Perry presents problems for Obama

Merrill Mathews:

More than any other potential GOP presidential candidate, President Obama fears Texas Gov. Rick Perry. That's because Perry is the only one who can devastate virtually any Obama claim.

Take the whine we hear most often from the President: That President George W. Bush handed him a terrible economic situation. As USA Today reported June 2: "[White House spokesman Jay] Carney noted that when Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, he faced the worst economy since the Great Depression. Obama also inherited the biggest budget deficits in history, from a Republican President—George W. Bush—who had come into office with budget surpluses."

A full two and a half years after taking office, Team Obama still blames Bush—for everything except the fall of Adam. Well, there is one other elected chief executive who inherited a Bush economy: Rick Perry, as governor of Texas. And yet I have never once heard Perry whining that the state would be doing so much better if it hadn't been for the policies of his predecessor.

To use a football analogy—I mean, we're talking about Texas—it's not who hands you the football and it's not where the ball is handed to you, it's what you do with the ball after you have it.

Rick Perry took the ball from Bush and scored an economic touchdown for Texas. Obama took the ball from Bush and fumbled it—repeatedly—giving the other team a chance to score a touchdown.

Which brings us to the Obama vs. Perry records on the economy. What has happened to some of the key indicators of economic well-being since Obama has been in charge (roughly January of 2009 to June 2011)?


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A recent state-by-state comparison study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation found that Texas had a state tax burden of 8.4%, compared to a U.S. average of 9.7%. And the Texas gross state product grew 94.5% over 10 years, vs. 66.3% for the rest of the country.

Texas far outpaces other states in job creation. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, director and writer-in-residence, respectively, at Southern Methodist University's William J. O'Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom write: "From January 2000 to June 2010 [Perry's tenure], Texas had a net increase of nearly 1.1 million jobs—more than any other state by far. In fact, Texas' outsized gains eclipsed the total of the next five job-creating states: Florida, Arizona, Virginia, Utah and Washington."

More importantly, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Texas created 129,000 new jobs in 2009—a recession year. That was more than half of all the jobs created in the country.

The Brookings Institution published a study earlier this year looking at job growth in major cities. Texas had five of the top 10 cities, with Austin leading the country in job growth.

See why Obama is concerned about a Perry bid? Would you want to stand before the public in a presidential debate and defend Obama's record compared with Perry's?

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There is more.

Obama and the Democrats would look for other ways to smear Gov. Perry. They are probably working on those smears right now. But Perry would need to stay on message and challenge Obama on results.