Last month, now-Gov. Scott Walker proclaimed to a Dairy Business Association audience that he had told Texas Gov. Rick Perry "look out, we're coming after you," according to a report on WisPolitics, the political website.

Walker was speaking about emulating that state's extreme pro-business, anti-consumer position on tort reform, but it seemed clear Walker was also admiring Perry's overall hard-right governance style. So it was with special interest I read Friday's Paul Krugman column in the New York Times headlined, "The Texas Omen."

Turns out Texas faces a $25-billion budget deficit over the next two years. "Texas," Krugman writes, "is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting — the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending — has been implemented most completely." Krugman says Perry boasts of making "tough conservative decisions" that has Texas near the bottom in education spending per pupil and leading the country in percentage of residents without health insurance. Sounds like an interesting model.