Statement on Comptroller Strayhorn's 3rd Request for Special Session

AUSTIN – Kathy Walt, press secretary to Gov. Rick Perry, today issued the following statement on Comptroller Strayhorn’s third call for a special session to spend money she never certified as available to the Legislature. “The comptroller is a walking contradiction. Two years ago she said property taxes should be cut in half, and now she is short-changing that goal. Three months ago she didn’t certify one cent of this $1.2 billion surplus in her constitutionally required revenue estimate to the Legislature, and now she says the money started arriving as early as June. In one month she has tried to spend the same pot of money three different ways in three different calls for special sessions. If she had her way one month ago, all this money would have been spent on the victims of Katrina, leaving nothing for the victims of Hurricane Rita and the property taxpayers of Texas. Her appetite for attention is a recipe for a lot of waffling.”