Rick Perry Wanted More Dead Teachers
In a "can you believe this" piece of reporting, the Huffington Post reports that Texas governor Rick Perry, egged on by former Senator Phil Gramm, was trying to convince the group that managed the Texas teachers retirement system to allow the state of Texas to buy life insurance policies on elderly retired teachers. Essentially, it was to be a bundled deal of life insurance policies for a small group of investors (this to avoid public scrutiny). Texas would have received some of the fees the banking group would have received from selling the securities. This was never something that either the Texas retirement group or the Texas teachers' union was ever going to go along with but they were consulted early on. The families of the deceased teachers would have received nothing. Any teachers who balked would have been offered a free pair of shoes. What's interesting is that the teachers pension fund wasn't even in trouble. It was funded over 94...