Greg Abbott spoke about his “Working Texans” plan and more with Matt Patrick on KTRH.
MATT PATRICK: General Abbott, thanks so much. Let me start with your plan to put Texans back to work, you call it Working Texans. One of the things that you’ve got in this plan is a line item veto. Very interesting, why is this important to you?
ATTORNEY GENERAL GREG ABBOTT: Let me give you the larger picture first, and that is that I’m rolling out several different policy plans. We started with our Working Texans plan because we believe that one of the most important things in the state is to make sure we create more jobs, and the fundamental building block of creating more jobs is having a good environment that will promote economic freedom. That will cause people to go out and create new jobs, and aspire to great things. We can only do that when government is limited, where government doesn’t spend too much of your money and reach too deeply into your pocket. And so I’m laying the building blocks for creating a strong economy here in Texas, and I’m starting to do that by ensuring that the government remains small, that the government doesn’t grow too big like Washington, D.C. Now with that backdrop, I’m looking at two things. One is to make sure that we limit the size of growth of government to population plus inflation. But the second thing is what you just mentioned, and that is that we ensure that the governor has expanded line item veto. And here’s the reason: sometimes, legislatures feel pressure to spend money they may not even want to, but they just cannot resist that pressure. Or they may stick extra money in expenditures that we really don’t need to be spending that much. In order to make sure that we hold spending along the right lines, and that spending doesn’t get out of control, the governor simply must have expanded line item veto.
PATRICK: And that is something that we’ve seen in other states, it seems to work. And you, with all of this put together, the entire package, we can put more Texans to work, more Texans back to work that may be looking for work.
GENERAL ABBOTT: Well here’s the way that the big economic picture works, and that is that bigger governments means smaller take-home pay. Bigger government means that you’re going to be paying more taxes to the state of Texas or to other governments. People need to realize that the state of Texas and at local government level, we are far deeper in debt than what people realize. The local indebtedness in the state of Texas is the second highest of among all the large states, with only New York having more local debt than Texas. Get his: you know how often we like to bash California, California only has lower local debt than does Texas.
PATRICK: General, let me take a quick break, real quick, let’s come back, I’m going to let you finish, and then I also want to hit on a couple things that are going on including the gay divorce that the Supreme Court is hearing today and also the injunction with Planned Parenthood, the lawsuit on our abortion laws. Attorney General Greg Abbott joining us here this morning.
GENERAL ABBOTT: It is 7:52, right on the button, we are very pleased to have with us Attorney General Greg Abbott. General Abbott, thanks so much for your time.
PATRICK: Let me just, real quick, ask you about a couple of things going on in the top of our news cycle right now. Let’s start with the Supreme Court, Texas Supreme Court, hearing today the idea of gay divorce. You have said, and are arguing, that if we allow that to take place in the state, then it is somehow condoning the idea of same-sex marriage. Do I understand that correctly?
GENERAL ABBOTT: Well, not only is this condoning it, it leads to it. If you can get a divorce, it allows for the basically the (effectuation) of same-sex marriage in the state of Texas which of course violates the Texas Constitution.
PATRICK: The other interesting topic, we’ve certainly been following this closely here in Houston, is the overturning, the Appeals Court overturning the block on Texas abortion law, some of the strictest abortion laws anywhere in the country. That had to make you very happy, I assume that’s something you felt very good about, that was a win. Although we’ve still got a long way to go.
GENERAL ABBOTT: Well, yeah. Look. Importantly, it was a federal court of appeals panel of all three panel members being women, who unanimously agreed that the law written by the Texas Legislature was perfectly constitutional and that what it was focused on was ensuring the healthcare and safety of women who were going through the procedure. And so we think it was the right decision, we think that it will be upheld by the Supreme Court, it is on appeal to the Supreme Court now by Planned Parenthood, but I feel confident that the Supreme Court will agree with the 5th Circuit, the unanimous 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Decision.
PATRICK: General Abbott, real quick, final question for you and again thank you so much for your time. Campaign going well, you are busy, you are everywhere, you getting tired? You holding up okay?
GENERAL ABBOTT: Uh, we’re just getting going. I am going to about two, sometimes three cities a day, I am going to be in Houston, Texas today, in fact, rolling out my Working Texans Plan, if anybody wants to come see me they can do so at 1:45 at the Mock Industrial Group which is located at 6119 Fulton Street. I’ll be talking about what I’m going to be doing to create jobs across Texas and I’m criss-crossing the state making a lot of headway and things are going great.
PATRICK: That is great. Well, you are the man with a steel spine, as you’ve described yourself.
GENERAL ABBOTT: Exactly.
PATRICK: So hang in there. Always good to talk with you General Abbott. Wish you a tremendous amount of success. Look forward to talking with you a lot more in the future.
GENERAL ABBOTT: Sounds great. Thank you so much, always great to visit with you, have a great day.
PATRICK: You too. General Abbott…