California businessmen and women are coming to Texas to set up shop, apparently knowing all along that the Lone Star State is among the more business-friendly states in the Union.

And that is why Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent foray into California to recruit openly for business owners to relocate to Texas seems so gratuitous and, frankly, rather foolish.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/11/polling-center-californias-conservative-migration/

Perry made the showy trip to California, where he chided that state over its difficult economic circumstance. California Gov. Jerry Brown called Perry’s visit “barely a fart.” Perry laughed off the snarky rejoinder.

The evidence, though, is quite clear that Texas is a good place to do business. We have no personal income tax. Our regulatory hurdles are less cumbersome than many other states.

Are we the perfect place to relocate? Hardly. Look at the school financing picture. The courts keep ruling our property tax-heavy public school funding system as being unconstitutional, and the Legislature hasn’t helped matters by cutting so deeply into public education funds to help balance the state budget. That’s hardly a magnet to attract young families with children to educate.

But as the Texas Tribune reports, Texas’s relatively good economic health has helped it attract new residents at a blistering pace, while other states have seen their population stagnate.

It makes me wonder aloud once again: Why did Perry feel the need to prance and preen so publicly when the state is selling itself?

Whenever I write something about term limits, some of my Texas Panhandle friends almost always bring up U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry’s name and accuse of him of hypocrisy on the subject.

Here’s what I wrote recently on the subject of term limits:

http://www.johnkanelis.com/2013/03/term-limits-move-stirring-to-life.html

Now, let me try to set straight what I understand to be the record about Thornberry’s position on term limits.

The Clarendon Republican won his seat in the House of Representatives in 1994 after campaigning under the Contract With America banner, which included a provision to limit the terms of House members and senators. Thornberry supported all the terms of the Contract With America.

What his critics keep saying is that he has gone back on his word to limit the amount of time he would serve.

I will stipulate that I was not working in Amarillo during the 1994 congressional campaign; I took up my newspaper post in the Panhandle in January 1995, the very week that Thornberry began his congressional career. But I am fully aware of what he said during that tumultuous campaign.

He did not say he would impose term limits on himself, but would support – with his vote – any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit congressional terms whenever they came up. He has done so every time the issue has gone before the House. The proposed amendment, however, always has failed to garner the two-thirds majority it needs to refer it to the states for ratification.

Perhaps the now-veteran congressman was too cute with his promises back in 1994. Still, he never promised to serve, say, three terms and then walk away. He has decided to run for re-election many times since winning his seat nearly two decades ago. Thus, I’ll give him credit at least for refusing to box himself into a corner and then try to wiggle his way out of it by reneging on a promise he refused to keep – such as what happened with former Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., who did promise to serve for three terms after defeating Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley, only to take it all back, infuriating term-limits advocates in the process.

Term limits eventually may become the law of the land. I remain dubious of mandating such limits, given that voters deserve to make that decision without the law forcing it upon them. As for Mac Thornberry, he’s done a decent job representing most of his constituents’ views on many relevant matters, such as taxation, government spending and on some key social issues.

I suppose if the term limits idea comes to a vote in the House, Thornberry will say “yes” to it while maybe secretly hoping it fails yet again.

Seems as though the U.S. Postal Service is not immune to the kind of griping that occurs among the working folks’ ranks at most companies.

I was talking the other day to a letter carrier about the impending end to Saturday mail delivery. He doesn’t like the idea one little bit. The mailman told me the USPS is too top-heavy with executives who sit around and “do nothing” to collect their high-dollar salaries. The service needs to skim a few of those empty suits off the top of the chain of command before deciding when, where and how to cut the money it says it needs to save, according to the letter carrier.

Then he launched into the end of Saturday mail delivery.

“I’ve been delivering mail for 34 years and I’ll tell you it’s the worst thing they could do,” he said. My mail-delivery acquaintance told me “they think they’re going to save $2 billion a year by ending Saturday delivery, but they’re going to lose $5 billion a year in contracts they won’t be able to keep.” He explained that companies pay big money to ensure their mail gets delivered on certain days. Saturday, he suggested, is one of those days. I didn’t think to ask him which companies shell out that kind of money.

For me, the end of Saturday mail delivery isn’t that big a loss. And I surely would hate to see the Postal Service go under for keeps because it cannot save enough money to stay afloat.

The villain? It’s the Internet, which has greatly reduced people’s mail volume. Fewer of us write actual letters these days, or pay our bills using “snail mail.”

Time will tell if a veteran mail carrier has it right or if the “do-nothing” brass at the top end actually knows what it’s doing.

The issue of term limits is returning to the public policy arena in the Texas Legislature.

I’ve long opposed mandated term limits, believing that we already have them. We call ‘em elections, correct?

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/08/conservatives-revive-proposal-term-limits/

But not to be dissuaded from limiting the terms of officeholders, conservatives want the issue put to a vote, maybe this year in the form of an amendment to the Texas Constitution. As the story linked to this blog notes, opponents of term limits are posing an interesting argument: Term limits don’t always guarantee fresh voices and faces in Texas government.

Gov. Rick Perry served as agriculture commissioner and lieutenant governor before becoming governor. When was that? Seems like he’s been in office forever. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was land commissioner before moving into his current office. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson served in the state Senate preceding his current gig. Comptroller Susan Combs was agriculture commissioner. Attorney General Greg Abbott was a member of the state Supreme Court.

The point is that if we limit the terms someone can serve in an office, all he or she can do is run for another office – and probably win. Do we get new ideas? No. We get old ideas in new offices.

Legislators are about as likely to limit their own terms as members of Congress would limit theirs. Some lawmakers say they favor term limits and actually have voted for them. But to amend either the U.S. or Texas Constitution, we need a two-thirds majority of legislators to sign on. Capitol Hill hasn’t done it and I’m not sure it’ll happen in Austin, either – for precisely the same reason: Lawmakers like staying in office and are unlikely to cut their own political throats.

But a larger point is whether we should mandate a turnover if a majority of voters like the job their officeholders are doing. We demand state representatives to run for re-election every two years. Some of them – such as former state GOP Rep. Jim Landtroop of Plainview in 2012 – actually lose their re-election bid. Most of them win, but that’s the voters’ call.

Do we need mandatory term limits? No. We need an electorate that is prepared to make change on its own.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla., got his hackles up this morning when “Meet the Press” host David Gregory asked him about his possible – or perhaps probable – run for the presidency in 2016.
“Man, you guys are crack addicts,” Bush responded.
http://thehill.com/video/campaign/287211-jeb-bush-calls-media-crack-addicts-over-2016-presidential-race-speculation-
He said the press has an “obsession” with his future political plans.
My own reaction is, well, yeah governor. What is your point? The media pay reporters and commentators to speculate on these things and everyone with half an interest in politics in this country knows that Jeb Bush is entertaining the idea of seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. It’s in his genes. Jeb knows it. So does his father, the 41st president, as does his brother, the 43rd president. Even the ex-Florida governor’s son, George P. Bush, is likely to jump into Texas politics next year as he makes a run for a still-undisclosed statewide office.
Bush should know better than anyone that the only way to dispel this kind of discussion is to declare categorically he won’t run – ever – for president. Jeb won’t take that leap because, well, maybe he, too, is a “crack addict” who cannot wean himself of the political limelight.
Absent that kind of denial, the media would be derelict in their duty if they didn’t ask him the obvious questions about his political future.

President Obama recently broke bread with several Republican U.S. senators in an effort, the White House says, to bridge the great divide that separates the Democratic head of state from the loyal opposition.

Was it for real or just for show?

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says it’s the real deal.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/09/obama-outreach-to-diffuse-gop-opposition-pelosi-says/

Then again, you’d expect the California Democrat to say such a thing. But the more interesting reaction actually has come from congressional Republicans who are expressing a similar view, that they also think the president is being sincere in his outreach.

I noted in a recent blog post some of the criticism that Obama has earned for being too aloof and acting as if he’s above the fray. One of my better friends in Amarillo, a high-powered educator and dedicated Democrat, said Obama needs a little infusion of Lyndon Johnson’s knack for cajoling the other side into seeing things his way.

He took the GOP senators to dinner at a swanky D.C. restaurant, then met the following day with House Republican leaders for lunch. And all those who attended said some kind things about the president.

Now, it remains to be seen how all this nice-making will translate into actual legislation and action that moves the country forward. The two sides have to reach some kind of budget deficit-reduction deal that forestalls future automatic cuts that already have kicked in. Economists across the board say the massive cuts and government workforce layoffs could send the country into a new recession.

Does anyone, even those who detest the president, really want that? I don’t think so.

Keep talking – and eating – together, ladies and gentlemen.

I have to say I admire Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., for doing something so many of his colleagues in recent years have failed to do.

Paul stood up and actually filibustered. That is, he spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate for 13 hours, about this and that in an effort to wheedle a pledge from the Obama administration about the use of unmanned aircraft … drones, if you will.

The object of Paul’s objection was CIA Director John Brennan, who supported President Obama’s use of drone aircraft to strike against terrorists plotting to do harm to the United States. Paul wanted some assurance from Attorney General Eric Holder that the administration wouldn’t deploy the aircraft in U.S. airspace to use against Americans on their home soil. He got such a pledge eventually – and then he called off his filibuster. The full Senate then confirmed Brennan’s nomination and the new spook in chief has taken up his post.

Allow me two points.

First, the use of drones to target Americans abroad who are engaging in acts of war against their country doesn’t give me the least bit of concern. Paul had some concern about that, as did Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, who joined his Republican colleague in filibustering Brennan’s nomination. A drone did kill a U.S.-born terrorist in Yemen in 2011. I didn’t mourn that American’s death, given that he was a senior al-Qaida operative who allegedly was close to the late Osama bin Laden, who died in May 2011 in a commando attack in Pakistan.

Second, it seems inconceivable to me that any president would dare use a drone aircraft flying in U.S. airspace to attack an American suspected of plotting terrorist activity. That American would have to be caught in the act of committing a heinous act, such as, say, flying a commercial jetliner full of innocent passengers into a skyscraper.

The new CIA boss is on board with the president’s policies regarding the use of drones. They have proven effective in our ongoing anti-terror campaign. President Bush ordered their use during his time in office. Barack Obama merely has extended their deployment well into his own presidency.

And even though it is highly unusual for a senator to filibuster a Cabinet nominee, I have to applaud Paul for actually standing on the Senate floor and blathering on and on, which is what the filibuster by definition allows him to do. Too often in the past so-called “filibusters” have been the result of some senator making a motion to block legislation simply because he or she disagrees with it. But the senator never has been forced to do what Rand Paul did.

At least Paul, the up-and-coming champion of the tea party wing of the GOP, has put himself on the record. Stand tall, Sen. Paul.

The Labor Department put out some big numbers Friday.

The economy added 236,000 private-sector jobs in February. The unemployment rate fell from 7.9 to 7.7 percent. Governments at all levels shed some jobs, which detracted a bit from the total number of jobs gained during the past month.

But those who’ve been blasting the Obama administration because of its allegedly “failed economic policy” aren’t joining the chorus of praise for the positive turn in the economy.

I would ask “why?” but I know the answer already. It’s politics.

Past monthly reports have shown similar dips in the jobless rate, but the “loyal opposition” has been quick to say those prior declines were a result of people ending their job search. They’re despairing of ever finding a job, so they’ve quit looking, say the critics. Economists across the board, though, hailed the latest monthly jobs numbers as a sign of actual economic growth, suggesting that the recovery is accelerating.

But the doomsayers aren’t about to sing those praises.

I think I’ll say what many of them likely are thinking privately … but don’t dare say out loud: “Hey, we might have been wrong about Barack Obama’s strategy to rescue the nation from its 2008-09 economic free fall.”

A letter to the editor in today’s Dallas Morning News asks a pertinent question of Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who declared there to be an enormous inflow of illegal immigrants streaming across the border onto land owned by a friend of his.

The letter writer asks why, if it’s such a huge national security breach, didn’t the senator notify the feds immediately instead of posting it on Twitter.

Cornyn says his pal — who he declines to identify — is watching 300 illegal immigrants come onto his land daily. Local police officials say it isn’t happening. Who’s telling the truth?

My hunch is that if really was occurring along the Rio Grande River, Cornyn — himself a former trial judge, state Supreme Court justice and Texas attorney general — would have fallen back on his judicial instincts and called the Justice Department right away.

Isn’t that what dedicated public servants do?

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is making what some Rio Grande Valley lawmen say is a bogus claim about the status of border security.

I must stipulate that Cornyn is a Republican and the law enforcement officers are Democratic sheriffs. So, one must understand the politics involved.

Cornyn said recently that a South Texas rancher has told him that as many as 300 people are crossing the Rio Grande River illegally every night. He won’t identify the name of the individual making the claim, but does say he’s a friend of the senator’s. The Dallas Morning News, though, reports that sheriffs along the border scoff at Cornyn’s assertion, saying that such a mass migration across the border would produce 110,000 illegal crossings annually, which they say is more than double the estimated number of people estimated by the federal government who elude capture every year.

Zapata County Sheriff Alonzo Lopez, one of the Democratic lawmen who say Cornyn is making this stuff up, said: “We would be acting on that if it were true. We never hear about large amounts of people crossing ’cause it’s not happening.”

Sure enough, the sheriffs have their political turf to protect. They can’t acknowledge this kind of massive breach along the border for fear of creating election-year issues for opponents to use against them. However, Cornyn also has some worries awaiting him, particularly if the tea party wing of the GOP mounts a challenge against him in the 2014 Republican primary. Cornyn wouldn’t be the first member of either the Senate or the House to embellish something for political effect, to give himself a straw man to knock down just to demonstrate his toughness on a particular hot-button issue.

And the way Cornyn’s been acting in recent years, by swinging far to the right to avoid that kind of political ambush, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that he, too, is telling a tall tale.

Here’s an idea, senator: Tell the world who’s feeding you this intelligence and let that individual answer the questions directly.