Yesterday, Governor Rick Perry signed the most disgusting piece of legislation passed by the Texas legislature this year.

The legislature could not get a pay raise passed for Texas teachers, but it could increase its pension by a minimum of $6500 per legislator per year for their $7200 per-year part time job (no, that is not a typo -- seventy-two HUNDRED dollars a year).

That means that the annual pension for a legislator with eight years of service is now at the same level as the salary for a teacher with ten years in the classroom making the state minimum salary.

And the increase in pension benefits is, almost to the dollar, equal to the amount Texas teachers are paid below the average national teacher salary.

Virtually every legislator ran making a promise to boost teacher salaries to at least close the compensation gap. They didn't -- and the Lt. Governor even called pay raises for teachers (along with adequate funding for textbooks) "poison" to the process of passing an education bill this year.

Shame on you, Governor. This on your part move makes a vote for Kinky Friedman look much more attractive.