"You know, to preserve our job-friendly climate the Texas legislature didn't raise taxes this last legislative session while balancing their budget and maintaining their reserves - and might I add that our budget leaves $6 billion dollars in a rainy day fund?"
About this Quote
“Job-friendly climate” is the rhetorical air freshener here: a pleasant, vague phrase meant to make a specific ideological choice - don’t raise taxes - feel like common sense meteorology. Perry isn’t arguing policy so much as narrating competence. By stacking tidy achievements (“didn’t raise taxes,” “balancing their budget,” “maintaining their reserves”) he builds a triple-proof alibi against the perennial charge that low-tax governance is fiscally reckless. The rhythm is deliberate: constraint, responsibility, prudence. It’s less a budget report than a campaign ad in sentence form.
The subtext is a two-front fight. One front is aimed at business leaders and suburban voters who want reassurance that Texas can be pro-growth without being pro-chaos. The other is aimed at rivals in high-tax states and at federal Democrats: Texas as the countermodel, the place where government “gets out of the way” yet still keeps the books clean. “You know” pulls the listener into an assumed consensus, a conversational shortcut that implies dissent would be ignorance. “Might I add” performs humility while slipping in the applause line: the $6 billion rainy day fund, the symbolic pile of cash that signifies adult supervision.
Context matters: post-recession politics rewarded governors who could claim solvency without sacrifice. What’s omitted is as important as what’s said - the trade-offs, the distribution of who benefits, and whether the “job-friendly” brand rests on low taxes alone or on quieter costs shifted elsewhere. Perry’s intent is to make fiscal restraint feel not just prudent, but patriotic to the Texas identity he’s selling.
The subtext is a two-front fight. One front is aimed at business leaders and suburban voters who want reassurance that Texas can be pro-growth without being pro-chaos. The other is aimed at rivals in high-tax states and at federal Democrats: Texas as the countermodel, the place where government “gets out of the way” yet still keeps the books clean. “You know” pulls the listener into an assumed consensus, a conversational shortcut that implies dissent would be ignorance. “Might I add” performs humility while slipping in the applause line: the $6 billion rainy day fund, the symbolic pile of cash that signifies adult supervision.
Context matters: post-recession politics rewarded governors who could claim solvency without sacrifice. What’s omitted is as important as what’s said - the trade-offs, the distribution of who benefits, and whether the “job-friendly” brand rests on low taxes alone or on quieter costs shifted elsewhere. Perry’s intent is to make fiscal restraint feel not just prudent, but patriotic to the Texas identity he’s selling.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|
More Quotes by Rick
Add to List
