Way beyond political theater: Greg Abbott is hiking prices on Texans by choking commerce

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 cause any more prob­lems is a wise deci­sion right now.”

“There’s got to be a bet­ter way to han­dle this,” she added.

Fel­low Repub­li­can Sid Miller, Texas’ Agri­cul­ture Com­mis­sion­er, called on Abbott to back down and rescind the scheme, say­ing: “You can­not solve a bor­der cri­sis by cre­at­ing anoth­er cri­sis at the bor­der. These Lev­el 1 inspec­tions serve as a ‘clog in the drain’ and divert com­merce and jobs to more west­ern ports of entry.”

“This is not solv­ing the bor­der prob­lem, it is increas­ing the cost of food and adding to sup­ply chain short­ages. Such a mis­guid­ed pro­gram is going to quick­ly lead to $2.00 lemons, $5.00 avo­ca­dos and worse.”

Miller has also open­ly bro­ken with Abbott in com­ments to reporters, say­ing: “This has real­ly back­fired on him. It’s com­pound­ed the prob­lem, in my opinion.”

Abbot­t’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic gen­er­al elec­tion oppo­nent Beto O’Rourke trav­eled to Lare­do to address the peo­ple of the Lone Star State from one of its busiest bor­der cross­ings, exco­ri­at­ing Abbott for chok­ing essen­tial commerce.

O’Rourke also post­ed a video of backed up trucks wait­ing to move.

“High­er prices, more sup­ply chain prob­lems, few­er gro­ceries and goods in our stores. Abbott is hurt­ing the Texas econ­o­my,” O’Rourke tweet­ed today.

The White House, mean­while, released a scathing state­ment blast­ing Abbott and mak­ing it unequiv­o­cal­ly clear that he and his regime are to blame for the mess.

“Gov­er­nor Abbott’s unnec­es­sary and redun­dant inspec­tions of trucks tran­sit­ing ports of entry between Texas and Mex­i­co are caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tions to the food and auto­mo­bile sup­ply chains, delay­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, impact­ing jobs, and rais­ing prices for fam­i­lies in Texas and across the coun­try,” said White House Press Sec­re­tary Jen Psa­ki in a mes­sage pub­lished around 8:17 AM Cen­tral Time.

“Local busi­ness­es and trade asso­ci­a­tions are call­ing on Gov­er­nor Abbott to reverse this deci­sion because trucks are fac­ing lengthy delays exceed­ing five hours at some bor­der cross­ings and com­mer­cial traf­fic has dropped by as much as six­ty per­cent. The con­tin­u­ous flow of legit­i­mate trade and trav­el and CBP’s abil­i­ty to do its job should not be obstruct­ed. Gov­er­nor Abbott’s actions are impact­ing people’s jobs, and the liveli­hoods of hard­work­ing Amer­i­can families.”

Abbott is seek­ing reelec­tion to anoth­er term as gov­er­nor of Texas this autumn. He was eas­i­ly renom­i­nat­ed a few weeks ago in the state’s Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, dis­patch­ing Allen West and oth­er rivals. West is among the Repub­li­cans who have crit­i­cized Abbot­t’s bor­der-relat­ed schemes, call­ing them counterproductive.