16 Billion Reasons Not to Read Perry's Book

Gov. Perry: Wonder if he wrote it in that rental mansion the state's paying for? (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Gov. Rick Perry quite happily took $16 billion in Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money last year. Now he's written a book about how he doesn't really need those pesky Feds. How does a U-turn that violent not give him whiplash?

This morning, publishers Little, Brown and Company announced that they've picked up the world rights to Perry's Fed Up, which the firm describes as "a polemic that examines the dangerous and unconstitutional intrusion of the federal government on states’ rights." Yeah, that's right: After failing to learn his lessons with all that secessionist nonsense last fall, and the massive unpopularity and unconstitutionality of Arizona's attempt to get into the foreign policy game, Perry is doubling down on the Tenth Amendment vote for the general election race against Democrat Bill White.

In the press release, the publisher states that "Perry argues that expansion of the federal government is occurring exponentially and injuriously. Bailouts, spending increases and" oh good grief. Let's stop right there. The current Texas budget was bailed out by Federal stimulus cash. As House Appropriations Committee Chair Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie said as the sums were being finalized, ""I've been involved in cutting a budget pretty seriously before, and we would be doing that today if we didn't have the federal stimulus."