He walks tall, he talks tall, he sucks a mean corn dog in Iowa but, as Paul Krugman notes, Rick Perry is merely another well-groomed Republican liar when he promises to speed the country’s economic recovery:

In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. That was less than unemployment in collapsed-bubble states like California and Florida, but it was slightly higher than the unemployment rate in New York, and significantly higher than the rate in Massachusetts. By the way, one in four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest proportion in the nation, thanks largely to the state’s small-government approach. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has near-universal coverage thanks to health reform very similar to the “job-killing” Affordable Care Act. So where does the notion of a Texas miracle come from? Mainly from widespread misunderstanding of the economic effects of population growth.

Perry governs an anti-union state with the highest percentage of minimum-wage jobs, a magnet for corporations systematically lowering the standard of living for average Americans. As Krugman observes, Perry’s slash-and-burn approach to jobs creation — low wages and weak regulatory policies — are a recipe for an even more depressed economy in the future:

… At a national level lower wages would almost certainly lead to fewer jobs — because they would leave working Americans even less able to cope with the overhang of debt left behind by the housing bubble, an overhang that is at the heart of our economic problem.

Does Perry get it? Of course he does. He’s George W. Bush on steroids, with the same low cunning and an uglier disposition. He’s convinced Americans are too gullible to understand that bringing down wages does nothing but enrich the people who own, invest in, or spin lies for corporations. And he will fire guns, hold prayer vigils and suck anything you put in front of him rather than tell this truth.

Footnote: The God-fearing gun toter is a hypocrite as well as a liar, as pointed out recently by Juan Cole:

[Perry] is another one of those dreary Red State governors who denounces federal taxes but is first in line for federal help. In fact, he covered a $6 billion shortfall in the Texas budget with $6 billion in stimulus money from Barack Obama, and now boasts of his governing skills with regard to the economy.