walrus51

There are a number of very positive things that can be said about Rick Perry. He is pretty, he has great hair, and he is an inspiring orator.

Yet, the Walrus has some nagging concerns about Governor Perry.

At a public event in Bedford, New Hampshire on August 17, Texas Gov. Rick Perry reaffirmed his view that global warming is an unproven scientific theory that has been promoted by scientists who have “manipulated data,” and Perry further stated that programs intended to limit climate change are costing our nation “billions if not trillions” of dollars that he believes could be better spent elsewhere.

“We are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change,” Perry told an audience of several hundred voters, business leaders and local officials who gathered for a breakfast in Bedford. “Yes, our climate has changed — they’ve been changing ever since the Earth was formed.”

Perry added that the cost of implementing what he called “anti-carbon programs” is billions of dollars: “I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on what is still a scientific theory that hasn’t been proven, and from my perspective is more and more being put into question.”

Perry expressed his skepticism about global warming during his debut at the Politics & Eggs series, a virtually mandatory event for presidential candidates in the state that holds the first primary each election cycle.

In past appearances, Perry has also opined on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. “I believe that we were created by this all-powerful supreme being and how we got to today versus what we look like thousands of years ago, I think there’s enough holes in the theory of evolution to, you know, say there are some holes in that theory.”

Some have suggested that Perry is also a founding member of the Flat Earth Society, although I can find no strong evidence of that.

In his presidential platform, Perry seems to be focused on the Texas record of job creation during the national economic downturn. In fact, Texas has created plenty of jobs, although that seems to be related to a combination of rising oil prices, which created thousands of jobs in the oil and gas industries, and the shift from Louisiana as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

Perry tells us that his low-tax, low-regulation approach to business is a driving force to economic success. They also say that in Mexico and in China where manufacturing costs are clearly lower than in the U.S.

What Perry neglects to mention is that Texas really is a humanitarian cesspool.

It has the fourth-highest poverty rate of any state. In 2010, it tied with Mississippi for the highest percentage of workers in minimum-wage jobs. It is first in the U.S. for adults without high school diplomas. Twenty-six percent of Texans have no health insurance — the highest percentage of medically uninsured residents of any state. Texas leads the nation in the percentage of children who lack medical insurance. Texas employers are at the forefront in our nation of not providing insurance to their workers.

If Rick Perry is a legitimate candidate for president of the USA, we are in deep, deep trouble, folks.