Thank you for this well-informed, timely, and judicious observation, dear brother in Christ.
Rick Perry is no fool. (JMHO FWIW) Notwithstanding, I think the president is trying to play him.
Just listening to some FReepers talk over the past few days, it seems that some part of the local conversation here is devoted to the premise that Rick Perry is grandstanding on the immigration issue, so to burnish his presidential credentials. They seem to reason that, were that not the case, Perry would have already sent the Texas National Guard to the border. But since he didn't, he's just doing political grandstanding.
Of course, I imagine Rick Perry is aware of the same fact that you drew attention to, that it all boils down to a matter of "who pays."
A cynic might say that the president refuses to do anything about border security (unless Congress caves on amnesty first; but even then you couldn't trust him to follow the law on that legislation either, if passed.)
One gathers the president reasons: "So if Texas is being overrun by illegals — essentially arriving on Texas soil at my behest — then if Texas doesn't like it, let Texas deal with it." [And I'll sic Eric Holder on them if they do.]
I suspect the administration would love to see Perry call out the Texas Guard. That would make the citizens of Texas the main underwriter of the costs of the president's failure to enforce the border. As you have pointed out, dear xzins, such costs get "very expensive very fast."
Texas would go bankrupt in short order. From the president's perspective, this would be just dandy. Texas, in his view, is a conservative state that will not cave to his megalomaniacal "presidential vision" of mass cultural transformation. So, he reasons, "if they oppose me, let them destroy themselves. Opposition will not be tolerated."
But it seems to me Perry is not going to bankrupt the citizens of Texas just to burnish his credentials as a presidential candidate in 2016.
This is the very trap the president (or his alter ego Valerie Jarrett) is trying to lure him into. Or so it seems to me.
Perry won't play that game: I think and believe he is a man of character, who is willing to "lead from the knees." That is, from the position of prayer.... He is no friend to injustice, and I very strongly doubt he can be "bought."
Thank you ever so much for your splendid observations, dear brother in Christ!
Looking at a force of 2000 deployed 24/7/365 on the border in active operations, I estimated the cost to be about 400 million a year....based on operational and pay/benefits costs of a force that large. That is a huge expense for any state, and Texas is no exception.
The solution is not what the republicants want, since they too are owned by the oligarchs whose agenda is to end the we the people Republic. If the republicants actually worked for the people who elected them then they would impeach the criminal/treacherous/treasonous L4B and drop the pile of dung in the Harry Reid Senate. Of course the enemy within (the media, all of them) would take directions from the democrips and portray the impeachment trial as a racist act, completely obfuscating the treason this anti-American liar is committing almost daily!