallup-Healthways, residents in Tennessee were less likely than Americans in almost any other state to eat healthily.

8. Nevada (Gov Sandoval (R), Democrat Legislature, Obama) 

• Low food security homes: 16.6%
• Very low food security homes: 6.7% (8th highest)
• Median household income: $48,927 (24th lowest)
• Pct. obesity: 24.9% (15th lowest)

Between 2002 and 2012, the percentage of households in Nevada that faced food insecurity rose from 9.3% to 16.6%. This was the largest such increase in the nation. In those 10 years, the percentage of Nevadans facing very low food security jumped as well, from 3.3% in 2002 to 6.7% in 2012. A lack of access to food was hardly the only major constraint facing Nevada residents, who according to Gallup were less likely to have a doctor or health insurance than residents of nearly all other states as of 2012.

7. Missouri (Governor Nixon (D), Republican Legislature, Romney)

• Low food security homes: 16.7%
• Very low food security homes: 7.6% (2nd highest)
• Median household income: $45,247 (15th lowest)
• Pct. obesity: 27.2% (21st highest)

According to a 2012 Gallup-Healthways survey, residents of just two other states were less likely than Missourians to eat healthily. The falling food security of many of the state’s residents may play a role in their poor diets. Nearly 8% of households faced very low food security, the second highest percentage in the nation. This was up significantly from 3.3% in 2002, and the largest increase in the nation over the 10-year period. 

6. Georgia (Governor Deal (R), Republican Legislature, Romney) 

• Low food security homes: 16.9%
• Very low food security homes: 6.5% (10th highest)
•  Median household income: $46,007 (18th lowest)
•  Pct. obesity: 28.6% (14th highest) 

Several factors likely contribute to food insecurity in Georgia. Georgia had one of the nation’s highest poverty rates in 2011, at 19.1% of all residents. Similarly, 6.4% of families earned less than $10,000 annually as of 2011, one of the highest proportions in the nation. According to a 2012 Gallup survey, Georgia residents were among the most likely in the nation to have lacked money for food at some point. They also were more likely than most Americans to not have a doctor or health insurance coverage.

5. North Carolina (Governor McCroy (R), Republican Legislature, Romney) 

• Low food security homes: 17.0%
• Very low food security homes: 5.5% (24th highest)
•  Median household income: $43,916 (12th lowest)
•  Pct. obesity: 28.9% (12th highest)

While there are some prosperous regions of the state, North Carolina still has a substantial poverty problem. In 2011, 17.9% of residents were living below the poverty line, the 13th highest rate in the country. More than one in five people surveyed in 2012 by Gallup-Healthways said they had not had enough money to buy food their family needed in the past 12 months. North Carolina’s food security problems have worsened during the recession. In 2009, 14.8% of families had low or very low food security. In 2012, it was 17% of families. 

4. Alabama (Governor Bentley (R), Republican Legislature, Romney)  

• Low food security homes: 17.9% 
• Very low food security homes: 6.8% (7th highest)
• Median household income: $41,415 (5th lowest) 
• Pct. obesity: 30.4% (5th highest)

Alabama residents practiced less healthy behavior than most Americans as of 2012. Residents were among the most likely to smoke and the least likely to exercise and eat healthy all day. The lack of healthy eating habits may have been driven by low food security, which results in households reducing “the quality, variety, and desirability of their diets,” according to the USDA. The combination of unhealthy behaviors and limited food access likely has led to Alabama residents being among the most overweight and unfit in the country. According to Gallup, just four states had higher obesity rates than Alabama in 2012. 

3. Texas (Governor Perry (R), Republican Legislature, Romney) 

• Low food security homes: 18.4%
• Very low food security homes: 6.2% (13th highest)
• Median household income: $49,392 (25th highest)
• Pct. obesity: 28.9% (12th highest)

In 2002, close to 15% of Texas households faced low food security each year. By 2012, 18.4% of Texas households experienced low food security. For many residents, low incomes likely prevent access to healthy food. As of 2011, Texas had a poverty rate of 18.5%, among the higher rates in the nation. Additionally, many residents in Texas lack the skills to work a high-paying job. Nearly 19% of the state’s population over age 25 had less than a high school diploma, tying Texas with Mississippi for the highest percentage of any state. 

2. Arkansas (Governor Beebee (D), Republican Legislature, Romney)

• Low food security homes: 19.7%
• Very low food security homes: 8.1% (the highest)
• Median household income: $38,758 (3rd lowest)
• Pct. obesity: 31.4% (3rd highest)

Last year, Arkansas had proportionally more households with very low food security than any other state in the nation, averaging 8.1% of all households. Making it difficult for many residents to afford proper food, Arkansas was one of the nation’s poorest states as of 2011. That year, the median household income was less than $39,000 and one of the lowest in the country. Meanwhile, nearly 20% of the state’s residents lived below the poverty line. With limited, irregular access to nutritious and balanced food, residents were among the most likely to be overweight, based on the results of a 2012 Gallup survey. 

1. Mississippi (Governor Bryant (R), Republican Legislature, Romney) 

• Low food security homes: 20.9%
• Very low food security homes: 6.9% (5th highest)
• Median household income: $36,919 (the lowest)
• Pct. obesity: 32.2% (2nd highest)

One in every five households experienced food insecurity in Mississippi. Residents of the state were among the poorest in the nation in recent years by numerous measures. In 2011, Mississippi had the lowest median household income in the nation, at $36,919, as well as its highest poverty rate, at 22.6% of all residents. Last year, one in four respondents to a Gallup survey stated they had, at some point, lacked the money necessary to feed their family. Even when residents could ensure they did not have to cut back on their meals because of low food security, many likely often had to eat nutritionally poor food. Mississippi residents had among the highest obesity rates in the country. 

For more information, click on link:  Michael B. Sauter and Alexander E.M. Hess, 24/7 Wall Street

Texans might want to take a long hard look where they are on the economic ladder along with a lack of high school graduates before casting their votes for any hard right Republicans.  Since Governor Perry took over from George W. Bush when he moved to the White House, Texas has been growing, adding more Representatives to the House of Representatives but are now among the leaders of the Country for poverty. Texas lawmakers and Governor don't want to provide healthcare for women or the poor refusing to accept Obamacare and the money to set up exchanges which will make it harder for Texans to afford health insurance.  How much money are Republican Governors throwing away refusing to implement Obamacare?  Then there are the Attorney Generals of the Red States including Oklahoma who are wasting ur dollars on trying to overturn Obamacare.  What part of the SCOTUS ruling in favor of Obamacare do they not understand.

How many of these Republican Governors are going to lose their seat in 2014 due to having voters in their state fed up with them as they ram laws through that hurt their own people?  Gov Perry is not running in 2014 as he eyes running for President.  Bulletin for Perry -- going to be a long time before this Country ever elects another President from Texas after the last one.

Republican Governors and members of their State Legislature with little to no compassion for the poor and underprivileged are the ones for the most part with the worst poverty.  Absolutely stunning at the lack of empathy on the part of Republicans today toward those less fortunate.  Looks like they learned their lessons well from Romney and his 1%.

Head of Texas Department of Safety Needs Removed after Vaginagate on Texas Highways

Advice to women planning a trip by vehicle to The Lone Star State of Texas -- don't travel alone or with another woman -- only travel with a man in the car

Texas Highway Patrol has sunk to a new low - Governor Perry needs to replace the head of the department like yesterday.  First it was deplorable actions at the State Capitol during debate on their egregious abortion bill.  Now women are subjected to body searches in traffic stops.  Texas is leading the Country now in being anti-women yanking it away from North Carolina.   Is this what having a state turn hard right looks like.  Pretty soon all those companies with jobs Perry loves to brag about are going to think twice before relocating to the State of Texas.  Looks like the swagger of Texas men has gone over the top with the latest:

Texas Police Pull Over Three Women And Search Their Vaginas For Marijuana 

BY IAN MILLHISER ON AUGUST 5, 2013 AT 5:00 PM 

A pair of videos posted online show police probing the genitals and anal regions of three women they claim to suspect of possessing marijuana. In one video, a woman is seen bent over and grimacing as an off camera police officer conducts the search. Shortly before this search, a male officer explains to the woman that he is calling a female officer over “because I ain’t about to get up close and personal with your woman areas.” 

The videos depict two vehicle stops, one for speeding and another for littering. In both videos, a male officer asks the women if they have any marijuana in the vehicle, suggesting that the purpose of their search is to find evidence of this drug. At one point, immediately before conducting her search of a woman’s genitals, a female officer warns the woman that if she “hid something in there, we’re going to find it.”

These searches almost certainly violate the Constitution. Although police do have broad latitude to search a vehicle when they have probable cause to believe that they will uncover contraband within, it is quite a stretch to extend these precedents to this most intimate of searches. As the Supreme Court explained in a 2009 decision regarding a student who was strip searched by school administrators, “both subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification on the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings.”

Read More at Think Progress

Texas couldn't even complete a Mission Statement for the Texas Highway Patrol:

The mission of the Highway Patrol Service is:

• To secure and maintain order in traffic on highways of assigned responsibility within existing regulations to make the use of those highways safe and expeditious;
• To educate the citizens of Texas in matters of public safety, crime prevention and detection and law observance; and  (? - my question mark)

What is with the hard right white males - they think rape rarelyy exists except in rare instances and now believe that cops have a right to to a body cavity search on women.  What I want to know why the women highway patrol were fired and not the men.

Texas is turning out to be a State out of control thanks to the hard right who has now taken over with Attorney General Abbott, Governor Perry and Lt Governor Dewhurst trying to outdo each other to be hard right.

Time for Texas to turn blue and oust the hard right Tea Party from office as they don't reflect the values of most Texans who are as appalled about this as the rest of us are.

Low-tax Texas beats big-government California

Governor Perry has done a great job running the State of Texas and is such a positive spokesman for Texas. Looking foward to seeing him for four more years as Governor and the Democrat White returning to Houston in November 2010.

Other Governors would do well to look at the Texas model and see what can be adapted to their State.

Having lived in both states, would give the nod to Texas hands down because there is not a lot of political correctness in the state like has permeated California over the years where hard work is replaced by lawsuits in many instances or handouts from the Government.

This November, Oklahoma plans to join Texas with a Republican Governor Mary Fallin after eight years wandering with Gov Henry who is not the most energetic person on the face of the earth.

We have some really good Governors now in Perry, Pawlenty (MN), Barbour (MS), Daniels (IN), Jindal (LA), McDonnell (VA), and Cristie (NJ) for starters who make a deep bench for Republicans. We need to add to their ranks in 2010 starting with Oklahoma. Pawlenty is not seeking reelection to explore running for President so MN will be in play. We would expect to see maybe Daniels and McDonnell also consider getting in the Presidential race which right now is wide open. We believe Rick Perry when he says his heart is in Texas not in DC.

Low-tax Texas beats big-government California
By: Michael Barone Senior Political AnalystMarch 7, 2010

(AP)

"Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.

His point was that the big-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are resented and fiercely opposed not just because of their dire fiscal effects but also as an intrusion on voters' independence and ability to make decisions for themselves.

No one would include Perry on a list of serious presidential candidates, including himself, even in the flush of victory. But in his 10 years as governor, the longest in the state's history, Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed.

They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation's second most populous state, with the most populous, California. Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s. Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century. Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.

But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress -- or lack of it -- over the last decade. California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.

Those Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million -- all originally extracted from taxpayers -- into effective TV ads.

Californians have responded by leaving the state. From 2000 to 2009, the Census Bureau estimates, there has been a domestic outflow of 1,509,000 people from California -- almost as many as the number of immigrants coming in. Population growth has not been above the national average and, for the first time in history, it appears that California will gain no House seats or electoral votes from the reapportionment following the 2010 census.

Texas is a different story. Texas has low taxes -- and no state income taxes -- and a much smaller government. Its legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, compared with California's year-round legislature. Its fiscal condition is sound. Public employee unions are weak or nonexistent.

Excerpt: Read more at the: Washington Examiner

Rick Perry's big win in Texas!

First time I voted for Rick Perry was for Agriculture Commissioner in 1990 after we were transferred into the State of Texas -- been a supporter of Rick Perry's ever since. From the time he took office to fill out the term of Governor George W Bush until now, I think he has been one of if not the best Governor we have in the Country.

Anyone watching Governor Perry and how he handled the Galveston Hurricane will tell you he was putting up with no nonsense. If you decided to stay, you were on your own.

Some so-called conservatives love to criticize Rick and will take one or two sentences out of what he says and make a whole story which doesn't tell the actual truth. I can guarantee you that most states would love to have Rick Perry. One of the reasons I hated to leave Texas with the closure of Kelly AFB was because their State Government worked.

While Texas was flourishing, we were stuck in Oklahoma with a Democrat Governor who this last time was a big Obama supporter. Pretty strange in a state where only 34% of the voters voted for Obama. Shows how far out of touch the Governor is with the State. He is term limited this year. We are going to end the eight years of Democrat rule in the Governor's office with electing Congresswoman Mary Fallin, the former Republican Lt Governor, to be our next Governor in January 2011. Then next year Governor Perry will be betting Governor Fallin on the winner of the Red River Rivalry in Octber 2011!

Congratulations Governor Perry on your big win yesterday -- we will be rooting for you to send White back to Houston on November 2nd.

Rick Perry's big win in Texas
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
03/03/10 1:12 AM EST

The conventional wisdom had it that the Republican gubernatorial primary in Texas would be a battle between challenger Kay Bailey Hutchison’s sophisticated urban base versus incumbent Rick Perry’s yahooing rural base. The election results—incomplete as I write past midnight Eastern time—tell a different story. Perry has won the Republican nomination without a runoff, with (as I write) 51% of the votes to 30% for Hutchison and 18% for Debra Medina (the candidate who got scrubbed from serious contention when she told Glenn Beck that she wasn’t sure the U.S. government wasn’t behind the September 11 attacks). That’s with 6,341 of 8,236 precincts reporting. Perry's margin is likely to increase as the final numbers come in.

The Texas secretary of state’s exemplary website shows separately the early voting results and the total results for each county. As the returns were coming in, it was apparent to me as I looked at counties with all precincts reporting that there wasn’t much difference between the early voting percentages and the total percentages when all the precincts were counted. So to get a sense of where the candidates were getting their strongest support, I added up the early voting totals for the four major metro areas as most recently defined, the 12-county Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, the 10-county Houston metro area, the 8-county San Antonion metro area (in which Medina County reported no votes cast in the Republican primary) and the 5-county Austin metro area. Subtracting from that left the 219 counties in the rest of the state. I didn’t separate out the heavily Hispanic counties along the Rio Grande Valley, because they cast relatively few (in some cases zero) votes in the Republican primary. I’ll round off the numbers to the nearest thousand in the following table, showing the number of votes and percentages for Hutchison, Medina and Perry and the total number of votes cast.

Hutchison Medina Perry Total

TEXAS 183 31 97 16 313 53 593

DFW 46 30 21 20 74 49 151

Houston 32 27 14 12 72 61 118

San Ant. 17 34 7 14 26 51 52

Austin 11 27 8 19 22 54 41

Remainder 77 33 37 16 118 51 231

Conclusions: (1) Perry won this not in rural and small town Texas but in metro Houston. This bodes well for him in the general election, since it indicates strength in the home base of the well regarded Democratic nominee, former Houston Mayor Bill White, who was nominated by an overwhelming margin. (2) Medina, the candidate who wouldn’t disrespect the truthers, did best in the supposedly most sophisticated part of Texas, the Metroplex. Go figure. (3) Hutchison, supposedly the candidate of urban sophisticates, did best in metro San Antonio and rural Texas. She held Perry below the 50% level needed to avoid a runoff in approximately half of Texas’s 254 counties; unfortunately for her, those counties didn’t give her nearly a big enough margin to offset Perry’s advantage in metro Houston.

Excerpt: Read more at the Washington Examiner: Washington Examiner