Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Tom Schieffer is a former ambassador to Japan and Australia.

AUSTIN – Fort Worth lawyer Tom Schieffer, who says Texas is “literally on the road to disaster” after more than eight years under GOP Gov. Rick Perry, formally launches his bid Wednesday to replace him.

After a rally in front of the Fort Worth elementary school he attended, Schieffer plans stops in Houston and Austin as he seeks the Democratic nomination for governor. He’ll be in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley Thursday.

“People know there is something wrong – they know that Texas is falling behind. They are worried about it,” Schieffer said in an interview last week with the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle.

“They want better than what we’ve got now,” Schieffer said. “They’re worried about kind of a sense that state government is going through a know-nothing phase of you don’t have to be thoughtful, you don’t have to be serious, you just have to mouth the buzz words that appeal to people’s prejudices and not to their hopes and dreams.”

Schieffer cited concern over school dropout rates, saying young people are “going to fall behind, and they’re not going to wind up being taxpayers, they’re going to wind up being tax consumers.”

If that continues, he said, “no level of taxes ... will support the services that you have to have in this state, and I’m afraid we’re literally on the road to disaster.”

Perry, who faces an expected tough GOP challenge from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, addressed critics in a general way in a Saturday meeting with campaign volunteers by suggesting they’re tearing down Texas’ achievements under his tenure for political gain.

“There are some folks out there who kind of have a pessimistic outlook,” Perry said, without naming a specific opponent. “They take every opportunity to paint this very grim picture of a state that’s moving backwards. I always figure most of those people are engaged in some political process. They may have some political aspirations for beating up on the state of Texas.”

Among other points on his Web site and in speeches, Perry has cited a decision to hold the line against new taxes in 2003, when the state faced a $10 billion budget shortfall; efforts to rein in local school property tax rates; lawsuit reform; more funding for college financial aid; and initiatives to lure and help business.

“We have taken conservative principles. We’ve put ‘em into place,” Perry said, describing Texas as “on a winning streak.”

Schieffer said in the interview that many decisions – including failure to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program and draw down more federal money – have been shortsighted.

“That’s great political rhetoric in a Republican primary, but it’s not good public policy, because what happens is that kids still get asthma. They still get sick. And when they’re not covered by health insurance, and they don’t have a doctor who is providing an inhaler to ‘em or that they’re seeing on a regular basis, they wind up in the emergency room in the county hospital,” Schieffer said.

“The kid is out of school. The parents are out of work to take care of the kid. It is the most inefficient, most unproductive way to deliver that health care to those kids – and by the way, it’s not the right thing to do, either,” Schieffer said.

Among other areas, Schieffer also noted the rise in college tuition rates after they were deregulated, saying the state should set rates to ensure higher education is “as economical as possible.”

While addressing the concerns he identified would appear to require an infusion of state revenue, Schieffer didn’t address such specifics when asked in the interview. He said wants to have a thoughtful discussion about public policy with all interested parties at the table to come up with solutions. He said he’ll lay out more detailed plans as the campaign unfolds.

Schieffer did say that property taxes “have pretty well been exhausted’ and that he doesn’t like an income tax.

“I think sales taxes work better than anything else at the state level, but I think you have to sit down and you have to talk about things and you have tot do it in a serious way,” he said.

Schieffer said that Perry “talks a lot about a good business climate. I want a good business climate. I’ve got more business experience than Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison combined. But a good business climate is not just having low business taxes. It is having an educational system that can produce the workers of the modern world.”

While slamming Perry, Schieffer has a hill to climb among some in his own party because he’s friends with George W. Bush and served in his administration as ambassador to Australia and Japan. He and Bush led investment groups that together purchased the Texas Rangers in 1989 and sold the team 10 years later.

Despite that, Schieffer said he’s always been a Democrat and voted in Democratic primaries – though he said he voted for Bush for president in the 2000 and 2004 general elections. He said he voted for Obama in last year’s primary and general elections.

Schieffer said Obama successfully appealed to the center and Texas Democrats should do the same, casting his own candidacy as “one that appeals to a broad enough base that it can be successful in November” against the GOP nominee.

With regard to the issues at stake, including health care, he said, “What I want to do in the campaign is to lay these things out and talk about ‘em and try to come up with alternatives.

“And also remind people that this is not going to be easy. It’s going to be really hard. And if they want to do that, I get to be governor. And if they don’t want to do that, I can go make money, and I’ve done my civic duty of trying to lay it out.”