Texas Gov: Obama Health Reforms Violate States' Rights

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is gearing up for a constitutional fight over President Obama's health care plans. He warned that he might invoke the 10th Amendment’s protections for states’ rights to resist them, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. “I’m certainly willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats,” Perry told a Dallas radio host.

Perry, the state’s longest-serving governor, has dueled with Obama before, refusing $555 million in federal stimulus funds earlier this year, and his defiance has become a hallmark of his administration and his re-election campaign. Texas has the nation’s highest percentage of uninsured people, and Perry says he hopes first to get Obama’s bill defeated in Congress. State officials who support the plan “ought to consider representing some other state because they’re sure not representing Texas.”
(More Rick Perry stories.)