The news for Texas Governor...

...Rick Perry just keeps getting worse. From the Times today (my emphasis):

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas cannot be faulted for lack of optimism. Facing a two-year budget gap of at least $15 billion, Mr. Perry struck a defiant stance in his annual address to the Legislature, calling the state economy “the envy of the nation” and promising the budget would be balanced through spending cuts alone.
___

To be sure, Texas fared better than many other states during the recent recession, but sales tax revenues were badly hurt as people curbed spending. The depth of the state’s revenue shortfall was also hidden because it employs a two-year budget cycle and had used billions in federal stimulus money to avoid cutbacks in 2010. Now the state finds itself in a budget crunch not unlike those in New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois.

Even if one does not account for the natural growth in school enrollment and Medicaid rolls, the state would need at least $15 billion of new revenues over the next two years just to keep spending flat.

To continue services at current levels and accommodate growth in the population, however, lawmakers in Austin would have to come up with $27 billion in new revenues.

Republicans, who control every statewide office as well as both houses of the Legislature, are beginning to confront what it means to close the budget gap solely with cutbacks. About 10,000 state employees are in danger of getting pink slips. House and Senate leaders have said they plan to cut aid to schools by $10 billion, a move that would force the layoffs of thousands of teachers and increase class sizes. Lawmakers are also contemplating slicing Medicaid payments to doctors and other providers by 10 percent.

At Statehouse hearings in recent days, advocates for schools, the poor, the disabled and the elderly laid out in detail how Texans would be hurt by cutbacks. They forecast a near future in which nursing homes and rural health clinics would have to close, schools would be consolidated and nursery schools shuttered.
___

“It’s totally unrealistic,” said Representative Garnet F. Coleman, Democrat of Houston. “He runs around during the election saying we don’t have any problems, and he’s still saying we have no problems here. It’s clear he can’t add or subtract.”