A war of words has opened up between Texas Governor Rick Perry, and President Barack Obama, with Perry now complaining that Obama is showing a preference to Alabama and other storm-stricken states, while denying Texas approval of a recent wild-fire-related Major Disaster declaration.
Perry, who has been a constant critic of states taking federal aid money, and who at one point argued that Texas might opt to secede from the Union (again), if matters did not change in Washington DC to suit him, has nevertheless expected and received billions of dollars in federal taxpayer money to help his state.
President Obama recently noted that: "Governor Perry helped balance [Texas's] budget with about six billion dollars worth of federal help, which he happily took, and then started blaming the members of Congress who had offered that help."
Perry responded that Texas had sent "Billions and billions, TENS of billions of dollars in the form of taxes, and fees, etc. that the federal government levies on the state of Texas."
The Texas governor further explained that he was willing to take federal aid, which he believed Texans had paid for, so long as he could avoid "some faceless bureaucrat 1500 miles away from here telling us how to run our state or educate our children or for that matter deliver our health care."
Perry nevertheless says he is frustrated that Texas, which has received repeated grants this year from the federal government to fight numerous wildfires, has not seen its most recent request approved yet.
Perry remarked: "There’s a point in time when you say, 'Hey, what’s going on here? Why are you taking care of Alabama? Why are you taking care of other states and for some reason or another. . .the letter didn’t get lost in the mail."
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