Way beyond political theater: Greg Abbott is hiking prices on Texans by choking commerce – NPI’s Cascadia Advocate

Like his coun­ter­part Ron DeSan­tis in Flori­da, Texas’ Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Greg Abbott is obsessed with pleas­ing Don­ald Trump’s base and becom­ing a foil to Pres­i­dent Joe Biden through any means at his dis­pos­al, includ­ing harm­ful, divi­sive leg­is­la­tion, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al exec­u­tive orders, lit­i­ga­tion, and media manipulation.

How­ev­er, Abbot­t’s eager­ness for con­flict with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has now land­ed him in hot water with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, both in and beyond Texas. Busi­ness lead­ers are furi­ous that truck traf­fic across the bor­der with Mex­i­co has most­ly ground to a halt due to the imple­men­ta­tion of Abbot­t’s scheme requir­ing trucks to be “inspect­ed” by state lev­el offi­cials answer­able to him.

Abbott and his fans call it “Oper­a­tion Lone Star.”

Pret­ty much every­one else calls it stu­pid.

“The new inspec­tions mea­sures are cre­at­ing hav­oc and eco­nom­ic pain on both sides of the bor­der, and as a this Quad-State region suf­fers, so is Texas and vice-ver­sa,” not­ed two Mex­i­can state-lev­el gov­er­nors. “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, polit­i­cal points have nev­er been a good recipe to address com­mon chal­lenges or threats.”

But Abbott seem­ing­ly does­n’t care. He made it clear today that he does not want or intend to unwind the scheme with­out more sym­bol­ic “agree­ments” with Mex­i­can states that he can use to claim that he’s get­ting results.

Last week, the Pres­i­dent of the Trans­porta­tion Club of DFW pre­dict­ed in com­ments to the Dal­las Morn­ing News that Abbot­t’s scheme would lead to “chaos.” Said Nor­ma Jean Payne: “We’ve had so many prob­lems in our sup­ply chain over the last year and a half, two years — I don’t think any­thing that’s going to delay or …….

Source: https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2022/04/way-beyond-political-theater-greg-abbott-is-hiking-prices-on-texans-by-choking-commerce.html