More Misused Tax Money, Broken Promises, No Jobs

• $3.6 million of your hard earned tax money up in smoke
• Not one of 1,500 (or 42,000) promised jobs to show for it
• More shell games and broken promises by Rick (aka Tricky Dick, Richard) Perry!
• More DeLay-Enron accounting tricks!
• Where did the money go?

Texans believe in honesty and results and deserve elected officials who will work as hard for our jobs as they do for theirs.

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That is the claim made by Texas State Representative Jim Dunnam (D-Waco) in a letter to the governor on Aug. 30 following Rick Perry's decision to provide $1.5 million to the Texas Energy Center from the state's Enterprise Fund.

"Why are millions of tax dollars of hard working Texans being wasted on an entity that does not pay a single employee?" Dunnam asked. When Perry signed the contract with the Energy Center, he promised at least 1,500 jobs would be created.

The Texas Enterprise Fund-sometimes referred to as the governor's slush fund-was created "to allow the state to respond quickly and aggressively to opportunities to bring jobs and employers to Texas," as stated on Perry's official Web site. "

• As of July 31, almost $280 million have been granted to various businesses and other entities with a further $29 million under contract so far for this year.
• Perry's office claims that money has or will create more than 42,000 jobs.
• Texans' money has gone to profitable north Texas businesses like
  • Vought Aircraft in Dallas ($35 million)
  • Cabela's in Fort Worth ($600,000)
  • T-Mobile in Frisco ($20.7 million)

However, Rep. Dunnam took Perry to task over the lack of jobs progress by the Texas Energy Center (TxEC). Based in Sugar Land, a Houston suburb, the TxEC was created in 2003 to bring together in a consortium private energy companies, university researchers and local governments called the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America. The goal is to find and develop energy innovations in such areas as deep-water exploration and drilling, clean coal-power plants, renewable energy like wind power and low-emission fuels like biofuels and hydrogen.

That nonprofit consortium also is expected to receive up to $1.5 billion from the federal government as a result of a provision slipped into last year's energy bill by then House Majority Leady Tom Delay, who represented the district housing the TxEC.

Even with state taxpayers' money plus the assurance of the federal funds, spread out over 10 years, to start next year, Dunnam points out to Gov. Perry that TxEC's tax forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service shows the entity "did not spend a dime on employees." He asked Perry for an accounting. "Where are these jobs?" Dunnam asked.

In addition, many state officials have questioned the wisdom of providing money to the TxEC, which essentially is designed to do research and development for energy companies already making record profits.