This blog was orginally posted on ProgressTexasPAC.org.

The powers that be at CPRIT, the cancer research fund that Gov. Rick Perry is using as his slush fund to reward contributors, would like us to forget that it remains under criminal investigation. Texans, though, are outraged that tax money intended to find cures for cancer has been turned into just another crony capitalist wasteland.

Over the last few months, Texas media have uncovered improper grants, grants made without scientific review, grants to Perry contributors, and the resignations of dozens of agency scientists in protest of the crass commercialization of the agency and the crony capitalism.

Back during the 2007 campaign for the constitutional amendment authorizing CPRIT bond funding, former president George H.W. Bush referred to the promise of cancer research. Now Rick Perry has broken that promise. Research, Perry says, takes too long. He wants to use CPRIT instead to "create wealth." By that he means, of course, the wealth of his few friends.