I have to admit to chuckling, just a bit, when I read the latest missive from the Houston Chronicle's business-unfriendly business columnist today.
Buddy System still rules in Austin, and those friends don't come cheap. Chris Tomlinson, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
It's the same-old, tired, Texas Lock-Step Political Media saw: "If I don't like the bills that passed, and the things they accomplished I'm just going to bemoan special interests and call it a column." I'm starting to wonder if these are pre-written, or if there is a form column out there somewhere?
Because it's always the same.
That is not to say that crony-capitalism is not alive and well in Texas. Of course it is. In fact, Tomlinson mentions a couple of areas where it's on full display. Namely, auto sales and the construction industry. He left out one of the biggest, the liquor distribution con that upholds the "Texas 3-step" to the benefit of a few and the detriment of many, but he's never seemed to really get behind issues such as this anyway.
Of course he's mad that the Texas Railroad Commission wasn't totally revamped, because his friends in certain special interest groups didn't get their way. An argument could be made however that the voters who elected oil and gas industry-friendly representatives to large majorities in Texas are quite happy with the way things are going at the RRC right now.
The name change to the Texas Energy Commission seems like an expensive waste of time, and the proposals that Sierra Club and others are making are not to protect the environment, they're designed to cripple and industry that is one of the largest employers in the State. People rarely vote to be unemployed. regardless of whether or not their industry makes political donations.
Yes, it would have been nice to see some real tax reform come from the Lege this year, but not of the type Tomlinson is asking for (which involves huge tax increases on everyone in case you're wondering) and it also would have been nice to see something done about roads. Texas is currently solving it's problems via the toll road option, an option for which I'm not entirely opposed.
Education spending is a tougher hill to climb. In large part this is because our schools are doing a horrible job in regards to wise spending. It's tough to cry poor when many districts are still spending hundreds of Millions of dollars on football stadiums, or when it's reported that the administration growth outpaces teacher growth. Also when centralized administrative staff is averaging twice the salary of teachers. In short, we have too many administrative staff on the payroll making too much per year.
Speaking of cronyism, isn't that what happens when the Texas Municipal League advocates against property tax reform? Yet the TLSPM does not treat it as so despite the fact that you have an organization seeking to protect its bottom line at the expense of consumers. The only difference being that Tomlinson and his ilk like to attend cocktail parties with elected officials, they don't get invited to the cocktail parties thrown by CEO's and the like.
Almost every bill is going to have winners and losers, and quite often the winners will donate money to politicians to ensure they stay in the W column. This is not cronyism as much as it is politics today, especially at the State and Local level where the ordinary citizen does not pay much attention to the goings-on.
I would say that it would help if columnists stopped being lazy by using the non-magical version of Rita Skeeter's auto-quote quill, but it wouldn't. Because most people aren't paying attention anyway. Increasingly, they're just tuning out the newspapers and finding other things to do.
It's, partially, the newspaper's fault because they failed to adapt to changing times. It's also partially our fault because we haven't been paying attention. We get the government we deserve.
Blaming cronyism doesn't change that central fact, but it probably makes for quicker column writing, which allows for a writer spending more time in leisure activity.
