Hey Paul? *corrected*

I'm guessing you're nixing that planned run for Houston Mayor now right?

(Thousands lost in tax refund scam, Cindy George, Chron.com)

The Harris County Tax Office may have lost more than $350,000 to a fraud scam in which tax overpayment refunds were claimed by people not entitled to the money.
In a letter to County Commissioners on Friday, Assessor-Collector Don Sumners reported that the potential loss to his office is $356,629 from issuing as many as 17 checks from December 2009 through October 2010. The claims were made for tax years 2006, 2007 and 2008.

I can't believe that Chron.com didn't point out that this scam occurred during Bettencourt's tenure*. I'm not sure if that was because this article feels to be hastily prepared, or that the editors just didn't feel it to be all that important.

To me, when you have a candidate whose self-professed claim to fame is running a good organization and being a watchdog for the taxpayer, this seems like an automatic. Now granted, I'm not a fan of Mr. Bettencourt, nor his political guiding light Dan Patrick. I think both of them are political demagogues who are only in it for their own egos. So I admit that I'm chuckling just a little bit with the news of this. That being said, how in the world do you not mention who was in charge at the time?

*Oops. Obviously, as Kevin pointed out in the comments, I flubbed this. The infraction actually occurred during Vasquez tenure. Not Bettencourt's as I so gleefully opined. Has it really been three years since Paul resigned?

So, change that to "how did the Chron not contact Vasquez?"

My apologies to Mr. Bettencourt.*



*That is, before he quit his position to cash in on the property tax issue which he claimed to fight all those years. His founding that company was a sign to me the Dan had given up that fight.