So I read today that the Texas Governor's Mansion is being rebuilt – after an arson fire last summer – for a cost of around $20 million. The state of Texas is putting up half, and the federal government, under the guise of "stimulus", is putting up the other half. While that's surely a better use of tax dollars than, say, studying the drinking behaviors of Argentinean homosexuals, it's hard to fathom why the mansion would cost that much to begin with. Part of the problem may be that the Governor vowed that the home would be rebuilt no matter what it cost. And potential contractors all went cha-ching. The Governor set up a charitable fund for Texans to help pay for the repairs, but reports earlier this year suggested that less than 10% of the cost had been given.
In today's economy, does it even make sense to spend that much on the Governor's Mansion (if it ever did)? One lawmaker proposed saving a few bucks and turning the burned home into a museum, then buying another historic mansion as the new home (a mansion that the state once owned, but sold – now it's worth more than double what the state sold it for in 2002). Currently, Governor Perry is living in a rented home in Austin, with the state paying about $9900 a month. At that rate, the Governor (and his successors) could live there for the next 168 years, for the same cost as it would take to rebuild the old mansion. 168 years!
Or perhaps the Governor could follow the example of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who moved his family into a double-wide when the Arkansas mansion was under repairs. OK, it was a triple-wide. That cost $110,000. And was DONATED to the state by the mobile home association. And to think that people still think Governor Huckabee was not fiscally conservative.
