Rick Perry Says Good-bye

Governor Rick Perry has said good-bye, and while many of us will remember his gaffes in running for president, there are very few public officials who can boast as successful a record as Perry did in governing Texas. When I think of Perry, I think of the first time I talked with my present financial planner when I told her, "I won’t judge you by how much you increase my accounts in the good time, I will judge you by how much of my wealth you preserve in the bad times.” Perry has governed in the good times and in the bad times, yet Texas has maintained strong job growth and prosperity when much of the country suffered.

Contrast Texas with how California has been poorly governed over the past decade with a Democrat-controlled legislature and leftist ideology. Perry has not been shy by going to many blue states looking to seduce their businesses to flock to Texas, and one suspects that one reason is simply to make a point, my philosophy of governing is superior to yours.

Texas has become what California was in the past, a place where people flock for opportunities and the American dream. Jobs are plentiful, and one reason is that Texas doesn’t hate their business class, and they are perfectly willing to develop their resources. Texas Tea, more commonly known as oil, is plentiful and more so with the fracking revolution. Texas has been able to sustain their economy through the rough times. Contrast this to California, which is sitting on tremendous amounts of reserves, and yet it stays in the ground doing no one any good. Or Illinois, which has taxed itself into further debt, but Illinois, like California, is sitting on coal reserves along with oil and natural gas. These states are not underperforming because Texas has energy resources, but because they refuse to develop their own.

Perry's strength is that he loves business, and he loves business to make money, and lots of it. Unlike much of the liberal establishment, creation of wealth doesn’t embarrass Perry, and that attitude has allowed business to flourish. A government attitude toward business can either enhance the climate with sound policies or scare away potential business with open hostility. Obama's era has been an era in which businesses find themselves under siege, which explains the poor recovery. When the President mocks the entrepreneur, then the entrepreneur thinks twice about either advancing his company or even getting started. No business today feels safe about future growth as they know they have a government that merely tolerates them as opposed to exulting them. Perry at least understands that businesses making money is good for the economy.

What now for Perry? His disastrous 2012 is not yet a distant memory, but if he chooses to run again, he has two years to brush up on his debating skills and study foreign affairs. The question that remains is, does he really want a second shot at the Presidential election? Perry does have one thing in his favor, he has a record that most governors only dream of and are envious of. And that is not a bad thing to start with.