Texas governor Rick Perry has a target on his back. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s super PAC- Keep Conservatives United, released a 30 second ad earlier in the week said that Perry took spending from $45 billion to $90.4 billion between 2000 and 2010.

“Rick Perry doubled spending in a decade,” says the ad. “And he’s supposed to be the Tea Party guy?” The ad will begin airing Monday in South Carolina.

Perry’s spokesman Ray Sullivan called the ad “patently and provably false,” and cited numbers showing that spending in the state budget that is paid for with state taxes and other state revenues has gone down since Perry took office, if the figures are adjusted for population and inflation. Perry’s campaign explained that general revenue spending was $55.7 billion for the 2000-2001 budget and is $80.5 billion for 2012-2013.

Keep Conservatives United PAC obtained their numbers from a Texas State Comptroller’s report issued one year ago. Perry’s campaign took its numbers from the state legislature’s budget board report in May.

Bachmann is not the only candidate that has begun attacking Perry. Mitt Romney criticized “career politicians” earlier in the week, a clear dig at Perry who has held an elected position since 1984. Fellow Texan Ron Paul also had some sharp words for Perry during an interview on Friday. The Republican congressman was on a stop in New Hampshire when he called Perry the “candidate of the week.”

“He was the one saying, ‘Oh yeah, I’m all for secession,’ and that kind of talk,” Paul told The Associated Press. “The only thing I would advise is looking into him, looking at his record, and not just taking him at face value. Texas has had a lot of changes in these last eight years, not exactly positive either.”

In a 2009 interview, Perry said there was no reason for Texas to secede from the union, but suggested it was a possibility if Washington political leaders continued to “thumb their nose at the American people.”

Paul suggested he was not worried about Perry’s rapid rise. “There are a lot of candidates who climbed real fast and went down real fast,” Paul said. All this is building up to the GOP’s next debate. Next Wednesday will be the first debate since Perry has joined the republican candidates.

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Republican front runner Rick Perry was quick to criticize another stimulus plan, while offering no suggestions on how he plans to boost the economy. The Texas governor said on Monday in Tulsa, Oklahoma that no new economic stimulus package is needed to “get America working again.”

Perry said he would let his “guiding principles” as a fiscal conservative inform his policies if he were elected president. But, when asked for details, Perry resorted to general statements he has often repeated on the campaign trail.

“No. 1 is don’t spend all the money, you can figure out what that means,” Perry said at the Tulsa Press Club event also attended by U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. “You won’t have stimulus programs under a Perry presidency. You won’t spend all the money.”

Despite Perry’s strong stance against federal funds, his state benefitted greatly from the last economic stimulus package. Texas has used $17.4 billion in federal stimulus money In fact, Texas used the federal stimulus to balance its last two budgets.

Perry said the nation’s “entrepreneurial spirit” would create jobs and that his tax policies would allow Americans to keep more of what they earn. He said his tax system would be “light on job creators” and called for a more predictable legal system “that doesn’t allow for over-suing.”

“We have seen a clear thirst for leadership in this country,” Perry said. In his book — titled Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington — the Texas governor writes, “We are fed up with bailout after bailout and stimulus plan after stimulus plan, each one of which tosses principle out the window along with taxpayer money.”

Earlier on Monday, Perry’s focus was foreign policy. He said American military commanders should always control U.S. military forces abroad. “It’s not our interest to go it alone,” he said. “We respect our allies and we must always seek to engage them in military missions. But at the same time, we must be willing to act when it is time to act.

We cannot concede the moral authority of our nation to multilateral debating societies, and when our interests are threatened American soldiers should be led by American commanders.”

Although Perry did not say, he seems to be referring to NATO operations in Libya. The Libya operation is being run by a Canadian general from a NATO headquarters in Italy, but an American officer is the top NATO commander.

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Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry continued his criticism of social security at a campaign stop on Saturday. In Iowa, Perry called the entitlement program, “a monstrous lie.” In his 2010 book, “Fed Up!” Perry compared social security to an “illegal ponzi scheme” and suggested that it was unconstitutional.

While on the campaign trail in Iowa, Perry warned that President Obama has driven the nation’s economy into a ditch, arguing that his own record as governor qualifies him to lead the way out. “Instead of eliminating our economic crisis, he worsened it,” said Perry. “Instead of addressing the debt, he exploded it.” Perry stated that he has created 1 million jobs while he has been the leader of Texas. Of course, he did not mention that the majority of these jobs are minimum wage or government jobs. So much for limited government, huh?

Perry pointed out recent comments made by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that food stamps were helping to improve the economy by getting buying power into people’s hands.”Food stamps are not a solution, they are a symbol of the problem,” said Perry. “Today’s leaders see it differently.”

Perry sought to drive the problem home, noting that Iowa has suffered as well under the Obama administration.”Today, one in eight Iowans is on food stamps,” said Perry. “That is a testament to the widespread misery created by this administration.”

“It’s a statement that the state that feeds the world has so many people dependent on the government for food,” said Perry. “You have lost 12,000 jobs since the current resident of the White House took office,” said Perry. He again pointed out his allegedly superior record as governor.”Since I’ve become governor, Texas has created more than 1 million jobs, while the rest of the country has lost 2.5 million jobs,” said Perry. “We’ve got to stop spending money we don’t have,” said Perry. “I promise you this, I will work every day to make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential to you as I can.”

Four hundred activists attended the picnic in Iowa. Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan also attended the event, but Perry received the most attention.

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Texas governor Rick Perry wants to be known for saying outlandish things. Trying to rival Rep. Michele Bachmann, Perry is quickly earning his title. However, when trying to be a serious contender in the populated Republican field for president, I am not sure the “shock” approach will work.

We don’t have to be shocked that Perry wants to lynch the Federal Reserve Chairman. There are enough of his actual policy ideas to be shocked about.

In the past, Perry has made such colorful remarks as considering that the BP oil spill could have just as likely been an “act of God” instead of corporate error. He discussed secession as an option for Texas. Even though the Civil War was 150 years ago, that is still kind of a sore point. And since launching his presidential bid, Perry has not toned down his Texan rhetoric.

His most recent gaffe was suggesting that if Fed chairman Ben Bernanke prints more money, it is a “treasonous” act and suggested he would be treated “pretty ugly” back in Texas.

Perry has brought back that whole “does Obama love America” thing that was pretty quiet after Obama ordered the killing of bin Laden. Perry suggested that the military does not respect Obama and would have more respect for Perry as commander-in-chief because he served in the military.

Obama was asked about Perry’s comments recently on CNN. “I think that everybody who runs for president, it probably takes them a little bit of time before they start realizing that this isn’t like running for governor or running for Senate or running for Congress,” Obama said. “You’ve got to be a little more careful about what you say.”

Perry said he would be a president who was “passionate about America — that’s in love with America” earlier in the week. He was then asked if he was suggesting that Obama didn’t love America. Perry responded, “You need to ask him.”

Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs hit back Tuesday. “The statements that Perry makes are remarkable in that just two years ago, the governor of Texas openly talked about leading Texas out of the United States of America, and now this campaign has caused him to profess his love to the United States,” Gibbs said during an appearance on MSNBC.

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Presidential contender Rick Perry has expressed his beliefs about intelligent design before, supporting  creationism as a theory taught in Texas classrooms. However, on Thursday, he was specifically asked his feelings about evolution during a campaign stop in New Hampshire.

“How old do I think the earth is? You know what, I don’t have any idea,” said the Texas governor when asked about his position on the issue by a woman and her son. “I know it’s pretty old so it goes back a long long way. I’m not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how long, how old the earth is.”

Perry regarded evolution as “a theory that’s out there” and one that’s “got some gas in it.” He mentioned how both creationism and evolution are taught to students in public schools. He explained, “I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

Perry is not the first presidential contender to express doubt over a theory that most scientists believe. Earlier this summer, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann expressed doubt about the theory of evolution.

“I support intelligent design,” she said after speaking at this year’s Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans. “What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don’t think it’s a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.”

In 2006, Bachmann stated that some within the scientific community discredit the theory of evolution. “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design,” she said.

Governor Perry was also asked about global warming. He wrote in his book, “Fed Up!” that doctored data was behind global warming. ”They know that we have been experiencing a cooling trend, that the complexities of the global atmosphere have often eluded the most sophisticated scientists and that draconian policies with dire economic effects based on so-called science may not stand the test of time,” Perry wrote.

He called former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his call to action on climate change, of being a ”false prophet of a secular carbon cult,”

In Bedford, New Hampshire on Wednesday, Perry suggested that politics is playing a large role in the global warming debate.”I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized.

I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects,” Perry said. “I think we’re seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.

Yes, our climates change. They’ve been changing ever since the earth was formed. But I do not buy into, that a group of scientists, who in some cases were found to be manipulating this data.”

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