Next week (November 13th) is the birthday of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Despite collecting approximately 200,000 USD a year in insurance settlements from the homeowner he sued 37 years ago in 1984 when he was left paralyzed after a tree fell on him while jogging after a major storm, and that he also received more than 740,000 USD as a lump sum this year. Ironically, he is also an advocate for tort reform, especially for medical malpractice, aiming to limit the amount of money that the injured or killed can collect after medical negligence or incompetence. His aim is to limit payouts for non-commercial losses to 250,000 USD, about a third of the insurance payouts that Greg Abbott collects in a single year.
This shameful hypocrisy is not the only example of his policy double standards. As attorney general, he abused his power to intervene on behalf of the “Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Plano” in no less than three separate lawsuits, taking a special interest in limiting claims of medical malpractice despite his own astoundingly large damage payouts.
He is also an ineffectual leader and attorney, having sued the Obama administration no less than 44 times using Texan state money without accomplishing a single victory, while at the same time, also gladly accepting federal grants for failed campaigns such as to prosecute voter fraud, squandering more than 1.4 million dollars of US taxpayer money without scoring a single jail sentence.
Most offensively, his hypocrisy is on display in his outright fraudulent claims to be an advocate for limited and local government, but then massive increasing in the size of the state government as attorney general, and than again as governor. He has more than tripled the staff in the attorney general’s office’s law enforcement division, hiring more than 60 new bureaucrats, but is also responsible for an egregious executive order fining local officials for prerogatives that challenge state supremacy, asserting his preference for centralized big-government as state dominance over localities in Texas.
Greg Abbott does not stand for small-government principles, and he doesn’t stand for the interests of Texans, he stands for his own personal enrichment and political self promotion at the expense of Texas.