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Bush Watch Gore Watch Today's Toon Contents |
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"Buried in the Legislature's budget bill is a proposal by Gov. Jeb Bush to save $700,000 by privatizing elevator inspections. Officials at the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation told The St. Petersburg Times that private companies already do 87 percent of the state's inspections. So what's the catch? Turns out William ``Bucky'' Bush, the governor's uncle and a fundraiser for George W. Bush's presidential campaign, owns a 12.5 percent interest in National Elevator Inspection Services of St. Louis. Could that have anything to do with the governor's proposal? No, no, of course not. ``That whole line of thinking is very annoying and very insulting,'' says Bucky. But if it happens, he'll locate an office in the state and go after the business, he adds. Definitely a man headed to the top." --Miami Herald Editorial
When John McCain touched down in Ho Chi Min City, Viet Nam Thursday, he was given a copy of Robert Novak's same day column in the Chicago Trib, reporting that "George W. Bush's advisers anticipate all pain and little satisfaction at his May 9 meeting in Pittsburgh with John McCain. They expect no agreement on campaign finance reform and no Bush endorsement by McCain." Novak further reported that "McCain's antipathy to the vice presidency cannot be separated from hostility to the Bush camp after their bruising primary battles. He privately has expressed his distaste for a job where he would "have to take [Bush strategist] Karl Rove's phone calls."
"After learning of the column," Jack Tapper reports, " McCain called up his political director, "Sunny" John Weaver, and instructed him to phone the Bush campaign and tell them to "scrub the meeting." Mac may have been particularly bothered by Novak's report of the senator's distrust of Bush: "McCain, betraying his suspicion of Republican politics-as-usual, is wary that Bush will play a "YR [Young Republican] trick." He fears that he would be offered vice-presidential consideration by the governor only because he is expected to decline. Indeed, Bush certainly has not decided he would like the prickly former naval aviator as his running mate. At the peak of the primaries, he privately questioned whether McCain was up to being president. He has modified that view, but McCain's conduct still raises hackles in the Bush camp." The reporting of such attitudes by the Bush camp may have been the final strw for Mac. In a later remark, Mac was quoted as comparing his pain as a war prisoner with his treatment by Bush and his aides during the primaries, indicating how deep-seated his feelings about his battle with Bush are. "The meeting, sources close to McCain contend, was always more important to Bush, who seeks the independent voters who backed McCain's candidacy, than to McCain," reports Tapper. "And while the sources say a meeting between the two men may eventually take place, for the time being it's off." --Politex, 4/27/00
Last year, "tax relief for the oil industry [was] declared an emergency by Gov. George W. Bush. The proposal rushed to the head of the legislative line (ahead of less pressing issues, such as children's health insurance) and easily won approved. The bill's proponents spoke movingly of how state tax relief would help small-time, mom-and-pop oil producers. Several times they cited the situation of a particular West Texas producer with the particularly Texan first name of Earlene. But after examining a list of likely beneficiaries topped by major oil corporations, some spectators asked: "Is this for Earlene or for Exxon?" Turns out, it was for Richard.
"At the top of a recently released list of the biggest beneficiaries of the $1 million tax break is Pioneer Natural Resources Co. whose leading individual stockholder and corporate creator is the Gov. Bush's former business partner, Richard Rainwater. Rainwater has been a major contributor to Bush campaigns, and the men were partners in several business ventures, including the Texas Rangers ball team. Of about $18 million in emergency tax relief, which kicks in only when market prices are down, Pioneer got the most, with a $1 million benefit. Chevron was next, followed by Texaco, Exxon and Union Oil of California, according to a state tax report. Glad we could help," George. --Austin American-Statesman editorial, 4/26/00
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While George W. Bush is still trying to stir up the dead ashes of Al Gore's Buddhist Temple "mistake" made while following the federal campaign finance laws, the Republican candidate might want to look for a smoking gun in his own Texas governors' office. According to a 12/27/99 U.S. News report from Paul Bedard, entitled "Still Wanted. Cash," Bush sent out a two-page, hand-written letter on official Texas governor's stationary "begging his best contributors for a cup more–$150 or $250, to be exact." He needed the money because he faces "a challenge no other Republican does. I'm the Republican the Clinton/Gore White House fears. Clinton is already attacking me," Bush wrote. Is it legal under federal law to request a campaign contribution in a presidential contest on official state of Texas stationary? Folks are considering that question as you read this. We'll let you know. --Politex, 4/23/00 Update. 5/2/00 It turns out that Bush has been unethical, but not illegal. He sent out a money request with an unembossed picture of the real Texas Governor's seal on the top of the page, wanting to impress the reader with the official look of the message. Here's how a Bush watcher describes it: " Someone sent me a copy of the letter. It is a fundraiser mailer where I assume the original was in his own handwriting. The bottom says 'Not printed or mailed at taxpayer expense. Paid for by Bush for President,Inc.' This is not official stationery since it is not paid for at taxpayers expense so there is nothing illegal!!! Deceptive?...Yes!! Illegal?...No!!
Film critic Roger Elbert takes on Bush Watch founder Jerry Politex over the practice of cataloging and linking to Bush sites on the Internet
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Doris in Des Moines, 4/20/00--If you want to know why George W. Bush's recently announced affordable housing plans are so pathetic, you could do worse than to ponder the toilet paper that used to be in Phil Gramm's front yard. If you think that sounds especially wacky, read on. Remember, it's "conservative" to give money to your campaign contributors, it's "compassionate" to say you're doing it to benefit the poor. So what's all this got to do with Phil Gramm's house getting teepeed? More.
BUSH TALKS (GASP) "HOUSING FOR THE POOR"
Maureen Dowd's Version of "Groundhog Day." "I'm once more covering a presidential candidate named George Bush who can't talk ... a self-made 'bidness' man from Midland with monogrammed cowboy boots who, when I ask him if he's read any novels lately, tells me to stop psychoanalyzing him." RMN
BUSH OIL SCANDAL? BUSINESS BUDDIES REWARDED. "George W. Bush's call last year to help beleaguered independent oil producers resulted in a $1 million tax break for the company of former Bush business partner Richard Rainwater, according to state records. Pioneer Natural Resources Co., based in Irving, was the biggest beneficiary of the tax cut, which Mr. Bush expedited with an emergency declaration because of low oil prices. Mr. Bush urged the Legislature to take action to help small oil producers because of "desperate conditions" in the oil patch. According to state tax records, Pioneer reaped a $1 million savings in severance taxes, the most of any company that got relief. Mr. Rainwater engineered a 1997 merger that created the company and is its largest single individual stockholder. more
DORIS GOES FOR THE GOLD IN OUR COMEDY CORNER
 "While the rest of the country read a lot about Bush's shortcomings on health care this week, his record comes as no surprise to Texans.
As governor, he directed that a $6.5 billion budget surplus be used primarily for property tax relief and public school improvements...rather than tackle Texas' poor health record.In a state with one of the nation's worst public-health records, Bush might have used the surplus to deal with stubborn problems. more
"The key element in the new Bush plan is pretty simple. He would give a tax credit worth up to $1,000 to uninsured individuals to help defray the cost of health insurance. Families would get up to $2,000. This means, Bush says, that a family earning $30,000 a year could buy $2,000 worth of health insurance for only $18.50 a month. Great, but where's a family going to find such a plan? On average, families buying their own insurance pay more than three times as much. So even with a $2,000 tax credit, it's a safe bet that relatively few $30,000-a-year households would be able to scrape together the extra thousands." --USA Today
"Families USA executive director Ron Pollack says that a typical family health plan costs $5,000 to $6,000 a year and even with the $2,000 tax credit, that leaves a $3,000 to $4,000 balance that won't be picked up by employers and would be unaffordable for low-wage families. To many health-care advocates, Gore's proposal looked paltry when set beside former Sen. Bill Bradley's plan for getting to universal coverage quickly. But if forced to choose between Bush's plan and Gore's plan, they will side with the vice president. Beyond the issue of how many people would be covered under each plan, Brookings Institution senior fellow Henry Aaron worries that Bush's plan might erode the employer-based coverage by creating a shift toward individual coverage. "If we unwind the system of workplace-based coverage, short of having subsidies larger than anyone is talking about, then we'll discover at the end of the day that we have fewer people insured than more," Aaron contends. Since companies buy health insurance policies in bulk, the process keeps costs down, Aaron said. Without that buying power, the individual market has more overhead and administrative costs." --Salon, 4/14
Another Bush Plan For The Poor Goes Up In Smoke. Part of Bush's "New Prosperity Initiative" for the poor is the plan to get them into college by having special education bank accounts set up in which an individual could deposit up to $300 a year into the account and use that amount as a tax credit, with the bank matching the deposit. While Bush hasn't accounted for where the bank will get the money to match the poor person's deposit, the real kicker is how long it would take the individual to earn 4 years of college for his new-born son or daughter. "At that rate, saving enough for a semester of college could take 20 years," reports Cox News. Gee, thanks, Mr. Bush.
"These are his priorities: Gov. Bush has proposed about $15 in special-interest tax schemes for every $1 of health care investment. What's the priority? Gov. Bush has proposed about $100 in special-interest tax schemes for every $1 in education investment. What's his priority?" --Al Gore, 4/13 BUSH HEALTH PLAN TOO EXPENSIVE FOR UNINSURED POOR.
WHY THE BUSH HEALTH CARE PLAN WILL FAIL Because Bush doesn't have enough money to finance it. George W. Bush's proposed $4.3 billion tax credit for the poor to buy helth insurance will fail because the money isn't there, and Bush and his advisors know it. What voters who need health care insurance will be faced with is voting for Gore, who plans to set aside enough money in the federal coffers to finance an adequate plan, or voting for Bush, who plans to provide an anti-federal philosophy rather than the needed cash. As conservative economist and Bush adviser Grace-Marie Arnett put it the other day, "The visions are very different. It sets us up for a good policy debate." One suspects most of the uninsured poor will shout, "Show me the money!" So why isn't Bush coming across? Because he's spent most of his proposed budget on tax cuts, 60% of which will benefit the top 10% of the population, Bush's well-off backers. It's the same thing he did as governor of Texas, so we shouldn't be surprised. more
In 1998 the Texas comptroller's office reported that "health conditions in the Texas-Mexico border are among the worst in the U.S., so distressful that reports on health conditions suggest a remote country in need of medical missionaries, not a part of Texas....Cases of hepatitis A, a gastrointestinal virus borne by contaminated food and water, are four times as common in the Rio Grande Valley as in the rest of Texas." (note) A story in the NYT concludes that Texas "ranks near the top in the nation in rates of AIDS, diabetes, tuberculosis and teenage pregnancy, and near the bottom in immunizations, mammograms and access to physicians." Yet, Texas Governor George W. Bush has never even given a speech on Texas' health care problems and his plans for dealing with them. "George W. Bush became governor in 1995, he has not made health a priority, his aides acknowledge. He has never made a speech on the subject, his press office says. His administration opposed a patient's bill of rights in 1995 before grudgingly accepting one in 1997, and fought unsuccessfully to limit access to the new federal Children's Health Insurance Program in 1999." For a man who is trying to convince the nation's voters that he is a new kind of Republican, a "compassionate" conservative, his actions are singularly lacking in compassion when it comes to the health needs of his fellow Texans. more
BUSH WANTS TO...COUGH ! COUGH! SNIFF ! KACK! KACK ! COUGH !...SORRY." "When Bush became governor, "his first appointment to the state's environmental protection agency, the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission, was Ralph Marquez, an executive who had spent 30 years with the Monsanto Chemical Company and had served as the chairman of the environmental regulation committee of the Texas Chemical Council, a trade association....more
The Washington Post reports that George W. Bush has taken a Texas-size step onto Al Gore's turf by introducing his own environmental plan, which is heavy on business-friendly "brownfields" programs. (The programs encourage businesses to rehabilitate pollution-blighted sites.) The Rust Belt audience for Bush's announcement didn't exactly deafen him with cheers, according to the Dallas Morning News. more
Doris in Des Moines spins the news
1st in Children without Health Insurance %...1st in Toxic Air Releases...1st in Smog Days (Houston)...1st in poorest counties(3)...3rd in Hunger %...5th in Highest Teen Birth Rate...41st in Breast Cancer Screenings...45th in Mothers Receiving Pre-Natal Care...46th in Public Libraries and Branches...46th in High School Completion Rate...46th in Water Resources Protection...47th in Delivery of Social Services...48th in Literacy...48th in Per Capita Funding for Public Health...48 in Best Place to Raise Children (29th before Bush)*...48th in Spending for Parks and Recreation...48th in Spending for the Arts...49th in Spending for the Environment...50th in Women with Health Insurance...50th in Teachers' Salaries plus Benefits...
*Children's Rights Council. further documentation
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"George W. Bush, appealing anew to voters who have tended to support Democrats, today proposed a $1.7 billion program to increase housing for low-income people.
It would give a tax credit to developers to refurbish existing houses....
Bush said his proposed tax credit could cover up to 50 percent of the cost of redeveloping low-income housing and could spur development of up to 15,000 new homes a year over the five years of the program.
"Under this credit private investors will have a powerful incentive to increase the supply of affordable houses," Bush said." (AP 4/17/00) Don't make us laugh, George, our lips are chapped.
Denizens of Austin betting parlors are taking sucker bets today that Bush will never ask the nation to look at his Texas record to see what he would do with America's housing program for the poor. Come with us down memory lane and look at the sad specifics of
Bush's terrible Texas housing record. 
John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative research group, has helped numerous GOP lawmakers craft health care tax credits, and now he's done so for Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush. An estimated 44 million Americans don't have health care insurence, and Bush has implied that his new health care plan will cover those people, but that's far from the truth. An analysis indicates that those uninsured earning under $40,000 will remain uninsured and will have to depend upon questionable, congested, expensive, and inadequate emergency room access for their health care needs.