Gov. Rick Perry's national trumpet blast of self-congratulation regarding Texas' fiscal responsibility would have been impressive had it not come the same day that the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to him documenting horrendous conditions in the state's 13 schools (homes, actually) for Texans who are mentally retarded.

In a Wall Street Journal piece co-authored by South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and published Tuesday, Perry called on the nation's governors, some of whom are facing steep deficits, to reject any federal aid because of the future debt burden and because a "bailout mentality threatens Americans' sense of personal responsibility."

And, Perry and Sanford argued, the federal government should look to the states for different ways to handle the financial problems — like Texas and South Carolina, they wrote, which have fostered strong business conditions "by cutting taxes, reforming our legal system and our workers' compensation system."

We don't know about South Carolina, but we know that Perry left out one of the principal ways that Texas stays in the black: It's so cheap with state services and obligations that even a Justice Department overseen by President George W. Bush, a former Texas governor, condemned as illegal the conditions for 5,000 Texans in its homes for the mentally retarded.

"We have concluded that numerous conditions and practices at the Facilities (schools) violate the constitutional and federal statutory rights of their residents," said the department's letter to Perry.

And the state can't blame a few bad apples: "While specific findings vary among the Facilities," Justice wrote, "we find that there are systemic deficiencies throughout the Facilities."

Among many other problems, the Department of Justice found, were these: Residents ingested latex gloves, suffered preventable injuries from seizures and falls and received inadequate preventive health care, American-Statesman reporters Corrie MacLaggan and Andrea Ball wrote. Many of the problems appear to stem from a lack of enough trained, experienced employees and from overworked staff members.

As state officials say, exhaustion is no excuse for abuse of residents — and that, in turn, is no excuse for the governor and lawmakers not to face up to the need for more staff help.

The state is also refusing to release to this newspaper information on staffing, injuries and other issues at Austin State School, on the excuse of pending litigation. Given Justice's findings, the data from Austin State School must be pretty bad for the state to insist on hiding it.

A spokeswoman for Perry said the governor expects the Department of Aging and Disability Services, which runs the schools, "to continue to ensure that corrective actions and improvements are implemented to provide appropriate and quality care for state school residents."

Does all this sound familiar? It should.

In recent years, we've had one scandal after another involving the state's failure to adequately oversee the care of foster children and delinquent youths held in state custody; to provide social services in a timely manner to the neediest; and to hire enough guards for the prisons (there's a shortage of 3,000).

Texas' budget is in the black. But the governor ought to share some of the credit with the 5,000 residents in state schools, among many others, who pay the price of the state's deficit in responsibility.