#RickPerry'sTexasMiracle and $349M doses of hypocrisy

Rick Perry is billing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security $349 million for costs to incarcerate illegal aliens.

This is more of Perry's usual hypocrisy, though, and in two ways.

First, many of those illegal immigrants were, at one time in the past decade, building new homes in new metropolitan East Texas subdivisions for Perry's No. 1 campaign contributor, Bob Perry. If Tricky Ricky is really that worried about the Texas budget, why doesn't he ask "Cousin" Bob to make a contribution? Having been an editor in suburban DFW, I'll confess that some part of me, once or twice, wanted to walk into an in-progress development and say, "Cartos verdes, por favor," just to see the mad dash afterward.

But that's only one part of the hypocrisy.

Here's a longstanding Texas joke.

"How small is your town? Too small to have a Dairy Queen and too small to have a state prison."

Jokes aside, prisons, especially private prisons, have been a major growth opportunity in Texas. GEO Group, the former Wackenhut, and CCA are major players, as the link shows. That's even as some Texas private prisons sit empty.

Of course, draconian enforcement of drug laws, a willingness to make school infractions criminal offenses and more all add to the prison population.

So, more Perry hypocrisy here. Incarcerating illegal immigrants is money for Texas.

And now, just like wanting stimulus money while decrying it, Tricky Ricky wants federal cake while decrying it.