Here is the site where you can go and actually look up the growth in spending for all of the states, and not rely on the New York Times: US Government Spending.
Nevertheless, Daniels has done more to manage the fiscal situation responsibility in Indiana than Perry has in Texas.
I'm sorry, but the numbers don't bear that out.
Again, if you really knew the inside game here you would see that Perry and the worthless Rs in Austin closed our roughly $17 billion budget gap by deferring payments into the next fiscal period, which is a move exactly out of the Arnold, Brown, and Davis playbook in CA.
Perhaps you might consider that the reason for that was because state revenues went from $85.5 billion in 2008 down to $45.6 Billion in 2009 - an almost 50% drop in one year. It wasn't caused by massive overspending by the state or fiscal irresponsibility - it was caused by a loss of revenue. That left a big hole in the budget. However, the next year, revenues started to increase again, to $62.5 Billion. Now, do you think they should have massively increased taxes in order to cover a short-term hole in the budget? Or was it better to cover the hole with cuts and budget transfers for one cycle? Which is the more "conservative" solution? Higher taxes or budget cuts?
By the way, don't even think of comparing Texas to California on budget hijinks. What happened this year was a one-time deal in Texas - California has been using smoke and mirrors to balance the budget for at least 10 years.
The Times is right on this one, and your revenue numbers are wrong. It appears that you are confusing numbers from specific sources with the total revenue. You can find 2008 and 2009 (and more) here: http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxbud/revenue_hist.html If you look carefully you will see that total revenue for 2009 was about $84 billion, while 2008 was about $87 billion.
The reason for the budget shortfall was a combination of a very moderate fall off in revenues and a refusal to do much to thwart the taxeaters’ demands on the spending side. You are right that the current deceitful budget that Perry signed is something that isn’t all that common in the history of Texas budgeting, but I didn’t say that it was. Rather, my point was that this massive CA-style budget fraud was signed-off on by Perry. In his defense one could argue that it is more a reflection on the Rs in the legislature, but Perry certainly didn’t make it an issue, and he should have.
Part of what you are not taking into account is that Perry has presided over a state that generally has not engaged in as many fiscal follies as other states. Perry isn’t responsible for that. Moreover, although Perry for most of his tenure has not been a wild spender, this last budget will become an issue in his campaign because it is grossly irresponsible.
Daniels, on the other hand, inherited significant economic problems. In response, he has fired government workers, held spending below the rate of inflation, etc. Perry hasn’t done anything like that. In fact, Perry has been adding large numbers of government workers, as was pointed out in the candidate debates in Perry’s re-election.
Just comparing a few numbers for the two states doesn’t get to the point, however. The issue is, what has the governor done with the hand he was dealt? Perry got a relatively good hand and, until this year, didn’t worsen it. Daniels got a bad hand, but has markedly improved it.
Perry is not the stout conservative that you think he is, but he is also not the RINO that others are irresponsibly calling him. Having said that, he is probably about the best we can do under the circumstances.