Oops, I did it again!
Betty Brown spent Thursday
night in her district talking to constituents of the Cedar Creek Republican Club. And while the food was appetizing,
her speech was hard to swallow.
She provided some interesting, but inaccurate information to her constituents about
her record and the record of fellow Republicans.
Watch what I say, not
what I do...
* Betty said the only children she cut from the Children's Health Insurance Program were
not in the program, but "only on the waiting list." NOT TRUE.
According to CBS-11, 200,000 children dropped from the program because of the bills Betty voted for.
*
Betty repeated that "property taxes were cut by one-third." NOT TRUE.
Abraham Lincoln made a comment that describes Betty's type of rhetoric: "How
many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." Despite
what Betty says, your property tax bill is not going to go down by one-third.
When your bill arrives in October, take a look and see if it is 33% lower than your last bill.
* Betty said
the Speaker of the Texas House has the right not to recognize a member of the House for a motion to seek his removal. MISLEADING. The Attorney General is currently reviewing this matter because fellow
Republicans disagree that Speaker Tom Craddick's refusal to acknowledge representatives on the issue of his removal is
Constitutional.
* Betty said that in 2003 she was told by the Texas Comptroller that the budget shortfall would
be $5 billion and then "a week later [the Comptroller] sent us another letter and said, 'Oops, I made a little mistake
and the shortfall is actually $10 billion.'" NOT TRUE. In 2001, the
Comptroller had warned the legislature that the programs they implemented were going to drastically effect the budget in 2003.
Betty was told in June 2001 that the projected shortfall could be at least $5 billion, and 18 months later in January of 2003--not
a week later, as Betty claimed--the biennial revenue estimate officially tallied a shortfall of $10 billion.
* Pre-marital counseling law. Betty explained that the cost of a marriage license increased to $60 this
past session, and couples can have the fee waived if they go to counseling before they get married. The law was passed
so more people would get counseling. Betty said, "Marriage is not going to survive if we don't do something
about it." By "we" she was referring to the legislature. Ronald Reagan had a different take
on government's role in society. "Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."
 |
|
Granny Gone Bad
Remember the old TV show where mild-mannered
Dr. David Banner would turn into the muscle-bound Incredible Hulk when he got angry? We've got own our version of
that comic-inspired show right here in District 4. Her name is Betty Brown, and when she gets mad, she goes bad.
What raises the ire of a woman portraying herself as a gentle, soft-spoken grandmother? Disagreeing with
her. Yes, disagreeing with her will bring out a side of Betty that isn't so warm and fuzzy.
Imagine yourself
at a Republican club meeting on a Thursday night. You listen to Betty speak, and you disagree with her description of
a sequence of events involving the budget. When the question-and-answer period arrives, you raise your hand. It
takes a while for her to acknowlege you, but when she finally does, you make a comment and follow it up with a question.
My husband did just that, and what followed was truly shocking.
His question went something
like this:
"Representative Brown, I would like to defend my friend Comptroller Strayhorn and correct
an inaccurate statement you made. The Comptroller told the legislature a year-and-a-half before the session that there
could be a shortfall, not one week before as you stated. And my question is, 'Despite the fact that you are on the
powerful Appropriations Committee, yearly expenditures have increased by $23.1 billion since you have been in office.
Why have you not done more to cut state spending?'"
At first, Betty tried to say the numbers were wrong,
and she referred to a biennial (two-year) budget. My husband clarified, saying "Yearly, ma'am, yearly."
Then she said she didn't have the numbers in front of her. She followed that by saying every agency was brought
in and told to cut their budgets by 7%, and she explained that lots of cuts to the budget had been made so taxes wouldn't
be raised. (Betty was referring to a legislative session four years ago). She did not address the overall spending
increase during her tenure in office.
But Betty was not finished. She went back to my husband's
comment about the information she got from the Comptroller. Betty repeated that she had been informed by the Comptroller
of a $5 billion shortfall and a week later was told $10 billion. My husband said, "No, ma'am, the legislature
was warned--" She cut him off.
"I WAS THERE! I WAS THERE!" she yelled into the microphone.
The audience sat in stunned silence for a brief moment, and my husband said, "Thank you, Representative," while
Betty turned to the opposite side of the room and asked for another question.
Betty wasn't
the only one who was there; my husband was there too. He wrote the first press release warning of the potential shortfall,
and the Comptroller put it out on June 6, 2001--eighteen months before Betty said she was informed. Below is a copy
of that release and of the release a year-and-a-half later announcing the official Biennial Revenue Estimate.
2001 Potential Shortfall Warning
2003 Biennial Revenue Estimate
|
|
Betty, Where's the Love?
No representative,
not Betty Brown or any other elected official, has the right to shout down a constituent who disagrees with her. It
is rude, condescending, and just plain wrong. But Betty is no more polite in person when she is mad.
After
the meeting, I approached Betty and said, "I didn't want to embarrass you in front of everyone during the meeting,
but I did not appreciate your raising your voice at my husband. He--" Betty cut me off.
"I
don't appreciate being called a liar," she said.
I told her he didn't call her a liar; he disagreed
with her and he has a right to do so. I didn't get to finish that statement. Actually, I did finish it, but
she was not listening. She started talking over me, saying she had seen what I had written about her. An interesting comment,
since she has not responded to any of the letters I wrote to her.
About that time, a pleasant gentleman was
walking past, and Betty pulled him in front of me and asked if he wanted to receive her legislative updates by email.
He said he didn't have a computer, and she took down his address, presumably so she could mail them to him.
I remained right where I was during that purposeful delay. When he left, I said, "The honorable thing to
do would be to apologize to him [my husband]."
Betty looked at me, smiled what was supposed to pass for sweet
grandmotherly smile, and said in a syrupy voice, "I would be happy to accept his apology."
I replied,
"I am not offering his apology, and this is not a game"--she tried to interrupt, but I kept talking--"A
constituent has the right to come to a meeting and disagree with his representative without that representative raising
her voice at him in front of everybody."
She said, "Well, I will apologize for that part of it.
I shouldn't have let him get to me like that."
She didn't intend for it to be a sincere apology, and
she wanted me to know it. Message received. My husband wasn't trying "to get to" her. My
husband's crime was correcting a misstatement and asking a question, as if somehow it is a personal attack on Betty when
a voter disagrees with what she said.
I answered, "That's very big of you. Thank you," and walked
out of the room.
|