{"id":182,"date":"2005-03-02T10:08:52","date_gmt":"2005-03-02T10:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/fp-wp\/?p=182"},"modified":"2005-03-02T10:08:52","modified_gmt":"2005-03-02T10:08:52","slug":"what-happens-when-the-right-wing-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/?p=182","title":{"rendered":"What happens when the right wing wins?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You get a place that ranks near the bottom on measures of social health and stability, and near the top in measures of the toxic, unhealthy aspects of industrial life. At least that&#8217;s the case in Texas, home of George W. Bush and Tom Delay the Exterminator. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elpasotimes.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20050301\/NEWS\/503010307\/1001\">A new report<\/a>, titled &#8220;Texas on the Brink&#8221;, has found that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Texas ranks first in the percentage of uninsured children, first in toxic and cancerous emissions and second in teenage pregnancies. It lags far behind in high-school graduation rates, consumer credit scores and percentage of the population with health insurance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The reason? According to state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, it&#8217;s due to Texas&#8217;s &#8220;inadequate, outdated and terribly regressive tax system&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He blamed rigid ideology on tax issues for the state&#8217;s standings. Texas ranks 49th in revenue and spending, according to the Census Bureau. &#8220;When leaders value a pledge of &#8216;no new taxes&#8217; above all else, they abandon the mantle of leadership,&#8221; Shapleigh said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Since most corporations don&#8217;t care to locate in toxic environments full of uneducated workers, and the dominance of Republicans in Texas means that the tax structure is unlikely to change, it&#8217;s hard to see how Texas is going to dig itself out of this hole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You get a place that ranks near the bottom on measures of social health and stability, and near the top in measures of the toxic, unhealthy aspects of industrial life. At least that&#8217;s the case in Texas, home of George W. Bush and Tom Delay the Exterminator. A new report, titled &#8220;Texas on the Brink&#8221;, has found that: Texas ranks first in the percentage of uninsured children, first in toxic and cancerous emissions and second in teenage pregnancies. It lags far behind in high-school graduation rates, consumer credit scores and percentage of the population with health insurance. The reason? According <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/?p=182\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p13tCM-2W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}