Collier: Democrats Are the Real Pro-Business Party

DALLAS — Democrats are the real pro-business party, state comptroller candidate Mike Collier told Democratic Party delegates, before dismissing his GOP rival as “a rice farmer and he doesn’t know a lick about finance.”

Collier, a certified public accountant, played up his own business bona fides in his lunch-hour address to the Texas Democrats’ state convention on Saturday.

“The job is about counting money,” he said. “Don’t you think we ought to hire an accountant?”

He suggested that the Democratic Party should be considered more pro-business than the Tea Party because it believes in investment in schools, roads and water. He said that any chief financial officer would agree that businesses must invest their future.

“The Republican Party not only left me, they left the entire business community behind,” Collier said. “I’m not going to stand by and watch those political wheeler dealers, who act they own the place, mismanage our money.

“It’s called crony capitalism and that is not good for business. No way. Texas needs a watchdog with real world financial experience to make the politicians and their crony buddies toe the line.”

Texas is booming and can afford to invest in the future without raising taxes, Collier said. “What we need is to get the revenue forecast done right for a change,” he said in a dig at the current comptroller, Susan Combs. “If you can’t get the numbers right, you won’t get anything right.”

He then took on his opponent’s qualifications for office. Republicans have nominated state Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, for the post.

Collier though, dismissed him, calling him as a farmer with the wrong credentials for the job: "There’s a reason I’m not running for ag commissioner," he said. "I’m running for the job that I’m qualified to do.”

He said the state needs “a comptroller who can count to 20 without taking his boots off … Being comptroller ain’t about hopping up in the governor’s lap and getting to drive for a while. It’s the most technically demanding job and most important job and we got to have somebody who knows what they’re doing.”