Rick Perry is “fed up” with the “big spenders” in Washington, whether Democrat and Republican. He advocates “limited government.” But the Texas governor is selective; he doesn’t want to downsize all big government.

For Perry, like most right-wing populists, big government is bad government when it regulates and redistributes. Yet when government enforces, when it secures, the more government the better.

 Perry is fed up with DHS because this huge government bureaucracy is not doing more and doesn’t have a greater presence in Texas.  Despite the more than doubling of DHS border security operations in Texas since 2005, Perry complains that Washington’s financial commitment to border security in Texas is “puny.” He demands that President Obama commit “greater resources” to border security – without offering any advice about how to raise those additional resources.

When President Obama authorized federal payment for the deployment of 286 National Guard troops on the Texas border, Perry demanded a thousand troops. When President Obama announced last year that DHS would hire 1,000 more Border Patrol officers, Perry immediately countered, demanding at least 3,000 new patrol agents.