Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on January 07, 2015, 07:48:27 AM
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For obvious reasons Jeb gets his own thread.
I know we here have strong doubts about him (amnesty, common core) but I have read in more than one place that he has a very good record as Gov. of FL. I saw the front page of his website on the news this morning and I must say I very much liked the bullet points he chose, things like Freedom, Free Enterprise, Strong National Defense, and more.
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Illegal immigration is an "act of love".
Enough of the rinos.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/jeb-hillary-codependent-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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I'm pretty sure we fought a war or two so as to avoid hereditary rulers.
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"I know we here have strong doubts about him (amnesty, common core)"
- Yes, those are the two. I would think he could back off of common core rather easily. He was trying to raise educational standards in an initiative coming out of the states. It turned into an escalation of liberal leftist, central federal government totalitarian control over schools. Schools should be controlled locally. Just say so. How he finesses amnesty support into a Republican nomination will be more difficult and he seems to be immovable. There are two sides to it. Jeb is only showing that he gets the compassion for the illegals side of it and not the rest like laws, security and sovereignty. Good for him (sarc.), but then he is running for the wrong endorsement. The candidate who wins will have to acknowledge both sides of it and strike the right balance.
"I'm pretty sure we fought a war or two so as to avoid hereditary rulers."
- No problem, they will just both go by their first names, like my neighbor Prince Nelson.
"I have read in more than one place that he has a very good record as Gov. of FL."
"Enough of the rinos."
- His record during two terms in Florida is more conservative than Ronald Reagan's record serving two terms in California.
They said a long time ago that he was the best of the Bush's. If so, then why did we have to suffer through the rudderless father and somewhat confused older brother first?
I am planning to support new blood first. This also could turn into a head fake. Like Hillary, he may find out this is not what he wants. But right now, he is the Republican front runner.
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I am so sick of the republican structure pushing democrat-lite candidates. I will not vote for them again. I will worry about local issues and ignore the national goat rope.
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Jeb's Real Opponent In 2016 Is Bush 43
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on February 20, 2015
In his efforts to break free of the legacy of the Bush 43 presidency, Jeb reminds one of Michelangelo's slave statues struggling against their stone fetters. Try as they might, they remain bound to the stone from whence they came.
Whatever one thinks of W's tenure as president, let's all remember that he left office with a Gallup score of 34 percent, having touched 25 percent in October/November of 2008 -- right around Election Day.
His last term ended in disaster. The financial collapse, the looming recession, and the residual negatives of the body bags that came home from Iraq seared into the public consciousness and made him one of our least popular presidents. His low point rating by Gallup of 25 percent is the lowest of all post-war presidents except for Nixon's, at 24 percent, and Truman's, 22 percent.
That is quite a legacy to live down.
And Jeb must live it down, explicitly. It is not enough to obliquely note, as he did in his speech this week, that "mistakes were made" in Iraq. He has to lay it out and put the blame where it belongs -- on the commander in chief.
But at least Iraq ended well as Bush left office -- only to be mangled beyond recognition by Obama's total withdrawal. The end-term legacy of Bush 43 is dominated by the second most harrowing financial crisis in our national history.
Was it Bush's fault? Damn right it was. He had been president for eight years. He had appointed the head of the Federal Reserve. It was his policy to maintain only the most minimal -- and distracted -- regulation of Wall Street. While he did make feeble attempts to rein in Fannie and Freddie, their mismanagement took place on his watch.
Understandably, voters would not rate highly his stewardship of the economy.
Jeb must get out of that shadow. The only way he can do so is to explain, in detail, what he felt his brother did wrong and to lay out how he would do better. Otherwise, his candidacy would be like Herbert Hoover's brother running in 1940, eight years after Herbert left office.
Hillary would have only to compare Bill's economic record with W's and the results would not be pretty.
To be sure, it was Bill Clinton's signature on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, his approval of the deregulation of derivatives, and his go-go instructions to Fannie and Freddie that laid the basis for the crash. But all that is for the cognoscenti. To the average voter, Bush equals recession -- in 1991 and in 2007-08.
If Jeb is sparing in his critique and fails to meet the concerns of voters head-on, he will pay the price and hand the election over to Hillary.
We must not blame Jeb for W's failures. But if he does not recognize, admit, and enumerate them -- and suggest how he would proceed differently -- we are entitled to hold them against him.
We had better. The voters will.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/jebs-biggest-problem-w-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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Sean Hannity (yeah, yeah, I know) had an extended interview with Jeb Bush last night at the CPAC in front of a large crowd.
I must say Bush was quite good, and , , , presidential.
Decide for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7edfSVLhA_8
HUGE problems remain with his candidacy of course (e.g. Distinguishing his calls for strength in foreign affairs from his brother's waging of the Iraq War) but I gotta say the man offers a lot too. His record as governor gives him a gravitas that one term Senators like Rubio ( (Rubio, whom I like a lot, also was interviewed, but frankly was nowhere near as impressive.) and Rand Paul, neither of whom have noticeable executive or business experience. He answered the questions directly and without flinching, with vigor, and calls to economic growth for all.
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"He answered the questions directly and without flinching, with vigor, and calls to economic growth for all. "
Too bad he is a believer in big government. He is absolutely ridiculous with the immigration thing. What a sell out. No other way to call it.
But yes he has some positives. The Bushes are great Americans but I hope we can get someone who is not an appeaser. He is.
Remember his father: "voodoo economics". Yet Jeb claims he is for tax cuts to spur the economy even with the astronomical debt load. I just don't believe he means it.
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I could live with a compromise that AFTER THE BORDERS ARE CONTROLLED allowed those who were brought here very young and for all intents and purposes are Americans, to achieve some sort of legalized status. I also note that he speaks of the very important point about narrowly limiting the definition of "family" that can be brought in from what it is now.
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Kind of bizarre that Drudge reports Bush had "supporters" bused in to CPAC from DC. One can wonder if all these "supporters" were people who had jobs with a Bush at some point and are vying for jobs with this Bush now.
I was wondering why he got significant (though not huge) audience applause at times during the actually very good interview by Sean Hannity.
Crafty, thanks for your always logical and reasoned thoughts. Let me explain why I am against J. Not because I don't like him. He and is family are wonderful people, very smart, appear to be very honest, and are doing their best and what they think is right throughout their public service. Yet they are inadequate to confront the "transformation" the liberals are doing to the United States, and actually the world. Obama is just the "front man".
Let me explain:
"I could live with a compromise that AFTER THE BORDERS ARE CONTROLLED"
I used to think this way too. I recall Doug once calling me a rhino some years ago. He was probably right. Then I learned. The problem with compromise it is only a temporary rear guard action the delays but never rolls back the progressive onslaught. It won't stop till the concept of country, sovereignty, borders, and real free will is gone.
One world nation under the new God, which will be ONE world GOVERNMENT with total control over every aspect of humanity on this planet. Oh, they will say representatives are elected and it is some sort of Democracy but can anyone not imagine the totalistic control government and their favorite companies and people will have over all of us. There already is quite a bit of that now particularly with this tyrant in the WH but just imagine what it will be like then. Listening to that NYU professor (Jeffrey Sachs) give his talk at my nephews graduation awakened me up to this goal of the liberal elite. Ironically I was the only one of my clan there who even realized what he was saying. My nephew who now works with Bobby Jindal thought the speech was not political! Wow. This is important to me when I think of the prospect of another Bush. A Bush will not turn back this onslaught to any real measure. Yeah they may put in a few fingers to plug up the leaks in the dam but will not really rebuild the dam and the water it holds.
J Bush will govern the same way his brothers did. Compromise and appease. Remember who followed both his immediate family members in the WH! If there was something great (like Reagan) about them this would not have happened. Indeed, Reagan got H swept in only for him to squander the conservative wave to Clinton. And that was after he earned a short lived 90+ approval ratings from the successful the invasion of Iraq and liberation of Kuwait.
It is early. I am not ruling J out. Just very skeptical and leery. He is going to have to put more than his words out there for me.
One more thing. I don't like his calling himself a "grownup" whenever he implies the conservative Tea Party types are not. What an insult. We have a reason to be angry. We have reasons to want to really put our feet down. We have a reason to want to fight. "Conversations" are not enough to fight back the left.
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I agree with most of that too :-) I guess I am just saying not to put our fingers in our ears just yet with Bush.
I fully recognize that there are some serious potential weak links in his candidacy:
1) A natural and proper revulsion to monarchy/nepotism and the general revulsion to the idea of a First Lady running against the son and brother of previous presidents.
2) As we call for a return to a strong foreign policy, we are going to be accused of wanting to redo what did not work in Iraq under Bush 2, and Jeb, an honorable man, will have a hard time criticizing him and distinguishing himself from his brother. Remember too, Rand Paul will be resonating with many people with many of his criticisms.
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"As we call for a return to a strong foreign policy, we are going to be accused of wanting to redo what did not work in Iraq under Bush 2, and Jeb, an honorable man, will have a hard time criticizing him and distinguishing himself from his brother"
Yes indeed.
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"He answered the questions directly "
Yes and no. I agree he comes across ready, well informed and in control in the interview, hitting the right chords the best he can in front of the CPAC audience. But when aiming at different audiences he has been leading with the issues that trouble conservatives most.
I found this comment regarding the current funding battle over unconstitutional executive orders on amnesty bothersome.
Jeb said: "It doesn't make sense to me that we're not funding control of our border which is the whole argument."
WHO is not funding WHAT?? He implies Republicans are about to not fund border security. In fact, it is Dems not funding it and even if it fails, shutdowns only involve non-essential department employees, not border security.
I agree that serving two successful terms as governor of a major state is a good qualification. I agree he sounds the right chords on economics, his Right to Rise is the same theme as Rubio who is trying to restore the American Dream. I agree he is the sharpest and most conservative of the 3 Bushes we know. (Low bar?) But I also agree with the criticisms. He has a trust problem on immigration. Why do we think he will be tough suddenly on border security where no one else including his own brother has. Education has been taken over federally, by all the wrong people. Common Core advocates draws a distinction that it is standards not curriculum, but it has become curriculum in fact if not in law. It is an issue he should have dropped if he intended to move from state to federal level. If education is his number one passion, federal government is not the place for him to advance it IMHO.
Jeb is not the candidate to unite the right. People on the right don't trust him and people in the center who follow things less closely will mostly see him as another Bush. That isn't easy to shake.
If nominated, he will be the third candidate in a row who needs to reach back to the right in the general election when he should be courting the middle.
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"I could live with a compromise that AFTER THE BORDERS ARE CONTROLLED"
I used to think this way too. I recall Doug once calling me a rhino some years ago. He was probably right. Then I learned. The problem with compromise it is only a temporary rear guard action the delays but never rolls back the progressive onslaught. It won't stop till the concept of country, sovereignty, borders, and real free will is gone.
ccp: Hopefully I described you as a former moderate, not RINO in that you avoid taking on the Republican name.
Both Jeb and Rubio are more pro-legal-immigration than the views you've expressed here. Others including myself are perhaps more pro-immigration, but only supporting the legal variety.
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Intelligent observations, and I don't disagree.
I guess what I was trying to say in this moment that there is plenty of substance to Bush as well. NONE of the candidates has the well-rounded background and positions that I would hope for in a presidential candidate.
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Agree, there is plenty of substance to Jeb. CPAC was mostly about conservatism. The question will gradually shift to electability and Jeb may win the nomination with that argument.
He answered the Common Core question strongly. There is nothing he can do about his last name. It comes down to the immigration question and primary and general election voters will have to make a judgment about that. There is border security and there is rule of law. If we give away too much to those who already came in, more will come. Also, there is the political conundrum. People tend to vote for the policies they are fleeing. If it is to be 11 million people it will be 3 or 4 times that many, and if Republicans welcome them they will presumably vote majority Democrat anyway, guaranteeing Obama-like governance until the system collapses. If we ignore rule of law and don't deport (status quo), then there is an underclass living among us without consent of the governed and Dems keep the issue alive forever. (The middle ground is probably the position Rubio takes now. Border security must be proven over a period of time before further negotiations can proceed.)
Wm F Buckley said something like this, choose the most conservative candidate who can win. I would say it the other way around, choose the most electable of the candidates whose positions and experience we find to be right or acceptable.
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Hat tip to CCP for this one, this bears watching:
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/03/20/levin-criticizes-jebs-association-with-israel-hater-advisor/
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This interview drew more attention for the Indiana and religious freedom aspects, but he was quite clear and tough on his approach to Iran - and Russia.
http://www.hughhewitt.com/jeb-bush-on-the-indiana-law-iran-and-hillary/
Hugh Hewitt: It was announced over the weekend by their foreign minister, deputy foreign minister, they’re not going to send their enriched uranium to Russia. We didn’t get up and leave at that point. What has gone wrong here? And what do you think of these negotiations?
Jeb Bush: I think they should have stopped a long time ago. If the purpose of the negotiations established by President Obama at the beginning, and by the way, by his predecessors of not allowing Iran to enrich uranium to be able to build a bomb, if that was the purpose, fine. But now, we’ve negotiated downward to the point where we’re now talking about breakouts, we’re talking about vague assurances of verification. We’re talking about allowing them to enrich uranium inside, and store it inside their own country. There are places that, facilities that don’t have the same, they’re not open places that this is all taking place, fortified so as to protect themselves from attack. I think this is wrong. All the while, and this is the part that’s most amazing to me, all the while that the Iranian government, through its resources and its surrogates, is destabilizing the region. They have influence or control over four capitals while we’re negotiating with them. This is the part that’s most troubling, is that the President and his administration seems to be more interested in cutting a deal with Iran, who has marches calling for the death of the United States, or the annihilation of Israel, and treats friends in the region, particularly Israel, with incredible disrespect.
HH: Now General Soleimani is said to have been in Tikrit last week and Yemen this week in support of the Houthis. They’re all Shiia-aligned, Iranian-aligned militias. If you’re the president, what’s the line you’ll draw with Iran about projecting force outside of their country’s border?
JB: I think we have to tighten up the sanctions, if possible. This is, the danger of this agreement is what I described and much more, but it also is the loosening of the sanctions very fast, in which case it would be very hard to put the genie back into the bottle. The one leverage point we have over Iran is tightening sanctions rather than loosening them. And if we were in that position, I think we could get a better deal that would contain Iran’s interest in destabilizing the area. In the interim, we also have ISIS. You know, our disengagement has created this dual threat that is, the one solution, I think, that is clear to me, at least, is that we need to rebuild our relationships with the traditional Arab nations, for them to have confidence that we’ve got their back. We’re providing some intelligence support apparently in Yemen, but when we pulled back, these voids are being created, and they’re being filled by people that want to create great instability and harm to the United States, and to those that believe in freedom.
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Regarding Putin and threats from Russia:
HH: Should we lean forward on Article 5 with the Baltic states?
JB: Yeah, absolutely. And the President has done a small amount of that, but I think there needs to be clarity in Moscow that we’re serious about protecting the one alliance that has creates enormous amounts of security and peace in the post-World War II time.
HH: Are you, Jeb Bush, saying that if Putin makes a play on the Russian population areas of the Baltics, that that’s an occasion for war in Europe?
JB: What I’m saying is that if we’re not serious about Article 5, then we ought to have shut down NATO. And I think shutting down NATO would be a disaster. The Baltic states are counting on the United States to be a leader in this regard, and it’s not just the Baltics. It’s also Poland, it’s Eastern Europe, it’s a lot of countries. The Baltics are the most vulnerable, because they, as you point out, there’s high percentages anywhere, what, 25-40% of the population are Russian speaking. But sure, the new threats aren’t necessarily invasions. It can be creating a cyberattack and then creating, taking off the emblems and coming in and destabilizing countries as has just occurred in Europe.
HH: We’ve got about a minute to the break. Should we have done more for Ukraine? Should we do more for the Ukrainians right now?
JB: I think we should. I think we should provide defensive support for Ukraine, and we need to get the Europeans back in the game as well.
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Three months into what allies once confidently described as a “shock and awe” drive to overcome his rivals and dominate the Republican presidential field, Jeb Bush’s early campaigning looks like the juggernaut that wasn’t.
He is grappling with the Republican Party’s prickly and demanding ideological blocs, particularly evangelical leaders and pro-Israel hawks. He is struggling to win over grass-roots activists in Iowa and New Hampshire, states he has visited only a handful of times. And Mr. Bush’s undisputed advantage — the millions of dollars streaming rapidly into his political organization — may not be enough to knock out other contenders.
For all the Republican “bundlers” who have signed up to raise money for Mr. Bush, others remain uncommitted or are hedging their bets by aiding more than one candidate. Some are privately chafing at what they view as the Bush camp’s presumption of their loyalty.
Other wealthy donors, mindful of their power to reshape the Republican race with “super PAC” donations, have been more direct: The casino magnate Sheldon Adelson recently made what two people briefed on it described as an “animated” call to one of Mr. Bush’s top supporters after former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a Bush adviser, criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in a speech in March.
It is a far cry, party officials, activists and donors said, from the early success of George W. Bush, Mr. Bush’s brother, in securing the 2000 Republican presidential nomination.
For the Bush family, inevitability is not what it used to be. “There hasn’t been a coalescing around him like there was for his brother in 1998 and 1999,” said Ed Martin, who led the Missouri Republican Party until February and is now president of the Eagle Forum, the conservative group founded by Phyllis Schlafly. “I just don’t have a sense among big donors and Republican leaders that this is Jeb’s to lose.”
Aides have assured worried supporters that Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor, will spend more time on the stump, honing his message, cultivating grass-roots enthusiasm and winning over local leaders and ordinary Republican voters.
Fred Zeidman, a prominent bundler, said Mr. Bush had attracted an enormous number of supporters outside the family network. “You’re not seeing either of the old Bush teams running this campaign,” he said, “and I think it’s proof positive that people feel very strongly.”
But even among business leaders who see Mr. Bush as an attractive candidate, some have wondered about the series of major policy speeches his team promised, which he has been slow to deliver.
“The smart money is taking it slower and waiting to see who runs and how these candidates develop a platform,” said Scott Reed, the top political adviser to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Raising money is an important part of the game. But it’s not the whole game.”
The first primary votes are still nearly 10 months away, giving Mr. Bush’s team plenty of time to adjust, and Republicans show no sign of unifying behind another candidate. Mr. Bush’s advisers say he never believed he would be able to clear the field. And they say his refusal to bend to the demands of people whose views he does not share demonstrates that he is running a different type of race.
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“As Governor Bush considers the possibility of a run, he’s working hard to earn the support of people throughout the party and deliver a positive message about how conservative reforms can restore opportunity and prosperity for more Americans,” Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bush, said in an email.
In January, Mr. Bush’s allies started using the phrase “shock and awe” to describe his plan to lock up as many of the party’s major donors and policy experts as possible. The intent was to make him the sole credible contender for the blessing of the Republican establishment. Mr. Bush was successful in driving the 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, from trying another campaign. And few doubt that he leads in fund-raising, though his organization will not have to disclose its finances until July.
But while Mr. Bush continues to position himself as Republicans’ best hope in the general election, recent polls show him performing no better against Hillary Rodham Clinton than Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin or Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. And he is well behind Mr. Walker in Iowa, which has made a habit of rejecting candidates seen as their party’s inevitable nominees.
“If he’s going to run for the presidency because his father and his brother were president, is that why we should support him?” asked Colleen Platt, a City Council member in University Park, Iowa.
There is also lingering suspicion of Mr. Bush among the Tea Party grass roots, which arose while Mr. Bush was focused on business and philanthropic interests.
Ovide Lamontagne, the Tea Party candidate in the 2010 Republican primary for the Senate in New Hampshire, suggested that Mr. Bush had not reached out sufficiently to conservatives there. “A good number of candidates” have approached him, he said, but Mr. Bush has not.
Many big fund-raisers continue to shop around. Paul Singer, one of Wall Street’s most sought-after Republican donors, is holding a series of dinners to introduce his associates to various candidates.
And John A. Catsimatidis, a New York Republican, contributed $50,000 to a super PAC backing Mr. Bush and recently gave him a ride to Florida on his plane — but has also contributed to Mr. Walker’s political organization.
Several donors said it was too early to line up behind one candidate, or hinted that Mr. Bush should not take their support for granted.
“I don’t subscribe to ‘shock and awe,’ ” said John Rakolta Jr., a Michigan construction executive and former top fund-raiser for Mr. Romney. “I don’t think it’s a constructive strategy.”
Mr. Bush’s intense focus on fund-raising has left him to contend with a donor class far more restive than in his brother’s day, before the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and other court rulings amplified the power of wealthy contributors.
For example, Mr. Bush must navigate between the party base, which remains strongly opposed to same-sex marriage, and elite donors who have tried to steer the party to support it or leave the issue aside altogether.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
In California last week, Mr. Bush told donors that he approved of a decision by Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana to seek changes to a new law billed as protecting religious freedom — just two days after Mr. Bush had firmly defended it on a conservative radio show.
Jewish donors also remain angry at Mr. Bush for a March 23 speech that Mr. Baker, who was secretary of state under Mr. Bush’s father, delivered to J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group. Mr. Adelson, perhaps the single largest Republican donor, quickly complained to Mel Sembler, a Florida developer who has long supported Mr. Bush. And Mr. Bush was pressed again about Mr. Baker’s speech at another California event last week.
In defending himself, Mr. Bush, who has described himself as “my own man” on foreign policy, pointed out that his brother had a strong record of support for Israel, one attendee said.
Mr. Sembler declined to discuss his call with Mr. Adelson, but maintained that most of the party’s big donors were moving to Mr. Bush. He acknowledged, though, that “a few” were saying they would “hold off and see who else is really going to get in.”
Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate, suggested that Mr. Bush’s candidacy was like a car built to endure the occasional speed bump. He predicted that Mr. Bush would begin to speak more loudly and clearly, and to define himself less by his surname.
“He’s going to have to stake out his claim here,” Mr. Pawlenty said. “And the sooner the better.”
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Unlike Hillary, none of the R's including Bush start with a presumed coronation. Jeb has the same challenge to set himself apart that all the other Republicans have. Even among those who follow this closely, we barely know him.
One other Jeb quote from the interview I posted this week. Regarding how his Catholic faith would guide his governing, this is encouraging:
"I’m going to get my economic policy from Milton Friedman and others like that, not from the Pope."
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By
Patrick O’Connor And
Beth Reinhard
April 9, 2015 2:51 p.m. ET
0 COMMENTS
The day after Jeb Bush signed landmark “stand your ground” legislation, one Florida resident emailed the then-governor to thank him “for allowing us to defend ourselves.”
“You are most welcome,” Mr. Bush replied.
The former Florida governor is confronting a conservative backlash for his positions on education and immigration. This week, he’ll turn to an issue on which he garners much higher marks from the right: guns.
Key to his appeal is the 2005 decision to sign a bill, among the most sweeping of its kind, that expanded protections for Floridians who use deadly force against home intruders or people who attack them in their cars, workplace or even on the street. The law has since become a touchstone in a broader debate about the use of deadly force, following the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teen.
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Against that backdrop, Mr. Bush and nearly a dozen other potential Republican White House hopefuls will tout their support for gun rights Friday at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Nashville, Tenn.
The three-day event, which draws thousands of gun enthusiasts each year, will be a fresh opportunity for Mr. Bush to win over conservative activists who have been cool to his likely White House bid. His speech Friday is a venue to promote his conservative record as Florida governor.
Not attending is Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky because of a scheduling conflict. Top NRA officials are also unhappy Mr. Paul has for years lent his name to the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that fashions itself a more conservative alternative to NRA.
During his eight-year stretch as governor, Mr. Bush signed numerous bills extending new rights to gun owners, including those to expand protections for people permitted to carry concealed firearms. As a result, more than a million Floridians have permits to carry concealed weapons. He also approved a measure allowing Florida to extend its protections to residents of other states who visit the Sunshine State.
“He’s probably more conservative on guns than anybody in that race,” said Bill Bunting, a prominent gun-rights activist and a GOP committeeman with the state party. “He’s got a perfect track record.”
Most Republicans eying presidential bids are strong supporters of gun rights. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is expected to launch his campaign Monday, voted for the state’s stand-your-ground law in 2005 as a member of the state House.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a version of the law in 2007, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has made his support for similar legislation a staple of his early stump speech. Mr. Paul, who just announced his bid, has advocated allowing teachers and principals to possess guns to prevent school shootings like the one that occurred in 2012 in the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
In the months before Mr. Bush signed Florida’s stand-your-ground law, he traded emails with the leading NRA lobbyist in the state, Marion Hammer. In one exchange, Ms. Hammer assured the governor the state Legislature would be the first in the country to pass a sweeping bill that included provisions protecting gun owners in their homes and from civil liability. “We’re the first to do the whole package,” she wrote.
In the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, Mr. Bush said the law shouldn’t have applied in those circumstances, in which the teen was shot by a self-appointed local neighborhood watchman. Mr. Bush also expressed sympathy for the victim’s family, telling reporters that “anytime an innocent life is taken, it’s a tragedy,” and he questioned the pace of the investigation.
But Mr. Bush didn’t waver in his support for the underlying legislation. “Applied properly, I support the law,” Mr. Bush said shortly after the incident.
At the time the bill passed, critics argued it would result in the death of innocent, unarmed people.
Mr. Bush “was aware of the possible ramifications,” said Democratic state Sen. Chris Smith, a vocal critic when he was still in the state House. “We brought up Trayvon Martin situations in those debates.”
Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said the governor “signed the ‘stand your ground’ law in an effort to protect individuals who felt in danger of imminent peril, great bodily harm or death.”
In private, Mr. Bush acknowledged the concerns. Days before he signed the law, a Parkland, Fla., resident emailed to say, “From what I understand about this bill it would put a lot of young BLACK men in harm’s way.”
The governor forwarded her note to his staff, and asked: “what is this about?”
When his aide explained the bill was the stand-your-ground measure advocated by Ms. Hammer, Mr. Bush replied: “We will need a response to this and to the others that will come.”
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Gun rights, second amendment and stand your ground law is another area where Jeb is consistent with conservative, constitutional principles.
It keeps coming back to immigration.
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Well, the question we all knew was coming has been asked, and he has answered. It will be very interesting to see how the opponents and the polls respond,
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/05/10/jeb-bush-says-he-would-have-invaded-iraq-like-his-brother-did-video/
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Aside from his campaign personnel, there is no interest in Jeb as president.
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http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/jeb-bush-in-95-single-mothers-should-be-publicly-shamed-for-giving-birth-outside-of-marriage/
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Jeb Bush formally launched his presidential campaign on Monday, and no candidate needed it more. The former Florida Governor’s non-campaign so far has been curiously defensive, but now he has a new opening to make the case for why he can beat Hillary Clinton and be a worthy President.
Mr. Bush’s drawn-out pre-campaign allowed him to help his Super PAC raise money, and fundraising has been his biggest success to date. Money is an important measure of support, especially in a GOP field that is larger and more formidable than any in memory. Mr. Bush’s cash hoard will give him staying power to make it to the Florida primary or the later regional contests in an extended race.
But Mr. Bush’s long launch fuse has also made his candidacy seem more hesitant than dynamic, more biographical than about leading a larger cause. He has spent more time answering questions about his family name, and his brother’s foreign policy, than he has laying out his own campaign principles.
The focus on biography is especially harmful because many Republicans are instinctively averse to nominating the third Bush in 30 years. This does not mean Jeb should take the media bait of trying to explain how he is different than either his brother or his father. It does require offering a vision and agenda that are bold enough to set the terms of the debate, and then show that he can sell them.
The latter is important as a contrast with his brother, who had a difficult time making the case for conservative ideas. George W. was a back-slapper in a way Jeb is not, but Jeb understands policy in a way that George W. and their father George H.W. rarely made clear. Conservatives haven’t had a great political communicator since Reagan. Voters will make their own judgments about whether Jeb is a different, better brand of Bush.
In his announcement speech, Mr. Bush rightly made his primary goal to lift the country out of its Obama-era economic lethargy. “We will take Washington—the static capital of this dynamic country—out of the business of causing problems,” he said.
He set a target of returning to 4% annual growth in GDP, which may sound like a stretch after the Obama era of close to 2%. But the country had a run of 4%-plus growth in both the 1980s and 1990s, and Mr. Bush said so did Florida when he was Governor.
The 62-year-old made much of his Florida record, also with good cause. Along with former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Mr. Bush is arguably the most successful state executive of the last 20 years.
“Bush made Florida into a laboratory of conservative governance,” writes Matthew Corrigan, a professor who is no conservative but whose book “Conservative Hurricane: How Jeb Bush Remade Florida” is the definitive rebuttal to those who portray him as a moderate. It is also a way to contrast his experience with the Senate candidates who’ve never run anything.
In two terms Mr. Bush left his fast-growing state’s government relatively smaller and its tax burden lower. He reformed tort laws and eliminated racial preferences.
He was in particular a pioneer in education reform, especially school choice and despite a hostile state supreme court that ruled that school vouchers violated the state constitution’s Blaine Amendment, an anti-Catholic remnant of the 19th century.
Mr. Bush worked around the court with the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship that lets donors deduct from their tax bills contributions to school scholarships for private or public schools. It has since grown into one of the largest voucher programs in the country, and it has become a model for other states, most recently Nevada.
Another Bush asset is his proven ability to attract non-Republican voters. He stepped down as Governor with a nearly 60% approval rating in a state that Barack Obama carried twice and Bill Clinton once. Republicans can’t retake the White House without Florida and other swing states like Colorado and Virginia with growing minority populations.
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In 2016 the biggest divide in the GOP field isn’t between conservatives and moderates. The most important contrast concerns political strategy and pits the dividers against the uniters. Mr. Bush, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and perhaps Ohio Governor John Kasich think the GOP has to expand its appeal with an inclusive message of growth, upward mobility and a softer edge on the culture. Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum believe the path to the nomination and victory in 2016 is to polarize the national debate around immigration and cultural issues.
The polarizing strategy was plausible when the GOP could claim a presidential majority. But Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the last six elections, and demography is moving their way. That is why Mrs. Clinton is so eager to run as an Elizabeth Warren-Barack Obama polarizer. Conservatives will do better if they seek to expand the GOP and make a case for unifying the country.
Mr. Bush’s candidacy enlivens this GOP debate and adds to the list of candidates who would give the coronated Mrs. Clinton a run for the Clinton Foundation’s money.
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Other than the problems we have previously noted here about Gov. Bush, he would be one of the best candidates in the race.
This piece below predicts a Jeb victory. I don't agree. I'm pulling for a less experienced underdog, but the points made are mostly valid.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/five-reasons-jeb-bush-will-be-the-next-president/article/2566237
Five reasons Jeb Bush will be the next president
1. Bush is seeking to grow the Republican Party.
Rather than trying to expand his support among conservative voters, Bush is trying to make inroads with moderate, swing voters. For example, when I've heard Bush talk about his education reforms in Florida, he doesn't just give conservative talking points about expanding families' freedom to choose the school that's best for them. He explains how successful the reforms have been in making Florida's Hispanic, black and low-income students outscore students in other states.
Bush is a true Big Tent Republican. He generally doesn't attack other Republicans, and when he attacks Democrats, he generally avoids the outraged tone that other GOP candidates employ. This will be an attractive feature to the growing share of voters who are fed up with the politics of perpetual outrage. Conservative voters likely won't like his moderate approach to immigration or his support for Common Core. But Bush isn't flip-flopping on those issues; instead, he is working to convince conservatives of his positions while taking his message to moderate voters.
2. He's already in the lead.
Bush leads the RealClearPolitics polling average (although Scott Walker and Marco Rubio are very close behind). His drive to attract moderate voters will expand his base of support. Few others are competing for the same voters, leaving Bush nowhere to go but up.
After a shake-up in the management of his campaign even before it launches, many have suggested that Bush's campaign is faltering. I'm reminded of July 2007, when John McCain's campaign manager and chief strategist left. The entire campaign was downsized. In the end, McCain's shake-up was worse than Bush's, and things turned out okay for McCain. Surely Bush can do the same, if not better.
3. Other Republicans are shifting to the right.
At one point in the last few months I thought Walker had the best chance of winning the nomination. Then he showed what kind of voters he was trying to attract by taking ultra-conservative positions on national policy issues. Very conservative voters were already impressed by Walker's record of standing up to intense union opposition, and many would have supported him anyway. By shifting to the right on immigration, foreign policy and social issues, Walker has made himself look more conservative and less attractive to voters who weren't already inclined to support him.
With other Republicans moving rightward, there's a vacuum in the middle of the electorate — one that Bush is well-placed to fill.
4. Hillary Clinton is shifting to the left.
Clinton started the campaign with an unprecedented lead against her competitors. With the Democratic nomination all but sealed, it would only make sense for her to stay in the ideological center so as not to scare away moderate general election voters. Instead, Clinton has done the opposite, championing left-wing causes like debt-free college and automatic voter registration.
The New York Times' David Brooks has called Clinton's campaign strategy a "mistake" and bad for the country. Meanwhile, Brooks wrote, "Jeb Bush is trying to expand his party's reach." With Clinton abandoning independent voters, Bush's reach into the middle will go uncontested from the left, leaving Bush an opportunity to gain support.
5. No, Jeb doesn't have a "Bush" problem.
George H.W. Bush failed to win re-election in 1992. I'm sure some pundits must have thought the Bush family name would be tainted forever due to his unpopularity. But Bush's son won the presidency just eight years later, and was re-elected with more support than in his initial election. Today, George W. Bush's favorable ratings are above 50 percent, which is more than President Obama and Hillary Clinton can say about theirs.
Hillary's Obama problem is worse than Jeb's Bush problem.
The Democratic candidate, no matter who it is, is going to be tied to Obama's approval rating. Hillary Clinton will be especially tied to his foreign policy, having served as his secretary of state. The ongoing situation in Ukraine will cause her a lot of problems, given her "reset button" stunt.
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Trying to inoculate himself from stories that are on the way about his own 'Clinton Cash' machine. Also trying to avoid the Mitt Romney train wreck.
Politico: Jeb's Wealth to Riches Story (funny title)
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/jeb-bush-tax-returns-119607.html?hp=r1_3
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On Jeb Bush's reading list: George Gilder: Knowledge and Power
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/07/reading-lists.php
Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World
http://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Power-Information-Capitalism-Revolutionizing/dp/1621570274
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Doug,
Your a Bush fan? :cry:
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One does not have to be a fan to find this interesting IMHO.
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Doug,
Your a Bush fan? :cry:
No. But I wish I could pick and choose good qualities from each.
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BTW, it should be "You're a Bush fan?" :lol:
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Jeb's Misstep Shows Problem With His Candidacy
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on July 12, 2015
When Jeb Bush said that "people have to work longer hours and, through productivity,
gain more income for their families," he was doing much more than flubbing his
lines. He was flagging a basic reason not to nominate him.
Bush claimed that his remarks were taken out of context. And they were. He was
discussing the large number of Americans who are working part time and urging them
to seek full-time work. He should have gone on to attack the Obamacare law for
incentivizing part-time employment by requiring only employers of full time workers
to get them health insurance.
But, nevertheless, the very fact that he fell into this blooper illustrates the
problem. When people who are known for their wealth, like the Bushes and the Romneys
of the world, say things that seem out of touch, they are not given the benefit of
the doubt. Ask Marie Antoinette about her "let them eat cake" comment that some
historians say she never said. Or ask Bush Senior how his passivity in the face of
the 1991 recession was interpreted.
Class warriors in the Democratic Party are constantly on the lookout for such
remarks by rich Republicans. Mitt Romney had a point in saying that Democrats had a
lock on 47percent of the vote. He was wrong only in that he included Medicare,
Social Security, and Veterans Benefits in his stat. If he left them out and spoke
only of the 35 percent on means-tested entitlements, he would have had it exactly
right. But it cost him the election nonetheless.
How did Jeb come to make such a gaffe? He probably got an economics briefing that
cited part-time work as a cause of low incomes. He naturally drew the interpretation
that people need to work longer hours. Someone with more street experience would
realize that very few of the part-time workers actually want only part-time work. In
2014, 7.3 million Americans worked part time but wanted full-time jobs. The briefer
forgot to mention that.
But Jeb doesn't realize the situation of part-time workers, so he flubbed the comment.
It will happen again and again. You cannot substitute good briefings for real
experience.
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It's going to be hard for all of them to run a 2 year campaign, take interviews continuously and not mis-speak, misunderstand or be taken wrong..
"But Jeb doesn't realize the situation of part-time workers, so he flubbed the comment."
That is the problem, when the screwup confirms something already suspected.
Part time work is a good and a bad thing, depending on a lot of other factors. No sweeping statement can be said about it without spelling out context and that everyone faces different circumstances. Like the Romney-47%, a lot of the 29 hourers like their leisurely life and their QE-subsidized healthcare, etc.
Meanwhile Hillary says workers want a raise, not longer hours. In her world, a private sector raise, like family leave, comes from a government declaration or mandate, not by making the business climate more conducive to productive investment.
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Bush has all the charisma of a bowl of cold oatmeal.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeb-bush-medicare_55b11e41e4b0a9b94853e9eb?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
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s Florida Governor, Jeb Bush conquered what he called “Mount Tallahassee,” and now that he’s running for President he is proposing to do the same to “Mount Washington.” On Monday he offered some initial ideas on how to do it, and some are better than others.
The good news is that he wants to start by reducing the size of the bureaucratic Everest. “You can have a fast-expanding economy or you can have a fast expanding government, but you can’t have both,” he said in a speech at Florida State University.
His best idea would freeze the federal workforce and then reduce it by 10% over four years through attrition. In particular he proposes a “three-out, one-in” rule—one new hire for every three who leave. According to the White House budget office historical tables, that would shrink federal civilian employment by some 210,000 from the 2.114 million full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in the executive branch in 2015. As recently as 2008 there were 1.875 million FTEs.
For skeptics who doubt this is possible, Mr. Bush pointed to his record in Florida, where the state workforce fell by 11% over his eight years despite a rising state population. He can also point to Journal contributor and NYU scholar Paul Light, who has described the “inefficiency and bloat” of more than 10,000 senior executives “who occupy more than 60 layers of management just at the top” of the Washington organization chart. Ten percent may be shooting too low.
Mr. Bush also wants a line-item veto along the lines Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan has proposed. This is a hardy perennial, but it would at the margin enhance the power of a President who wants to control spending (unlike the current one).
“If we reform how government works,” Mr. Bush said, “and build capacity for people to achieve earned success by our very nature we’ll all become conservatives because the demands on government will subside.”
Mr. Bush’s other ideas are more populist gimmicks than genuine reforms. Take his pitch to dock the pay of Senators and Congressmen when they don’t show up for votes. We’d be happier if a couple hundred of them didn’t show up at all. But in any case Mr. Bush couldn’t do this without Congress’s consent, and he’d need their votes to get more important things done. Americans can always throw the bums out during elections.
Even worse is Mr. Bush’s call for a six-year ban on lobbying for former members of the House and Senate, as well as expanding the definition of lobbyist so more people come under its restrictions. This buys into the liberal narrative that the problem in Washington is too many lobbyists.
Businesses have no choice but to lobby a government that can cripple them with a single new regulation. The First Amendment also gives all Americans the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The real problem is the opportunities for corruption and special dealing that a too-large government provides. Every new regulation or twist of the tax code is an opening for some powerful Member to assist the powerful. But the solution is to reduce the size and scope of the regulatory state and to reform the tax code. Mr. Bush says he plans to propose both regulatory and tax reforms, and those will do more to reduce the influence of lobbyists than will restrictions on lobbyists that will be evaded in any case.
One other benefit of a government that tries to do fewer things with fewer people: It might be able to launch a website without crashing.
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Ten weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., a financial disaster that ushered in the global economic crisis in September 2008, Jeb Bush was in Mexico City to seek help from billionaire Carlos Slim.
Mr. Bush signed on with Lehman after leaving the Florida governor’s mansion, making it clear he wanted work as a hands-on investment banker rather than hold a ceremonial role typically given ex-politicians. Now was his chance.
Mr. Bush was a longtime acquaintance of Mr. Slim, at the time ranked as the world’s second wealthiest individual and one of several deep-pocketed investors on Lehman’s radar. “Project Verde” was supposed to bring home badly needed cash and confidence. Mr. Slim, however, was more interested in talking baseball than investing in the troubled firm.
More doors closed that summer before Lehman shut its own, but Mr. Bush, following in the footsteps of a grandfather and great-grandfather, latched onto investment banking through the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
For more than seven years, nearly the length of his two gubernatorial terms, Mr. Bush, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, spent as much as half of his working hours advising Lehman and later Barclays, which bought the collapsed investment bank’s U.S. business. He wasn’t an employee of the firms, said people familiar with the matter, but was paid to attend meetings, dinners and conferences where he spoke to clients and bank executives on such subjects as health care, education, immigration and energy—matters he has started taking up this year with voters.
Mr. Bush earned about $1.3 million a year at Lehman and some $2 million from Barclays, his campaign said.
Bankers and trading executives described Mr. Bush’s contributions as “rich in content,” which on Wall Street translates to having the kind of timely expertise that clients expect from top firms on topics essential to their investments.
“I spent a lot of time, I probably spent about 40% of my time working for Barclays,” Mr. Bush told reporters in June. “I did a lot of their conferences where I spoke and I interacted with their clients.”
Mr. Bush received a warm welcome on Wall Street, where financial firms often seek former political figures to help open doors. At least six firms offered Mr. Bush a position when he finished his second term as governor in January 2007, according to people familiar with the matter.
When he joined Lehman in June that year, Mr. Bush was the brother of a sitting U.S. president, George W. Bush, and already had ties with the investment bank, known for its scrappy culture and aggressive management team led by chief executive Richard Fuld, a longtime Democrat.
Mr. Bush would spend most of his time at Lehman working under Steve Lessing, who had been a “Ranger” for George W. Bush, a title for supporters who raised at least $200,000 for Mr. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign. Mr. Lessing headed client-relationship management and was the face of the firm to many money managers, hedge funds and insurance companies.
Mr. Bush soon drew the attention of Lehman’s senior investment bankers, who looked for ways to put him in front of clients. He appeared at conferences for health-care clients and corporate directors, and joined a ski junket for bankers, people familiar with the matter said. He crisscrossed the country and flew commercial, often alone.
In late 2007, Lehman executives who spotted him striding past in midtown Manhattan— BlackBerry pressed to his ear—said they recalled thinking that Mr. Bush, in a matter of months, had completed his transition from governor to harried bank executive. “This guy is the brother of the president, just walking by himself, no security,” a former Lehman manager said.
Mr. Bush said he spent most of his time at Lehman “dealing with their customer base, providing insights in things like the madness of Washington, D.C.”
More than a dozen of Mr. Bush’s former colleagues and clients described him as focused, blunt and often opinionated. Unlike most former politicians in finance, Mr. Bush was seen as “commercial,” almost a term of endearment on Wall Street meaning he understood how bankers prepared for meetings, advised clients and made money. He frequently reminded clients he was part of a team and ended meetings with a “thank you for letting us work for you,” or a direct appeal to hire the bank, recalled one former Barclays banker.
Mr. Bush’s banking experience is unusual for a presidential candidate, said Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. More common backgrounds are in law, politics or the U.S. military. Finance, however, is part of the Bush family history. Jeb’s great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker, and grandfather, Prescott Bush, both worked at the firm that became investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
“I’d say for the Kennedys, politics was in their DNA,” Ms. Perry said. “In the case of the Bushes, it’s both politics and high finance.”
Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich, another candidate for the GOP nomination, also worked as a managing director at Lehman in the eight years leading up its 2008 demise.
Mr. Bush’s Wall Street work could play well with many traditional Republican voters. It also could be a lightning rod for criticism.
Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, was pilloried by some of his Republican primary competitors, as well as President Barack Obama’s campaigners, for his longtime work as a private-equity executive.
“If 2012 taught us anything, it is that you have to be well-prepared to tell your story about your business experience in a proactive way before your opponents frame it negatively around your neck as an albatross with voters,” said Kevin Madden, a top aide to Mr. Romney during his 2008 election bid.
Mr. Bush has previously taken a softer line toward the financial sector than his campaign rivals, particularly Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who are also seeking the Republican nomination.
Earlier this year, a political-action committee that has endorsed Mr. Paul launched an ad campaign dubbed “Bailout Bush.” The group criticized Mr. Bush for, among other things, his stints at Lehman and Barclays, as well as his past endorsement of government support for banks during the crisis.
At a November 2013 event for a Wall Street trade group, Mr. Bush said banks have been unfairly maligned. Privately, he has voiced issues with the landmark Dodd-Frank bill to overhaul financial regulations after the crisis.
“If you listen to most of the media, the banks and the financial industries in general are bad, and they should be shrunk or taken apart,” Mr. Bush said at the 2013 gathering, adding that a “strong banking sector is essential to provide the capital that fuels economic growth.”
He also said that banks, “while having made some terrible and costly decisions in the past, are now doing business in a much more responsible way.”
Mr. Bush’s contracts with Lehman and Barclays stipulated the firms wouldn’t ask him to lobby Washington, people familiar with the matter said. As Barclays and other banks scrambled to influence the wave of new rules in the wake of the financial crisis, former colleagues said, Mr. Bush stayed out of it.
Around the time of his 2008 Mexico City trip, Mr. Bush was on the board of a Lehman fund pursuing investments in toll roads and other public works. His successor, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, in the months after Mr. Bush left office, had signed a bill allowing the state to lease some toll roads, including a stretch of interstate 75, known as Alligator Alley.
Mr. Bush studied documents and advised Lehman executives on the deal, as well as the state’s political pitfalls, according to people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Bush brought lots of energy and “creative problem-solving skills” to Lehman, said Emil Henry, a former executive with the firm who has been active in GOP politics.
By August 2008, Lehman had joined a consortium that was among six bidders on the project. The firm collapsed the following month and Barclays, a U.K.-based lender, bought its U.S. operations following a bankruptcy filing.
Lehman’s fall
Mr. Bush said he wasn’t consulted about Lehman’s difficulties as it veered toward bankruptcy, according to congressional testimony and people familiar with the matter. During a 2012 U.S. House committee hearing, he said no one asked him to intervene on behalf of the firm. Mr. Bush said Mr. Fuld, Lehman’s chief executive, “didn’t ask me to do anything, and I didn’t do anything.”
Mr. Fuld had weighed asking Mr. Bush to call his brother, the president, and raised the idea to some of his executives, people familiar with the matter said. They urged their boss against it, arguing it would put the Bush brothers in an awkward position, the people said, and they doubted it would help.
After Lehman’s collapse, Mr. Bush followed Mr. Lessing to Barclays as a senior adviser, a post he kept until stepping down in December 2014 to weigh a presidential run. The request to keep Mr. Bush after the takeover was blessed by Robert Diamond, then Barclays’s chief executive and a Massachusetts native who had been a fundraiser for John McCain’s 2008 campaign, people familiar with the matter said.
Executives at insurer MetLife Inc. came to view Mr. Bush as part of Barclays’ “coverage team,” the bankers who would regularly call on the insurance company’s leaders, according to people familiar with the matter.
While at Barclays, Mr. Bush also became a trusted adviser to Cigna Inc. Chief Executive David Cordani, people familiar with the matter said.
“Our discussions with key leaders, including Jeb Bush, enable us to understand the perspectives of key thought leaders and share our ideas,” said a spokesman at Cigna, a Bloomfield, Conn., health insurer.
The Affordable Care Act has helped draw Cigna and other managed-care companies into a merger frenzy to save costs and expand market share. Last month, Cigna agreed to sell itself to rival Anthem Inc.
Mr. Lessing said Mr. Bush “added unquestionable value to our clients over the years, and we are delighted they were able to benefit from his time as a senior adviser with us.”
“It wasn’t the Barclays view, it was the Jeb view, about how the world works and it seems to have been quite effective,” Mr. Bush said during the June news briefing. “The amount of time I spent traveling the world talking to their top clients was an indication that I did add value for the enterprise.”
Mr. Bush’s life on Wall Street marked a return to finance. After graduating from the University of Texas in 1974, he took a job at Texas Commerce Bank, a lender founded by the family of James Baker III, who later held cabinet posts in the administration of Mr. Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush.
Jeb Bush had joined the bank’s international division, where he worked on analyzing sovereign risks. While based in Caracas, Venezuela, he was frequently on the road to meet clients, extending the banks’ reach to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. He took a leave of absence in 1980 to work on his father’s campaign and never returned.
Mr. Bush’s fluency in Spanish and extensive experience in Latin America made him a good choice for the July 2, 2008, trip to Mexico City. He also knew Mr. Slim well: the Mexican billionaire had lent a collection of small-scale Rodin sculptures for the Florida governor’s mansion when Mr. Bush lived there.
Lehman was canvassing a number of rival banks and financial companies in the wake of Bear Stearns Cos.’s near-collapse and rescue by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. earlier that year.
The trip also gave Mr. Bush a chance to accompany Arizona’s Sen. McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, for part of a campaign swing to Latin America. On July 3, Mr. Bush joined Mr. McCain and his wife for a tour of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Mr. Bush and a handful of Lehman advisers also met with Mr. Slim in his office that day to propose a number of deals, including an investment in Lehman. The answer, the Lehman team soon learned, was no.
“Project verde was unsuccessful,” Mr. Bush wrote to a colleague after the meeting in a July 5, 2008 email made public during Lehman’s bankruptcy proceedings. “He did not express interest in jv or stock purchase.”
About two months later, on the Monday that Lehman filed for bankruptcy, Mr. Bush was in Florida alongside Mr. McCain.
At a campaign stop in Jacksonville, Mr. McCain railed against the Bush administration’s failure to regulate Wall Street and said taxpayers shouldn’t pay for Lehman’s bailout. “I promise you we will never put America in this position again,” Mr. McCain told voters. “We will clean up Wall Street.”
Write to Justin Baer at justin.baer@wsj.com
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My new tax plan will push growth to 4%: Jeb Bush
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/09/my-new-tax-plan-will-push-economic-growth-to-4-jeb-bush.html
Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush said Wednesday his tax plan would help fuel growth by empowering Americans and creating an environment for investment.
The former Florida governor will unveil the plan later Wednesday. He previewed the agenda in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Tuesday, saying he would lower taxes, simplify the tax code and eliminate "lobbyist-created" loopholes.
"I think we need to grow at a far faster rate than we're growing today. Two percent is fine for people who have already made it, particularly with our monetary policy, but it's putting a lid on people's aspirations," Bush told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "A high-growth strategy requires first and foremost a dramatic reform of our tax code."
Bush is campaigning on the premise that with the right policies, the United States economy can grow at 4 percent.
Bush said he would simplify the personal tax rates to 10, 25 and 28 percent and double the exclusion so that many low-income earners won't pay taxes at all.
"That system for personal taxes will create I think an environment where people will be saving more," he said. "All people will get a tax cut of some kind."
Bush said the plan would achieve "dramatic economic effects" by reducing corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 20 percent, allowing companies to fully expense capital investment and eliminating the deduction for interest expense for corporate borrowing.
Interest income, dividends and capital gains would also be taxed at 20 percent under Bush's plan.
"Can you imagine a country that would have a tax code of the lowest tax rate in the entire industrialized world, and where you're rewarding investing in a factory—100 percent deduction? And you're rewarding equity?" he asked. "You're going to see an explosion of investment in this country."
Combined with regulatory reform and America's energy revolution, the plan would provide an opportunity for the United States to re-industrialize and to create higher wage jobs, he said.
"We need to increase productivity to create higher wages and this plan would do it. This would stimulate higher growth. Combined with other initiatives, you could get to 4 percent growth," he said.
Among the loopholes that Bush would close include the treatment of carried interest, which currently benefits hedge funds. The plan would not allow private equity firms to deduct the interest tied to buying companies either, Bush said.
"This is a radical departure. We're rewarding equity and investing in hard assets," he said.
"Wall Street's had a pretty good ride here engineering and using great creativity and great skills to be able to make American businesses the most competitive in the world, but we're not growing. We're not investing in our own country. People are stuck in the middle."
Investment bankers will have the opportunity to find new ways to service the investment that will lead to higher growth, Bush said.
As for U.S. companies' foreign profits, Bush would allow companies to repatriate cash held overseas by paying a one-time tax of 8.75 percent, with payment spread over 10 years. After that, he would eliminate taxes on overseas earnings
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OTOH he was on the premiere episode last night of Steven Colbert's Late Night show-- with George Clooney getting top billing and Jeb not appearing until the 49th minute of the show). The audience was cold (no surprise there) Colbert snarky (no surprise there) and Jeb weak (no surprise there either).
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BTW, when Jeb talks about his performance in Florida and all the good he did, just remember this.
Florida was Ground Zero for the Housing Boom. From 2000 to early 2007, Housing Construction and Growth was rampant. Workers were employed in increasing numbers. The tax base significantly expanded. All the benefits that one would expect from a Booming Economy built upon fraud. (Notice how I get the last point of a Booming Economy built on fraud? Think today.)
When the Crash occurred, all of that went away. But I doubt the Jeb will ever admit to how Housing gave the lie to the great economy and works of miracles that he performed.
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A fair point.
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Jeb Bush last night on Colbert or whoever...
https://youtu.be/g9Iuk9BYJKA (https://youtu.be/g9Iuk9BYJKA)
Now he is a 10th Amendment advocate for Gun Control. States can pass their own laws bypassing the 2nd Amendment. This would be restricting sales to those mentally unstable.
But who makes the rules?
Not going to be good for him.
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Jeb Bush last night on Colbert or whoever...
https://youtu.be/g9Iuk9BYJKA (https://youtu.be/g9Iuk9BYJKA)
Now he is a 10th Amendment advocate for Gun Control. States can pass their own laws bypassing the 2nd Amendment. This would be restricting sales to those mentally unstable.
But who makes the rules?
Not going to be good for him.
Act of love.
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I'm certainly NOT a Jeb fan but listening to what he said there on the 10th and keeping loons for having guns presented little problem for me.
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Conventional politics says presidential candidates should keep their tax reform plans gauzy and nonspecific. So much for that. Jeb Bush on Wednesday rolled out a tax plan that is remarkably detailed, including the tax deductions he’d eliminate in return for cutting rates to spur faster economic growth.
The former Florida Governor has made reviving growth and raising wages his main policy goals, and the tax plan is his first down payment on getting there. These are the right goals given six years of tepid growth and median household income that is still lower than when the expansion began in 2009. Faster growth than 2% a year is crucial to solving every other problem—from drawing more Americans back into the workforce, to reducing poverty, to financing U.S. defenses against growing global threats.
Tax reform is essential to reviving growth, but the danger is that it can become a slogan that masks bad policy. Hillary Clinton’s reform idea is to raise taxes on capital investment, which would harm growth. Some GOP “reformacons” want to play on Democratic turf and redistribute income via tax credits, which does nothing for growth.
Opinion Journal Video
Hoover Institution Distinguished Visiting Fellow Kevin Warsh on what distinguishes the candidate’s tax plan from other GOP presidential contenders. Photo credit: Getty Images.
The point is that the reform details matter, and Mr. Bush’s proposal is a vast improvement on the current tax code that would give the economy a huge lift. His brain trust includes four economists— John Cogan, Martin Feldstein, Glenn Hubbard and Kevin Warsh—who have spent years thinking about taxes and have written often for these pages.
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The pro-growth news starts with a sharp reduction in marginal tax rates on individual and corporate income. Mr. Bush would take the top personal rate down to 28% from well above 40% now (including surcharges and phase-outs), while the top corporate rate would go to 20% from 35%. These are big cuts that would have a major impact on the incentive to work and invest.
Liberal economists argue that marginal rates don’t matter now that they are no longer above 50%. But the Reagan reform of 1986—which Mr. Bush cites as a precedent—cut the top rate to 28% from 50%. That reform helped to sustain the 1980s economic boom and set the stage for growth through the 1990s.
Mr. Bush’s corporate rate cut would move the U.S. from the developed world’s highest to below the median. He’d move to a territorial system that would let businesses pay taxes in the country where income is earned, and he would apply a one-time tax hit of 8.75% (payable over 10 years) on the $2.1 trillion in income that companies keep abroad to avoid the punishing U.S. rate.
The GOP candidate would also turbocharge capital spending by letting businesses deduct 100% of new investment immediately. This would eliminate complicated depreciation schedules that often distort investment choices. It also targets a major weak spot in this recovery, which is capital spending. All of this would increase the return on capital investment, which would flow to workers in higher wages.
The Bush economists argue conservatively that about 50% of the corporate tax burden hits workers, and they estimate that the Bush tax and regulatory reforms would lift average compensation by $2,750 a year by 2020 and $6,200 by 2025 (in 2015 dollars). This is how faster growth lifts everyone far more than does liberal or conservative income redistribution.
In return for this rate-cutting, Mr. Bush proposes to limit deductions and eliminate loopholes—including some political favorites. On the personal side, he’d kill the federal tax write-off for state and local taxes. This won’t go down well in liberal California or New York, but it means taxpayers in low-tax states would no longer have to subsidize profligate government. It would also give Mr. Bush a big bargaining chip with Congress if he becomes President.
Mr. Bush makes the mistake of preserving the charitable deduction, out of a belief that private charity reduces the need for government. But Americans are generous and don’t need a tax break to donate if tax rates are low enough. It also benefits the wealthy more than average taxpayers.
The better news is that Mr. Bush adopts Mr. Feldstein’s proposal to cap all other deductions combined at 2% of adjusted gross income. So taxpayers could still take the mortgage-interest and other deductions, but only up to the cap. Most taxpayers wouldn’t itemize under the Bush plan because he would also double the standard deduction, and the cap is progressive because it would squeeze taxpayers more as their income rises.
Mr. Bush’s most daring proposal is to kill the deduction for business interest expense. Economists have long believed that the U.S. tax code favors debt over equity, and Mr. Bush says he wants to level the playing field. This will upset businesses that run on leverage, but the tax code should be neutral toward business financing decisions. Deducting interest plus 100% expensing would also mean some businesses would have a negative tax rate.
Mr. Bush and his advisers acknowledge that all of this would raise less federal revenue than current law under conventional Washington scoring that assumes no increase in economic growth. But in the real world, unlike Washington, people and companies will respond to better incentives, the economy will grow faster, and over time government revenues will grow faster than without reform.
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Mr. Bush also promises a regulatory reform proposal this year, and his advisers predict that his regulatory and tax reforms together would increase GDP by about 0.8% a year for a decade. We’d argue that’s conservative, and the lesson of the 1980s and 1990s is that 4% growth is possible.
Naturally, liberals will denounce the Bush plan as a tax cut for the rich, but with fewer deductions many affluent Americans will pay more. The two-term Governor also eliminates the lower tax rate for hedge-fund carried interest, not that the left will give him any credit for it.
The obvious retort is that six years of President Obama’s higher taxes and income redistribution have produced less growth and more inequality. The only way to raise American wages and lift the poor and middle class is with faster economic growth, which requires unleashing the pent-up productive capacity of American workers and business.
Mr. Bush will have to sell his plan in the crowded GOP field, but perhaps his policy seriousness will steer Republicans away from this summer’s sloganeering and toward a debate about what really would make America great again.
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JOHN CASSIDY
JOHN CASSIDY 22 minutes ago
We need a President that will eliminate the IRS and install a flat tax for everyone.
If you are an American, you need to pay your share to pay for Congress's pork.
Eliminate IRS, eliminate unions, eliminate welfare, eliminate most Federal departments, then we could be a Great Country again.
As long as we have unions, as long as the IRS exists, as long as we give Americans welfare, America will not be great as it once was.
I do not care who the President is, unless these happen, forget about being great.
Working on a heavy caffeine buzz right now hence the radical comment.
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Keith Siegel
Keith Siegel 2 minutes ago
@JOHN CASSIDY yes, let's eliminate everything. You should run for president with such succinct and clear policy ideas. Keep you caffeine buzz going...it is proving to make you a Mensa candidate.
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Paula Dowling
Paula Dowling 24 minutes ago
GOP objectives are always the same...less taxes for the rich, and then - oh no! - there just isn’t enough left for social programs, entitlements and benefits! Don’t be fooled. Jeb’s tax plan is simply a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the wealthiest while the IRS taxes blue collar workers for very dollar of earned wages. . But then, the wealthiest are the folks who are paying for Jeb’s run, aren't they. Interesting that It doesn’t seem to matter to Jeb that brother W also pushed for the same tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans - with no spending offset and turned a budget offset into a trillion dollar structural deficit. Isn't it.
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JOHN CASSIDY
JOHN CASSIDY 17 minutes ago
@Paula Dowling
I disagree.
I think what's most interesting with the large Republican candidate pool is that they're actually telling us what they'd do as our President.
That's new to me.
Clinton is too occupied with getting her lies straight, although she does make time for the usual pandering.
Jeb isn't my first choice, but if he wins the nomination, I'm pretty sure that I would have to vote for him.
The lesser of the evils.
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Arne Pedersen
Arne Pedersen 24 minutes ago
I am not a fan of this tax plan, although it does have its merits. I prefer the Rand Paul tax plan. I think that one kick start the economy faster and more sustainable and robust growth. I do not think most Americans will research and care much.
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This is a very good tax plan for the economy and for the political reality we face today.
The plan hurts me personally; I pay massive property taxes relative to my income. But MN is a blue state like NY and Calif and as the WSJ points out, overtaxed states aren't going to like losing the state and local tax deduction. Jeb's political economists are right though, why should the rest of the country pay for New York, California (and MN, etc.) government excesses? They shouldn't.
28% is high enough for the top tax rate. Adding 10% or more for the worst state taxes, it is as high as you can go without making all the focus on avoiding the tax. Ironically, it was George Bush Sr. who ended Reagan's successful top rate of 28%.
Lowering the corporate rate from 35% to 20% is about right in terms of retaining revenue, restoring incentives and competing in the world.
AFTER establishing real, sustained growth and restoring the entrepreneur and worker participation rates, and demand for emergencyn government services returns to historic levels or better, tax rates can be cut further - IF we cut spending first.
Jeb still faces all the problems previously identified that he seems unwilling to deal with.
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Imagine the economic boom from the continued waves of act of lovers swarming in, if Prince Jeb the Unready got into office.
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The sisters do a Jeb!!!
http://www.diamondandsilkinc.com/vlog/2015/9/9/jeb-bush-presidental-run-is-putting-all-americans-to-sleep#commenting= (http://www.diamondandsilkinc.com/vlog/2015/9/9/jeb-bush-presidental-run-is-putting-all-americans-to-sleep#commenting=)
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Lol....Bush lied on his wife's influence regarding immigration views.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/17/trump-was-right-in-book-jeb-credits-his-wife-for-his-immigration-views/ (http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/17/trump-was-right-in-book-jeb-credits-his-wife-for-his-immigration-views/)
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by Jeb Bush
Sept. 22, 2015 6:43 p.m. ET
WSJ
To understand what is wrong with the regulatory culture of the U.S. under President Obama, consider this alarming statistic: Today, according to the World Bank—not exactly a right-wing think tank—the U.S. ranks 46th in the world in terms of ease of starting a business. That is unacceptable.
Think what the U.S. could be and the prosperity we could have if we rolled back the overregulation that keeps us from ranking in the top 10. It wouldn’t just be easier to start a business. It would also be easier to find a job, get lifesaving medicine, get a loan, and see a doctor or health professional. Costs and prices would go down. The U.S. economy, stalled in the worst economic expansion since World War II, would be unleashed. Regulatory reform alone could add more than three percentage points to U.S. GDP by 2025.
Since January 2009, the Obama administration has mired America’s free market in a flood of creativity-crushing and job-killing rules. This administration has issued rules targeting banks, farms, medical offices, hospitals, credit unions, insurers, tanning and nail salons, power plants, factories, federal contractors, cars, trucks and appliances. And in perhaps its most shocking display of regulatory overreach, it is regulating the Internet as a public utility, using a statute written in the 1930s.
If you’re wondering why it’s hard to get a mortgage, why no new banks are opening up, why your power bill will be going up, why your health insurance costs more, why we don’t build new highways, why you can’t get medicines that are available in Europe, Barack Obama’s rules are a big part of the story.
These rules create a moat around America’s wealthiest and well-connected. They can afford to comply and absorb the costs. The burden of meeting the new rules’ requirements falls heaviest on everyone else through higher prices. And if a business can’t pass on the cost of new rules to consumers, it just cuts wages or jobs.
The increased cost of new regulations, in time and money, has been phenomenal. According to the American Action Forum, since Mr. Obama took office, new regulations have resulted in an additional 443 million hours of paperwork each year for Americans. All told, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 2015 report on the federal regulatory state, regulations impose a $1.88 trillion silent tax on the U.S. economy each year—that’s nearly $15,000 per family. For every second of his presidency, Mr. Obama has added roughly $3,100 in regulatory burdens to the economy.
It’s time we did a better job regulating the regulators. My goal as president would be to find and retire the rules that are posing a major obstacle to people who want to get a job, start a business, move up the income ladder or do anything else that contributes to the prosperity of this nation. If elected president, I will use my executive authority to direct agencies to create one dollar of regulatory savings for each new dollar of regulatory cost they propose. We will eliminate and reform outdated and burdensome rules and, when necessary, work with Congress and the courts to overcome legal obstacles that stand in the way of sensible savings.
My administration will create a commission charged with reviewing regulations from the perspective of the regulated and shifting more power from Congress back to states. In my administration, every regulation, including those issued by so-called independent agencies such as the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, will have to satisfy a rigorous White House review process, including a cost-benefit analysis. Regulations will be issued only if they address a major market or policy failure. Regulators will be directed to favor private and state-driven solutions unless it is clear that federal intervention is necessary and appropriate.
My administration will also supercharge infrastructure projects by restructuring the permitting process for roads, highways, bridges, ports, pipelines, wind farms and other vital infrastructure projects. Permitting decisions will be made within two years instead of 10. And I will sign legislation to prevent frivolous litigation from endlessly tying up federal infrastructure projects in court.
As early as possible, I promise to roll back many of the most reckless and damaging rules promulgated under President Obama. As president, I will repeal the Environment Protection Agency’s new rule extending federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act over millions of acres of private land, its new regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Power Plan, and its new and costly coal-ash standards for power plants. I will also work to repeal the so-called net-neutrality rule forced on the Federal Communications Commission by the White House and the Department of Education’s “gainful employment” rule that punishes for-profit colleges. That’s for starters.
I will also work with Congress to repeal significant portions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law, and we will reform the complex set of rules that perpetuate too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Later this fall, I will announce a detailed agenda to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
Regulation feeds into Washington’s revolving-door culture. Regulators spend years writing complex rules, then leave for the private sector to sell their inside knowledge to the highest bidder—usually a big, well-entrenched company. No wonder so many Americans are cynical about who Washington really works for.
Most important, as president, I will be guided by the faith that we are a nation of free men and women who are capable of achieving far more than liberals and regulators believe possible. Once we remove the burdens of overregulation, America will once again reclaim its reputation for inventiveness, energy and boundless opportunity.
Mr. Bush, a former governor of Florida, is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
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Hmmm.........
1. Bush 41 - "Read My Lips, No New Taxes"
2. Bush 43 - Medicare Drug Coverage, Patriot Act, etc.
3. Jeb - Amnesty, CommonCore, etc.
Now he wants to create a new commission to regulate the regulations. Shift more power back to the states. Rigorous White House review policy on regulations. Repeal Obama Care, IRS regulations, CFPB reform.
Why should I believe Jeb on this?
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Hmmm.........
1. Bush 41 - "Read My Lips, No New Taxes"
2. Bush 43 - Medicare Drug Coverage, Patriot Act, etc.
3. Jeb - Amnesty, CommonCore, etc.
Now he wants to create a new commission to regulate the regulations. Shift more power back to the states. Rigorous White House review policy on regulations. Repeal Obama Care, IRS regulations, CFPB reform.
Why should I believe Jeb on this?
You shouldn't.
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Thanks GM. I was worried that I was missing something.......again. :wink:
I think that I should put something together on the CFPB and Dodd Frank soon for the Housing thread. It will describe the problems and why repeal/reformation should occur. Also why Jeb and others will not do anything at all.
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By James Taranto
Oct. 26, 2015 11:14 a.m. ET
107 COMMENTS
“If Jeb Bush’s campaign is struggling to stay afloat, he didn’t show it on Saturday,” CNN reports from Daniel Island, S.C. “A day after slashing salaries and cutting campaign staff, the former Florida governor got an enthusiastic reception and delivered one of his strongest campaign performances to date.”
Well, that’s one way of looking at it, but we have another. Consider the most widely discussed passage from his Daniel Island remarks:
Bush got one of his biggest responses from the crowd when he lamented the state of politics in Washington and argued that [Donald] Trump is not the kind of leader that could break through the gridlock.
“If this election is about how we’re going to fight to get nothing done, then . . . I don’t want any part of it. I don’t want to be elected president to sit around and see gridlock just become so dominant that people literally are in decline in their lives. That is not my motivation,” he said.
“I’ve got a lot of really cool things I could do other than sit around, being miserable, listening to people demonize me and me feeling compelled to demonize them. That is a joke. Elect Trump if you want that,” Bush added.
This columnist shares Bush’s exasperation with the Trump phenomenon. Trump is vulgar, intemperate, ideologically unprincipled, all bluster and no substance. Maybe Bush is too much of a gentleman to criticize Trump’s personal attributes, so he makes the argument about process—“gridlock”—instead.
But the process argument makes no sense. “Gridlock” refers to the inability of a divided government to make legislative progress. The president’s priorities are anathema to the Republicans who control Congress, and vice versa, with the result that there is a lot of drama and little change from the status quo.
The remedy for gridlock is to end divided government by electing either a Republican president or a Democratic Congress (though not both). But no one, or at least no partisan, is against gridlock per se. Republicans were very much in favor of it in 2010, having seen the results of united Democratic government. And from a GOP standpoint, just about any Republican president would break the current gridlock in a congenial manner.
Trump is, to put it kindly, an ideological wild card, so he probably would be likelier than the other Republican candidates to object to some aspects of the congressional GOP’s legislative agenda. On the other hand, he prides himself on his deal-making ability. Perhaps he oversells that ability, but even that suggests a willingness to make deals.
The flip side of that, however, is that if the Democrats were to take Congress, say in 2018, Trump almost certainly would have fewer qualms about cutting deals with them than would a conventional Republican candidate. That’s a strong argument against nominating Trump—and it’s the opposite of the argument Bush made.
The tone of Bush’s remarks is even worse than the substance. It reminded us of “Saturday Night Live’s” Jon Lovitz as Michael Dukakis in 1988: “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy.” That guy, of course, was Jeb Bush’s father, played by Dana Carvey—and Lovitz’s setup consisted of Carvey trying to run out the clock by repeating a series of platitudes: “Let’s stay the course. Thousand points of light. . . . Let’s just stay the course and keep on track. Stay the course. . . . On track, stay the course, a thousand points of light, stay the course.”
Listen to Trump being interviewed, and you can hear echoes of Carvey’s George Bush. This is from yesterday’s “Face the Nation”:
And, as you know, I have disavowed all PACs. I had many people setting up PACs for me. And we sent letters last week saying we don’t want—I mean, we respect them, we love them, assuming it’s all on the up and up, because I don’t know—these people who run PACs, I don’t know what they do with everything.
But, certainly, for the ones that are doing it with the right intention—but we disavowed all PACs, every one of them, John. And every candidate should do the same thing. This whole PAC concept is fraught with problems. And I think you are going to see tremendous problems with PACs over the years.
And I am disavowing all PACs.
Jeb can’t believe he’s losing to this guy.
Neither, one may assume, can the people who came to his campaign event in South Carolina. But Bush’s appeal has become much more selective over the past few months, and his rhetoric on Saturday seems unlikely to broaden it.
Worst of all is his exhortation: “Elect Trump if you want that.” If the polls are to be believed, a plurality of Republican voters are prepared to do just that. Bush’s sarcasm may be lost on them, in which case he has just encouraged them to vote for the guy to whom he can’t believe he’s losing. If they do perceive the sarcasm, they will likely also not miss Bush’s implied criticism of them. Politics consists in part in the art of concealing one’s contempt for the common man.
Bush’s I’m-too-good-for-this attitude—“I don’t want any part of it. . . . I’ve got a lot of really cool things I could do”—will come across as entitled, a particularly unattractive quality in a political scion. We sympathize with the view that he is too good for it, not because he is a Bush but because he was a very good governor; and that the Republican electorate (again, if the polls are to be believed) is grossly undervaluing competence, experience and even principle. But however justified Bush’s feelings may be, it is impolitic, and a sign of weakness, to display them in public.
Before the event, Bush spoke with reporters. “Pressed with questions about Trump, especially the real estate mogul’s recent slipping in the polls in Iowa to Carson, Bush grew tired of talking about his rival. ‘I’m past Donald Trump,’ he said”—an assertion that, as CNN notes, “certainly wasn’t true.”
Asked about his campaign’s recent financial difficulties, Bush replied: “Blah blah blah, Blah. That’s my answer.” That’s actually not a bad answer, but “he went on to point to other candidates like Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton in 2008, who were expected to take their parties’ nominations but failed in the end.”
Mrs. Clinton is part of a political dynasty. Giuliani was a competent, experienced executive who led in early polls, but never finished better than third in a primary and ended his campaign with a whimper in Florida. For Jeb Bush, those examples hit awfully close to home.
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Jeb was a great Governor. He was always unlikely to overcome the family name and be seen as his own man even though his partly is. I like his brother more than most people do but Bush fatigue is exactly what brought in the whole Pelosi-Reid-Obama era.
Jeb failed to ever follow up on his opening point that he would win the general election by losing the primary. That isn't how this process works. If you are going to do this some other way, tell us how.
Except for national defense, I've never wanted a larger federal government role for anything ESPECIALLY EDUCATION.
I get it that the next President after Obama should have been one of the great two term Republican Governors that we had to choose from. It didn't work out that way. None of them rose up as the best communicator of why we need to change course what that new direction needs to be.
On his biggest conservative weakness, Bush (like Trump on the other side of it) never acknowledges the other side of the illegal immigration issue. He sees the compassion side of it for the people who came here under our already in place, de facto amnesty policy and made lives for themselves here and have friends, family, neighbors and co-workers who will never vote to send them home. But he doesn't even acknowledge that we lost our sovereignty and lost our nation over it AND THEY ARE STILL COMING IN!
Worse yet, as he takes ownership for his brother's administration, well that was 8 of the years of the open borders epidemic. This isn't something he can blame on Obama and the Democrats. Onstead of blaming anyone, he doesn't even see that something went wrong.
Beyond those issues, (as they say of all underperforming candidates) he has never given us a compelling reason of why we should elect him. His economic plan is among the best out there, but he has certainly not shown himself to be the best messenger to enact them. There is no way he could advance his plan without it being labeled "the Bush tax cuts". Of all the hundreds of millions of dollars that he and his PACs have available to them, have they ever spent 2 cents to correct the misconception that it was the previous 'Bush Tax Cuts' that caused the crash and the stagnation since then? No. Of course not.
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Also very weak on the Iraq War.
Instead of saying (as I do for example) that reasonable people can disagree on the decision to go in and that legit criticisms can be made in the waging of the war, that ultimately his brother handed over, as repeatedly acknowledged by Baraq and Biden to justify their bug out, a democratically elected constitutional government that needed, just as Germany, Japan, and Korea did, continued US presence to allow the new way of doing things to solidify.
Instead he said that in hindsight the war was a mistake. Incredibly weak!!!
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Jeb's Social Security & Medicare Plan
Bush said he wants to gradually raise the retirement age for full benefits, adding one month each year, beginning in 2022 when the retirement age becomes 67 under current law. By 2034, the retirement age under his plan would be 68; by 2046 it would be 69. Currently, it's 66.
To encourage retirees to continue working, he would reduce benefits to those who want to retire early and increase benefits to those who work past their retirement age. He seeks to eliminate the $15,720 limit on income for working seniors already receiving Social Security. For those working beyond age 67, he proposes eliminating the 6.2 percent payroll tax.
Bush also said he would change the formula used to determine benefits by lowering monthly retirement checks to wealthier recipients. At the same time, he would increase to about $15,000 the minimum Social Security payment for people employed at least 30 years.
He also would lift the 10 percent limit employers can withhold from workers contributing to a 401(k) plan and help small businesses create those plans for employees.
Let's see.............he wants all the retirees to work longer. He wants to bring in more and more immigrants from Mexico. Where are the jobs going to come from? How will wages increase with more and more people competing for limited jobs?
Am I missing something?
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Actually what he proposes on SS is pretty much in line with my thinking and respect for his having the courage to say it.
Immigration is another matter though!
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But where are all the jobs going to come from? Certainly not the TPP.......
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But where are all the jobs going to come from? Certainly not the TPP.......
If we passed all the best aspects of these reform proposals on taxes, regulations and repeal and replacement of Obamacare, entrepreneurial activity would come back, growth would rebound, and there would very quickly become a shortage of good workers.
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And what regular politician is going to get that done?
The damned Budget Deal just destroyed any campaigning on budget restraint by the GOP. Imagine trying to claim that Pubs are for budget reform and deficit reduction during the election and the Dems saying "why did you push the budget deal through?"
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After the debate, Jeb announced that he was taking a new employment position.................he would be a coyote...... :-D
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In the 1992 Democrat Convention, the Clinton acceptance speech kept saying about Bush 41 and his administration, "it's time for them to go".
For Jeb, the refrain should be by the Pubbies, "It's time for him to go".
No more Bushies.............
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US News got a copy of the Jeb blueprint for election. It also covers why Rubio will not succeed and how to attack him. Covers Iowa and NH. If Powerpoints and Statistics win elections and not personality, Jeb wins......................
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2015/10/29/jeb-bushs-campaign-blueprint (http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2015/10/29/jeb-bushs-campaign-blueprint)
Gotta say, Jeb is in denial.
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Jeb is done.
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https://ricochet.com/the-dead-campaign-sketch/
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Funny that as we head into the heat of this contest, our Jeb thread hasn't earned a post since last October.
Even this one is only about the money of his surrogates. 'Right to Rise' is running its anti-Rubio ad nartionwide now, including a spot on Fox News Sunday this morning. Rubio missed (meaningless) votes in Washington - OMG! Some of those missed votes were from before he announced his run for President. None of Jeb's complaints about missed votes however were from before Rubio announced his competing run for President. Trump leads Rubio by something like 40-15%. What a coward Jeb is at this point to cast petty stones at the candidate he finds most similar to himself, instead of at his real adversary. Do they think Rubio is about to get out of the race while he has led Bush in nearly every poll in every state? Everyone knows it's Bush that should get out if a non-Trumper is going to consolidate. Who embodies the ideals of 'right to rise' better than Rubio? So that's a phony front. As Pat says, they want their power back more than they care about the right of struggling Americans to rise.
Jeb accumulated his $16 million selling his influence after leaving office, I would allege, unless you believe he had intimate knowledge of the investment banking business. How good was the advice he gave to Lehman Brothers and how is that going now?
Jeb earned $29 million since leaving public office. That is a lot of people telling you how great you are without facing a contested election in 20 years.
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/30/418895297/jeb-bushs-wealth-skyrocketed-after-leaving-governors-office
F.Y.I. to J.E.B.: Marco Rubio's missing votes in Washington DC is not among the things that have gone wrong with this country. The US Senate has not held a vote over that time that would fix what has gone wrong. Whose policies are blocking the people's right to rise? Why not put the attention there?
G M was right in October, "Jeb is done". But he still has money at his disposal to exit in his own, scorched earth manner.
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Jeb comment that Trump has "hijacked the Republican Party" just unmasks the outrageous arrogance of this man.
I respect George H as a great American. He was too much of a globalist not unlike many progressives as well as a rhino so to speak.
I respect and like W the most. He is humble brought integrity to the office though of course he was a rhino too and made a mistake with Iraq though well intentioned.
But the chutzpah of this guy Jeb to act and think he is entitled to be President is just off the charts to me.
In this regard he is not unlike Hillary.
I have no respect remaining for him.
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ccp, right. Both Bushes were good men. Both had great moments; neither was a great President.
If not entitled, Jeb has a false sense of himself. The more people have seen and heard him, the less they like him. I have been saying from the outset that we need not just leaders with the right policies but leaders on our side who can make the case WHY these are the right policies. Through all this, JEB has not ever shown himself to be smarter or more charismatic than DT. In fact we discovered the opposite. Both Jeb and DT have tax plans well crafted by aides and consultants. Neither has told us how or why this will turn the economy around. If you never heard an opposing view, Bernie Sanders is more convincing than either of these people.
Peggy Noonan was asked earlier about the observation that Bush has all this experience and it doesn't seem to matter to voters. She pointed out it was his responsibility to persuade voters as to why that experience matters.
Noonan also wrote the famous line, 'Read my Lips No New Taxes'. Having great aides and staff does not equal great leadership.
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Also, Jeb has this weird tick where he often shakes his head as if he is saying "No" while he answers questions.
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Jeb is in 8th place in Iowa, 8th place in NH (?). Trump supposedly leads Rubio by 42 to 10, so JEB runs ads against Rubio, the candidate he is most likely to endorse. What a moron.
And what is his criticism now of Rubio? Amnesty and gang of 8. Jeb wouldn't have been in the centrist gang of 8; he would have been all the way over with Obama.
What an unfortunate trainwreck his candidacy has become. Some of us know we can help the country more by letting someone else be the candidate.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/11/bush-super-pac-slams-rubio-on-illegal-immigration-amnesty.html
This is a PAC completely outside of Bush's control... right. He could affect their advertising strategy by dropping out like all the other irrelevant candidates are doing.
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At seeing him be such a sore loser. He just doesn't get it.
His repeated statement that "Trump has hijacked the Republican Party" is just so telling.
I would say this could be the dictionary definition of "elite" and "entitlement" and "establishment", and maybe even "privilege".
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It is too bad that Jeb is getting better as a candidate right when he should be dropping out. In one good moment in the debate Jeb answered unflinchingly on eminent domain private takings. Trump discovered after the last dust up that the Texas Rangers, when George W was an owner, used ED to take land for a new stadium. (They all do that and it's wrong.) Jeb jumped right in, "people want me to say where I disagree with my brother and here is an example." Even George W no doubt opposes that power, just happened to use it because he could, like Trump tried to do.
As discussed earlier, the key test is whether a major league stadium is a public use. I say no, but a majority likely say yes.
[Trump's problem isn't that he used that power as a businessman but that he won't renounce it now as a candidate for President.]
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All the Bushees are pissed off their guy got creamed - as he deserved.
So they are vying for jobs with Hillary. So far the only Bush person to come out for Donald is another Donald - Rumsfeld. The rest of the Bushes are ok with giving the country up because of false pride, and for more concernedly jobs with Hillary. WE don't have 4 or 8 years to wait. By then we will have 30 million more Democrat party voters and a liberal majority on the SCOTUS for decades. This IS it folks. Because Trump implied that Khan's wife stood looking dutifly at his side that she looked like a second class citizen. That is minor to what is at stake. I don't blame the Bush family for remaining silent but I wish the Bush employees would just shut their mouths and stay off CNN. They are only proving what fools they are and how "insider" they cling to.
The LEFT is winning and will finish it in 4 to 8 yrs.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/01/politics/sally-bradshaw-jeb-bush-donald-trump-florida/index.html
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http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/politics/jeb-bush-mocks-himself-and-republican-voters-in-surprisingly-hilarious-emmys-cameo-video/
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https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/09/23/jeb-bush-americans-urging-immigration-controls-threatened-less-white-country/
NO schmuck
we are concerned about people coming in and getting benefits
and mostly voting for Democrats making us a one party system and many who frankly do not like America.
This is why you deservedly lost and why California is gone . I have had enough of Bushes and GOPers like him.
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https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/09/23/jeb-bush-americans-urging-immigration-controls-threatened-less-white-country/
NO schmuck
we are concerned about people coming in and getting benefits
and mostly voting for Democrats making us a one party system and many who frankly do not like America.
This is why you deservedly lost and why California is gone . I have had enough of Bushes and GOPers like him.
Maybe they can add his picture to the definition of the Peter Principle, rising to your level of incompetence. I had higher hopes for him. Note the two-year gap since he has been mentioned here and former Governor is still his highest title. The fact that a fairly successful, conservative, two-term governor like Jeb Bush could not rise to being a true national leader for our time explains in part the void that was filled by Donald Trump.
In the same way that Democrats failed, establishment Republicans failed. We aren't whatever that latest slur that Joe Biden called us was, the dregs of society. We are just Americans wishing the best for our country.
When they are done with dehumanizing and name-calling (never?), let's debate the issues honestly.
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Fredo “Please Clap” Bush
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https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/09/23/jeb-bush-americans-urging-immigration-controls-threatened-less-white-country/
NO schmuck
we are concerned about people coming in and getting benefits
and mostly voting for Democrats making us a one party system and many who frankly do not like America.
This is why you deservedly lost and why California is gone . I have had enough of Bushes and GOPers like him.
Maybe they can add his picture to the definition of the Peter Principle, rising to your level of incompetence. I had higher hopes for him. Note the two-year gap since he has been mentioned here and former Governor is still his highest title. The fact that a fairly successful, conservative, two-term governor like Jeb Bush could not rise to being a true national leader for our time explains in part the void that was filled by Donald Trump.
In the same way that Democrats failed, establishment Republicans failed. We aren't whatever that latest slur that Joe Biden called us was, the dregs of society. We are just Americans wishing the best for our country.
When they are done with dehumanizing and name-calling (never?), let's debate the issues honestly.
The left isn’t interested in honest debate. Just power, however they can get it.
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Doug wrote :
" Maybe they can add his picture to the definition of the Peter Principle, rising to your level of incompetence. I had higher hopes for him. Note the two-year gap since he has been mentioned here and former Governor is still his highest title. The fact that a fairly successful, conservative, two-term governor like Jeb Bush could not rise to being a true national leader for our time explains in part the void that was filled by Donald Trump.
In the same way that Democrats failed, establishment Republicans failed. We aren't whatever that latest slur that Joe Biden called us was, the dregs of society. We are just Americans wishing the best for our country.
When they are done with dehumanizing and name-calling (never?), let's debate the issues honestly."
Good point . Jeb was not of national quality .
The Left will not be done with the dehumanizing period . We have to beat them loud and clear .
If we don't want political correctness , big government controlling every breath of our lives, and the rest they are shoving down our throats we have to fight for our lives. no debate with them except where we can persuade those that are persuadable to join us.
Lindsey Graham who was till yesterday a McCain acolyte redeemed himself (100% for me at least ) . He finally showed that this time he gets it - finally - and at least when we needed it most.
I just hope he keeps it up.
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Don't forget his well-earned nickname of "Grahamnesty" though , , ,
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Don't forget his well-earned nickname of "Grahamnesty" though , , ,
My thought as well, he is very strong when he is on our side but is way too often not on our side.