Perry's Job Program Claims Wildly Inflated

Rick Perry often boasts of his $440 million Texas Enterprise Fund, which he says has created more than 59,000 jobs. But the program’s estimates often appear wildly exaggerated, the Wall Street Journal reports. A $50 million grant to Texas A&M for a new Genomic Institute, for example, has been credited with creating 12,000 jobs, but the Institute only actually employs 10 people. To get the 12,000 figure, officials tallied every job created since 2005 even vaguely related to biotechnology—including makers of dental supplies and fertilizer.

Texas A&M secured the grant—one of the two largest the Enterprise Fund gave out—with the help of a consulting firm called the Perryman Group, where Perry’s wife, Anita, was employed until 2001. The grant was also supposed to create 1,600 jobs at Lexicon Genetics, which has instead slashed 400 jobs, and currently employs 220 Texans. Three of Lexicon’s top investors are major Perry donors. In all, one liberal group estimates that only 11 of the 50 Enterprise Fund grants are “performing,” with the rest either troubled or canceled. (More Rick Perry stories.)