A LIBERAL VIEW OF THINGS: We can’t make progress without discomfort

After the November mid-term elections, when only 48 percent of registered voters did their civic duty, there was great celebration among the Republican/tea party members who felt the “people spoke” on their behalf. Well, actually the margin of victory in the most lopsided races was about 25 points. Not bad.

But when you look at the percentage of eligible-to-vote Texans, it constitutes a slightly less noble number — 35 percent of the eligible voters voted for the right-wingers.  Keep in mind that 30 percent of eligible Texans remain unregistered. I guess they figure the rest of us will take good care of them.

That brings me to the theme of this column, which is taking care of our fellow citizen.  Earlier this year I wrote a column listing where Texas ranks among other states in taking care of its residents and its children. In most of those categories, Texas ranks in the bottom five among the 50 states. In some key areas such as per capita spending on our residents’ welfare, we are last. We are also last in high school diplomas, but first in high school dropouts. So, naturally, the voters of Texas re-elected a governor and legislators to perpetuate this condition.

The new Legislature even wanted to cut more from our social services and education budget items. Democratic San Antonio Rep. Joaquin Castro summed it up perfectly when he said, “So you’ve got to ask yourself…at what point is this budget akin to asking an anorexic person to lose more weight?”

The title of my earlier article was “Making last place worse."

Everyone knows actions have consequences. The small-government, cut-spending crowd will soon be sifting through the ashes of their victory pyre looking for reasons why things went so wrong. They will look for reasons, other than their own shortsightedness, for the exodus of educated families who want to educate their children in high quality schools. The property values of neighborhoods in areas of high pollution will continue to plummet, thus cheapening the value of the entire state.

Good-paying jobs will follow the educated workforce to other states and Gov. Rick Perry’s “miracle” will be seen for what it has always been: a short-term scam to keep his pals in corporate/banking Texas happy.

It will be seen as an overdone hairdo:  all fluff and no substance.

When a society guts its social services and stops adequately educating its children, allows its poor to suffer even more and brags about it, most historians will tell you that the bell is tolling that society’s last days. As former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby said, “If you wanted to destroy an enemy, you would do what the Republicans are doing in Texas.”

If you read the paper or watch the news you will find no real conversation about increasing revenues for the state budget balancing act.

As the late columnist Molly Ivins once said about the Texas Legislature being “the national laboratory for bad government," this latest election has produced a wretched experiment in irresponsible government.

The joining of the Republicans with the tea party and the “birthers," and all the rest of the right-wing loopiness, has created the perfect storm for not only bad government but a peek into the hearts and souls of the people who elected those people.

Why in the world would our good and true citizens keep electing people and voting for policies that are against their best interests and against the best interests of the state as a whole? What is so attractive about being last with its residents’ welfare? How can we be proud of having the highest high school dropout rate in the nation?

The victory pyre in November must surely have consumed reason and vision in the victors, because they cannot or will not see, in the ashes of that fire, what their partisan actions will do to the short-term and long-term consequences for the people of Texas.

Turner is a retired teacher and industrial engineer who lives near Marble Falls. He is an independent columnist, not a staff member, and his views do not necessarily reflect those of The Tribune or its parent company. "The Voter’s Guide to National Salvation" is a newly published e-book from Turner. You can find it at www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks. He can be reached by e-mail at vtgolf@zeecon.com.