Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

In a recent interview with Fox Business News, an anchor praised Gov. Rick Perry for just saying no to federal stimulus money.

“Governor, I’m glad you didn’t take any stimulus money since you did balance your budget. You don’t need it. Save it for states that are having people that are losing their jobs and losing their homes,” said the anchor, completely oblivious to the fact that Texas has more than its share of people losing their jobs and losing their homes.

Perry grinned, quietly bathing in the glory, knowing full well the statement and a similar one made by the anchor were patently false.

In fact, Texas plugged its biennial budget this past session with $12.1 billion in stimulus funds, according to the Legislative Budget Board.

One can only assume the misinformed Fox anchor was referring to Perry’s stubborn stance against accepting $555 million in stimulus funds for unemployment insurance. But even that move, as expected, has backfired.

In March, Perry stood in a Houston hardware store and said that accepting the unemployment stimulus dollars, which would have required the state to modernize unemployment compensation by expanding benefits to people like part-time working moms, would stick businesses with higher tax bills: “Employers who have to pay more taxes have less money to make their payroll,” he argued.

Never mind that Perry’s own appointee, Texas Workforce Commission Chairman Tom Pauken, disagreed with him on the matter, saying Texas should do what it could to get the $555 million of “our money” we sent to Washington. Pauken had argued for Texas to discontinue the expanded benefits once the federal money was used, a condition the feds didn’t accept outright.

Three months later, Perry emerged victorious from his battle to reject the half-a-billion unemployment bailout. A bill to take the money passed the Senate and died in the House.

Higher employer tax

But businesses are still stuck with a burdensome bill. Last week, Pauken announced that most employers should plan for a significant hike in their unemployment insurance taxes next year.

That’s because, as of next month, Texas unemployment insurance trust fund was projected to be broke. By October, some estimates had it half-a-billion in the hole. Pauken said Texas would save the fund from insolvency by hitting employers with the tax increase and borrowing as much as $2 billion from the federal government in zero-interest loans, with the help of the federal Recovery Act, which extended the interest-free borrowing period.

Texas ended up getting a bailout from the big, bad, overspending Obama administration after all.

$60 more per worker

Barring changes in the economy, Pauken told me Monday the rate collected from employers in 2010 could jump to nearly 2.4 percent of all taxable wages, up from nearly 1.3 percent this year. If that happens, the average employer could pay about $150 per employee, up from $90 this year.

Pauken said he’ll try to keep the rate down with a bonding program extended over several years that would also help pay back the feds.

Now, I agree, $555 million in stimulus funds wouldn’t have saved Texas from the fix we’ve gotten into. But it would have helped us borrow less money. And, frankly, it would have made a bit more sense than taking out a loan for something we could have gotten for free.

This is something state Sen. Kevin Eltife realized early on. He’s the Republican from Tyler who risked political persecution by backing a bill to take the stimulus funds.

“It’s only zero-interest for 18-months, you know. And I personally don’t see the economy turning around in the next 18 months,” Eltife told me. “I think we’re still going to have a drain on this fund and businesses will have to replenish that fund with additional taxes.” I asked Eltife if he expected his stand on the issue to cause him trouble with his party or with re-election.

‘Do the right thing’

“I’m there to do the right thing,” he told me. “If it hurts me politically, that’s just the way it is.”

If only every politician in Austin felt that way, especially our governor, who appears to have sacrificed benefits for thousands of unemployed Texans for better odds at the GOP gubernatorial primary and a few seconds of fair and balanced back-slapping on Fox News.