RE: “Who’s paying for the $25 billion”?

My fellow colleague Rick Trevino wrote an interesting blog “Who’s paying for the $25 billion”? This blog refers to the $25 billion dollar budget gap crisis the state of Texas is facing. If I’m not mistaken, didn't the Wall Street Journal report that only reason why Texas managed to balance its budget last time is because the state legislature pressured Perry to accept funds from the federal stimulus, despite the fact that Perry was and continues to be a vocal opponent of it?

Then again, it should be no wonder that Texas has budget troubles considering the fact that Perry (according to the Associated Press) spent nearly $600K over the past couple of years to rent a luxurious home at the taxpayers' expense while the official governor's mansion was being repaired following a fire. On regards to the repairs of the governor’s mansion I agree with Rick Trevino that they could have got lower bids. He could have went into more detail on the issue and perhaps provided a link to his source. But Overall I agree with Rick Trevino, it is unfortunate that cutting the top of this list is budget cuts on education. He is absolutely right that there are many other places where they can cut from to make up from this gap.