Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he is growing increasingly concerned by the escalating drug war along the Texas-Mexico border during remarks made at a Lake Travis Chamber of Commerce meeting March 17 at the Lakeway Resort and Spa.

Dewhurst said he would be visiting El Paso to assess the situation after an American couple was murdered just across the Texas border in Ciudad, Juarez, a city consumed by drug violence. The dead were connected to the U.S. Consulate, spurring the State Department to issue an order to families of its diplomatic personnel across northern Mexico to leave the country.
“Keeping Texans safe is the most important aspect of my job, so next week I am going to meet with officials on the border to see what can be done,” Dewhurst said. “It is a very tough situation in Northern Mexico. There are thousands of people being killed just on the other side of the border and in too many ways, the federal government is sitting on its hands.”
Dewhurst said a confluence of factors is contributing to the increasing instability of the region.
“We have huge problems — not just with illegal aliens — but you have illegal drugs crossing the border and a tremendous spike in gang activity which is spilling into virtually every Texas city along the border,” Dewhurst said. “And we have people crossing the border with passports from terrorist nations. It is a tremendous challenge.”
Dewhurst said there is an urgent need for additional law enforcement along both the Mexican and Canadian borders,
“We have 20,000 cops along both borders,” Dewhurst said. “How many are there in New York City alone? About 52,000.”
Dewhurst said Mexico “is in a fight to the finish” since President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels two years ago.
“They have a civil war going on between the cartels and the government,” Dewhurst said. “I don’t know who is winning — I hope the good guys, but I don’t know. One of the true shames is that if we could just reduce our demands [for illegal drugs] down, it would be a tremendous benefit to them. It would put a big dent in the corruption.
“We [America] is partially to blame [due to demand for illegal drugs and the movement of guns from the U.S, to Mexico],” Dewhurst continued. “Our police departments along the border have confiscated thousands of firearms being smuggled into Mexico. So we need to do a better job in America of helping our friends in Mexico. After all, they are risking their lives every day to take on the cartels. It is a serious, serious battle.”
However, Dewhurst pointed out that Texas was limited in what it could do to assist Mexico since it is a sovereign nation.
The Mexican border war is just one of the volleys that is complicating the outlook for Texas when the 2011 Legislature convenes.
“We are being challenged,” Dewhurst said. “Never in my seven years as the Lieutenant Governor have I seen so many challenges to our budget and our economy coming right out of Washington D.C.”
Dewhurst said the new health care reform bill that just cleared the U.S. Congress would cost the state about $2 billion annually.
“When I became Lieutenant Governor in 2003, it was a real challenge,” Dewhurst said. “We had a $10 billion deficit. We worked real hard to balance that budget. We cut the size of government and protected all of our essential services and we focused on pro-growth bills and a pro-growth agenda. To your credit [the public’s], you responded. You made it work.
“In the last six years, small business has created 1.5 million new jobs,” Dewhurst continued. “Even factoring in the job losses from the current recession, the state still netted 1.37 million jobs. Texas is an unusual state because it is the most de-centralized state government.”
Dewhurst observed that Texas is one of only two states — North Dakota being the other — which has seen its credit rating improve.
“In the last 10 years, there is only one state in the nation that has a net [gain] of new technological jobs — Texas,” Dewhurst said. “So we want to protect this jewel — the Texas economy. I believe in trying to reform health care — we have passed bills out of the Texas Senate that improves outcomes on health care — without running up a $1 trillion bill. In fact, we have saved money by paying doctors and hospitals more. But when you consider this along with cap and trade environmental laws and what Congress is trying to do with our financial institutions, there are a lot of attacks on all the states. So we are trying to save jobs.”
Dewhurst said that during the last session, he could see the economy was headed for trouble and urged lawmakers to keep the budget surplus in savings.
“I think all of us could see this coming for a while,” Dewhurst said. “All my Democratic friends wanted to spend the surplus and a lot of my Republican colleagues wanted to take the surplus and send it back to you. That’s laudatory. It is your money. But I was worried. I had seen freight numbers coming in with new construction starts declining. So I got everyone together and told them ‘let’s hang onto that money. Let’s see what our business tax collections will be.’ Well, they came in a third of what they had been predicted to be. So we saved $9 billion.”
Dewhurst said Texas was only one of four states that managed to stay out of debt when the recession began.
“So we will be able to balance the budget in 2011,” Dewhurst said. “All the stuff you’re hearing [about Texas being fiscally challenged] is non-sense. We have enough tools in our toolbox — we have enough revenue to balance the budget just as we did in 2003 and protect all of our essential services.”
He said the state is looking at incentives for unemployed workers who need retraining.
“It is called ‘Texas Backdoor,’ and I have talked with small businesses who have said that federal programs come with too many strings attached,” Dewhurst said. “This is not a federal program and it has no strings. It is pretty simple. If you hire an unemployed worker and hold onto them for at least four months, the state will give you $2,000. So suffice it to say when we look at the current economy, we are focusing on jobs, jobs, jobs.”
While Dewhurst is encouraged by the state’s economic outlook, he realizes the state is not exempt from the effects of the recession.
“Some people will stand up and say, ‘Texas is doing so good.’ We are,” Dewhurst said. “They will say we ‘have the strongest economy in the nation.’ We do. They will remind us that our employment rate is pretty low. It is, compared to the national average. But if you don’t have a job today, you are not going to take a lot of solace from what the state’s employment rate is compared to the national average because to someone without a job, unemployment is 100 percent.”
He said the state’s promising fiscal outlook is drawing throngs of new residents flocking to Texas from more economically challenged areas of the nation.
“I was speaking to someone from the Internal Revenue Service recently who said Texas is receiving just at 1,300 new residents daily from north of the border,” Dewhurst said. “In the next 25 years the state’s population will double from 25 to 50 million. For those of us in government, we are going to have to see a 25 percent increase in public schools to meet the demand in just the next decade alone. Still, from a business perspective, the state is growing.”
But Lake Travis Independent School District Trustee Mayo Davidson said school districts are facing revenue shortfalls unless the state steps in and fixes its most recent school funding formula.
“We are starting to work on our budget and have three years before we fall off the [fiscal] cliff,” Davidson said. “We’ve been told the Legislature is not going to consider school finance in the next session. What can we do to solve this problem?”
Dewhurst said he too is concerned with the economic state of Texas schools.
“I am also of the opinion that our schools are going to need more money [in the next legislative session].” Dewhurst said, confirming Davidson’s suggestion that many school districts will face critical financial shortfalls before the 2012 budget. “The Senate will look at school finance. I can’t speak for the House — it is a different creature under different rules.”