Give credit it is due to Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

He lured a massive corporate operation from California to Plano, a Dallas suburb. Perry also danged about $40 million in front of Toyota to make the move halfway across the country.

That’s 40 million public dollars, yours and mine.

However, the governor is acting as if the public doesn’t deserve to know the details of the transaction.

http://www.texasobserver.org/rick-perry-seeks-keep-details-toyota-incentives-secret/

He’s keeping the financial incentives secret.

Wait a minute, governor. That’s our money, isn’t it? I know you’re a man of means, but you didn’t write a personal check to the Toyota honchos, did you?

The governor’s office has gotten Freedom of Information requests from the Texas Observer and the Houston Chronicle. The idea is that since it’s public dough, the governor owes it to, um, the public to explain the incentive package that went to Toyota in the public’s name.

Perry’s office has declined the request, saying that revealing the details would reveal to competing states Texas’s economic strategy and enable them to sweeten deals that might lure prospective companies away from here.

The Observer’s Forrest Wilder reports: “Perry’s attorneys argue that releasing any information before the deal is finalized ‘would seriously disadvantage Texas by allowing other states to directly approach this entity with competing incentives.’”

Still, the governor isn’t messing with his own money. It’s ours and the governor should tell us what he’s doing with our money.