DISGUSTED WITH TEXAS LEADERSHIP.

The Texas Child Protective Service scandal just keeps getting worse. Thousands of children in desperate situations are not even being seen.  The foster care system is a disaster. http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/03/17/texas-foster-care-crisis-children-sleeping-in-cps-offices-again-as-more-removed-from-homes-but-state-out-of-places-to-care-for-them

https://www.texastribune.org/2015/12/17/judge-foster-care-system-violates-childrens-rights/

It's unbelievable how incompetent or uncaring state leadership is.  A tip off should have been when they hired Hank Whitman to lead the agency.  What is his background?  Head of the Texas Rangers, now retired.  No real experience in CPS-type work.  Looks like another political hack put in charge of another lets-pretend-we-care move.

"The problem, apparently, is that state lawmakers are talking out of both sides of their mouths: They say they want to hire more CPS investigators and caseworkers, pronto.
But they still want to pay them diddly-squat, even though they know that chronic low pay is a key reason many CPS workers don't hang around long enough for the paint to dry.
That does not sound like urgency to me.
Doesn't sound like a state agency ready to do whatever it takes to turn the corner."

Public services in Texas are generally pathetic.  The prison system, metnal health resources and inner-city public schools are among the continuing scandals.  Corruption of all kinds is rampant.  https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/414910/texas-has-corruption-problem
https://star.txstate.edu/2016/04/25/the-lone-star-state-of-corruption/
Texas ranks low in most measures of government services yet, it has a huge budget surplus and lots of money to throw at corrupt, political favorite, contractors.  Is there no compassion for the needs of defenseless children? How do we explain this?  Here's part of the answer.  There is a significant white supremacist presence in Texas.  See https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2016/active-hate-groups-united-states-2015 and map.  Blacks and Hispanics are much poorer, on average, than whites. Another is the belief that those who are poor are poor because they are lazy or mentally defective.  Affluent people are credited with working harder and are seen as genetically superior.  Most Texas citizens ae not like this, but those who are seem to have a lot of political clout, and seem to manage to get elected and re-elected.  The leadership is more interested in fighting the culture wars than in helping vulnerable Texans.

Decases ago, Texas was dominated by mostly corrupt democrats.  There was no meaningful political opposition.  Now Republicans dominate at the state and many local levels.  Corruption, favoritism, patronage, etc.
are rampant because, in part, the Republicans have so much power and control.  Many Republicans and Tea Partiers hate to spend money on the poor and disadvantaged.  Xenophobia is rampant.  Anyone who is not a conservative, white Christian is suspect. Again, this is not most Texans.
 Ironically, South Texas which is among the most corrupt areas of the state is dominated by Democrats.  It's not just the republicans.  Power corrupts and the more power the more corruption.  It seems that only the newspapers are willing to call out the politicians.