Brother, Can You Spare a Surplus?

In a press release put out today, entitled "Gov. Perry Reiterates Need to Cut Discretionary State Spending Highlights Priorities for 2009 Legislative Session", the man from the mansion told state agencies that they had too much money and had to find ways to cut back. Apparently, it's the economic down-turn: which is odd, because he spends half his time bragging that Texas is virtually recession-proof. And if things are that dire, wouldn't this be time to do something with that famous Rainy Day fund?

In the presser, Perry made noise about "the need for state agencies to cut as much discretionary spending from their budgets as possible," calling this "a priority he will carry through the upcoming legislative session." This comes after he gave agencies until Oct. 27 (ie a little over a week) to start coming up with voluntary ways to slash their budgets.

So time for the history lesson: If Perry didn't notice what happened last session (not surprising: bar his mandatory HPV vaccination/Merck pharmaceuticals subsidy debacles, Perry wasn't really that high-profile around the Lege), pretty much every legislator in the building was arguing for increased funding for state agencies because they had all been slashed to the bone in previous budgets.

So, seriously, what spare cash?