Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is quickly establishing himself as the most aggressive job piracy governor in the nation, and the evidence shows that he is also one of the most partisan. He has taken six consecutive trips to states with Democratic governors in an attempt to lure businesses from those states to his own. A new report from Good Jobs First raises some very troubling questions about the financing of those trips.

According to the report, the organization that funds the trips, TexasOne, claims that the job piracy jaunts are paid for only by private money, not taxpayers. But if you look a little bit closer, you find that claim to be untrue. Good Jobs First found that about 25% of the funding actually comes from local Economic Development Corporations, which are funded by local sales taxes, some city and town governments and other local government agencies. 

The governor's press releases state that no state funds go to pay for advertising or travel related to the trips, but since there are numerous other expenses that it doesn't specify, Good Jobs First, suggests that the claim could be even more misleading. In addition to the specified costs, there are also additional costs of producing the advertisements, airfare, ground transportation, staff time for traveling personnel, including the governor’s, advance staffing, meals, meeting rooms, receptions and newly created state-specific website pages tied into the advertisements. How are these other costs funded?

In 2013, TexasOne already has spent nearly $2 million to advertise the job-piracy trips. Much of the remaining funding for the organization comes from 40 corporations, more than half of which are publicly traded and some that have headquarters or large facilities in the states that Perry is attempting to pirate jobs from, such as Maryland and New York.

The report concludes about Perry:

He has personally traveled six consecutive times to states led by governors of the opposing political party, staging visits that are highly publicized and sometimes become confrontational. To our knowledge, in the decades-long “economic war among the states,” there has never been such a partisan streak of job piracy.

Read the full report.