Gov. Perry: Texas may secede from union over Obama spending
There were lots of tax protest tea parties all over the nation Wednesday to mark the April 15 tax deadline, with lots of genuine anger over President Obama's $787-billion stimulus package and $3-trillion budget. One classic sign spotted during the day: "Don't tax me, bro!"
But only one -- in Texas -- prompted talk of stimulus spending so severe that it could prompt another Civil War.
Gov. Rick Perry -- the hero of Hurricane Katrina who made way for thousands of evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi -- is facing a tough primary challenge this year from popular Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. So maybe he should be forgiven for a little hyperbole.
But even when invoking the patriots of 1773 who dumped tea in the Boston Harbor to protest the British crown's "taxation without representation," threatening to leave the country seems a bit severe.
Before a fired-up crowd on the steps of Austin City Hall, with some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouting, "Secede!" Perry said Texas' economy was in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the "federal budget mess.''
Later, answering reporters' questions, Perry said:
See what you think.
-- Johanna Neuman
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Photo: Karen Bleier / AFP/Getty Images