Texans For Kay

Kay Bailey Hutchison And Rep. Michael Burgess
WBAP Radio’s “The Mark Davis Show”
October 13, 2009
http://kaybaileyhutchison.blip.tv/file/2715041/

Hutchison Says This Race Is About Building A Texas That Will Be Strong For The Next 20 Years:

Hutchison: “The reason that I am taking this on, which is not the easy road, is that I am so concerned about Texas for the next 20 years. Looking to the future, I think the Republican Party is imploding. I think that we need leadership to have a Ronald Reagan outreach to people who believe in limited government, lower taxes, a responsible conservative government in Texas. We have to do it by building the Republican Party. We are two away from losing the Texas House of Representatives. We are losing the major urban areas in our state, which affect our judiciary, affect our county governments. And I was a Republican when there were 13 in the Texas House of Representatives. I’ve worked to build this party. When Governor Perry was a Democrat, I was a Republican fighting for Republican principles. And I’m not going to sit back and allow this to continue. I’m taking on the job that I think only I can do, honestly, of trying to get Texas back on track. We haven’t addressed the issues of education, transportation. Our TxDOT is so off base. They are so arrogant, they are dictatorial and they’re not doing the job. Education, we’re not doing the job.”

Hutchison Says Perry Is Putting Politics Ahead Of Results:

Hutchison: “I have never voted for increases in taxes. I have voted to lower taxes. Gov. Perry has increased taxes in Texas. He’s increased it on business – the margins tax, which I think is a flawed policy. And secondly, he has not addressed the rising property tax rates in this state. And they are confiscatory in many places in our state. So he is a person who talks conservative, but he has governed by taxing, by being, I think, out of touch.

“Our government is not running well, Mark. Read the paper every day. He’s pressuring boards of regents. I want to elevate our universities. I want them to be Tier 1, so that our young people stay in Texas to get a good education. Gov. Perry is pressuring members of the boards of regents to do what he wants; I want us to be nationally recognized. That will not work. I want our basic education to be K-14 for an educated workforce. Gov. Perry is, I think, just so political, and so trying to protect his political base, that he’s not doing what’s necessary to lower taxes, to have good policies, to address the issues for Texas, in 20 years, not just tomorrow.”

Hutchison On Her Support For The Death Penalty And Perry’s Forensic Science Commission Cover-Up:

Hutchison:  “I am a steadfast supporter of the death penalty, I think it’s a deterrent, and I think there should be a death penalty in our state. Saying that, I want to make sure that we have every technological advance in evidence, to assure that we are executing a person who is actually guilty, and the right person. So I think all of the DNA evidence and what that has given us to make sure that we’re right is fabulous. The fact that this panel was going forward to try to determine if there is now new technical evidence on whether a person is an arsonist or had an accident in a fire is very important. It’s very important for the process. And I just think the governor made a mistake in trying to ramrod a covering up of what might be more evidence for the future.”

Rep. Michael Burgess On Why He Supports Hutchison For Governor:

Rep. Burgess: “Well Mark, this is a critical time for our country, critical time for our state. You hear it every day on your radio show, I hear it from the letters I get – people are crying out for leadership on our side, conservative leadership. We don’t have it in Washington, DC it seems like, a lot of times. And our state, the growth of our side – the conservative side, the Republican side in our state has dwindled for the past several years. Now’s not the time to sit on the sidelines. I think it’s very courageous of Kay Hutchison to do what she’s done, which is come out and say, ‘I’m going to offer myself in the primary for running for governor for Texas.’ It is not an easy thing to do. You attract a lot of the wrong kind of attention, when you do something like that. It would have been oh so easy just to stay in a safe, comfortable senatorial seat and ponder what the future may hold, but she was committed to bringing leadership to our state and to our party and quite frankly, right now we need that.

“Look, I’ve supported Gov. Perry in the past, he’s supported me. I do not have a quarrel with Gov. Perry, but I do know that if we continue on the path that we are on we run the risk of continuing to lose members of the Republican Party in the state of Texas, and with the redistricting year just over the horizon, we can scarcely afford to do that. If we lose the redistricting fight in Texas in 2012 – and you’ve heard other people say this before me – it will be extremely difficult, extremely difficult for Texas then to maintain the lead that it has in Washington. We’re the largest Republican delegation in the United States Congress. Our state delegation is it. We’re bigger than California, as far as Republicans are concerned. So if we lose that edge, it is going to be very, very difficult for this country to elect a Republican president in the future and really the stakes are just that high.”