Surprise, surprise—it turns out Jeb’s not his “own man” after all. After months of failing to convince voters that his policies are much different from the policies of his brother, former President George W. Bush, Jeb has embraced positions of George W. and even cranked them up a notch. No wonder the former president will headline a fundraiser for Jeb’s shaky campaign tomorrow in New York City.
After all, the two couldn’t be closer, and Jeb has barely found anything to disagree with in his brother’s disastrous legacy. As Jeb put it last night in an interview with Stephen Colbert, the problem with his brother’s presidency was not the catastrophic invasion of Iraq or the economic policies that enabled the Great Recession, it’s that “he was not conservative enough.”
Well, that explains why Jeb’s tax plan looks like trickle-down economics on steroids—and why he’s taken his brother’s team of foreign policy advisors to new neoconservative heights.
JEB’S TAX PLAN: “THE SAME THING HIS BROTHER DID, ONLY MORE EXTREME”
Jeb Bush’s largest Florida tax reductions were on “stocks and bonds…and were similar to his brother’s capital gains and dividend tax cuts.” “The largest reductions Governor Bush got enacted were cuts in Florida’s tax on ‘intangibles,’ mostly stocks and bonds, that account for almost $2 billion of his tax-cut total and were similar to his brother’s capital gains and dividend tax cuts. Analysts across a wide swath of the political spectrum agree on the impact of such cuts. ‘It’s an open question what the magnitude of the effect of tax cuts on capital is,’ said Alan Auerbach, a veteran tax economist at the University of California at Berkeley. ‘What’s not open is whether they can cause the economy to consistently grow at 4 percent. They can’t.’” [Bloomberg, 7/28/15]
Jeb Bush’s Florida record “was marked by steep increases in spending paired with tax cuts,” much like his brother’s record as President. “According to Jeb, George W. Bush spent too much money and irresponsibly ran up the deficit. ‘I think he could have used the veto power,’ MSNBC quoted Jeb as saying, ‘he didn’t have line item veto power, but he could have brought budget discipline to Washington, DC.’ The single biggest contributor to the deficits George W. Bush left behind was his tax policy. […] Now here comes Jeb Bush endorsing the same smoke-and-mirrors trickery George W. Bush used to cover up the massive deficits his tax policy would create. And as it turns out, Jeb’s own tenure as governor of Florida was marked by steep increases in spending paired with tax cuts. So while Jeb may have a problem with how his brother’s economic policies turned out, there’s no reason to think he won’t just fudge the math and do the exact same thing.” [Salon, 5/22/15]
Jeb Bush bragged about cutting taxes by $19 billion in Florida, when in reality at least $6 billion of those cuts were enacted by his brother at the federal level. “Bush regularly tells interviewers that as governor he cut state taxes by $19 billion. A review of state records by the publication Tax Analysts, however, found only $13 billion worth of cuts. The difference, according to PolitiFact Florida, an independent political fact-checking website, is that the campaign included what Floridians saved because of the elimination of the federal estate tax, which Bush’s brother, President George W. Bush, got through Congress in 2001.” [Bloomberg, 7/28/15]
New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait: Jeb Bush’s tax cut plan was “the same thing his brother did, only more extreme.” “George W. Bush passed a sweeping across-the-board tax cut in 2001, promising his plan would promote faster economic growth while still allowing budget surpluses. Instead, Bush’s plan brought back the structural deficits that had disappeared during the 1990s, along with a mediocre recovery that was itself inflated by a housing bubble, the popping of which culminated in the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. You might think that the brother of that guy would go out of his way to prove that he has different ideas for fiscal policy. Instead, Jeb Bush has unveiled his tax-cut plan, and it’s the same thing his brother did, only more extreme.” [New York Magazine, 9/9/15]
- Chait: “The Florida economy under Jeb Bush was the American economy under George W. Bush, but more so.” “The Florida economy under Jeb Bush was the American economy under George W. Bush, but more so. His tax plan is the same thing. It has been clear for months that the policy direction of the Republican Party is a return to Bushism. Marco Rubio is trying this too, as is John Kasich. The odd proposition of the Jeb candidacy is that the man best positioned to sell this idea to a skeptical America is another guy named Bush.” [New York Magazine, 9/9/15]
Jeb Bush tapped Glenn Hubbard, one of the architects of George W. Bush’s tax policy, to be one of his top advisors on economic policy. “Glenn Hubbard and Kevin Warsh, veteran Republican economic policymakers and critics of the Fed’s ultra-loose monetary policy, have emerged as top economic advisers to likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush, Republican sources said on Tuesday. Hubbard, who served as the top White House economist for former President George W. Bush, was one of the architects of Bush’s tax cuts.” [Reuters, 3/31/15]
BUSH LEAGUE ECONOMIC RHETORIC: JEB AND GEORGE USE THE SAME LANGUAGE
On overhauls:
Jeb Bush: “Restoring the right to rise in America requires accelerating growth, and that can’t be done without a complete overhaul of the U.S. tax code.” [Jeb Bush op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 9/8/15]
George Bush: “And tax relief or tax reform, however you want to describe it, is part of, in my judgment, of creating economic vitality.” [George W. Bush press release, 11/7/02]
On the tax code:
Jeb Bush: “I want to lower taxes and make the tax code simple, fair and clear. It should be easy to understand and make it easy for people to fill out their own tax forms.” [Jeb Bush op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 9/8/15]
George Bush’s Treasury Secretary: “We support tax simplification proposals that meet these essential principles: Fairness…Simplicity…Clarity…Ease.” [George W. Bush Treasury Department press release, 4/15/02]
On special interests:
Jeb Bush: “Today, the tax code is a labyrinth littered with thousands of special-interest giveaways, subsidies and other breaks written to favor Washington insiders.” [Jeb Bush op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 9/8/15]
George Bush: “The current tax code is a maze of special interest loopholes that causes America’s taxpayers to spend more than six billion hours every year on paperwork and other headaches.” [George W. Bush press release,9/2/04]
On removing tax brackets:
Jeb Bush: “We will cut individual rates from seven brackets to three: 28%, 25% and 10%.” [Jeb Bush op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 9/8/15]
George Bush: “Americans are grouped in five income tax brackets: 15 percent, 28 percent, 31 percent, 36 percent and nearly 40 percent. My plan would reduce to that to four lower brackets: 10 percent, 15 percent, 25 percent and 33 percent.” [George W. Bush remarks, 2/5/01]
On being “pro-growth”:
Jeb Bush: “Florida’s pro-growth climate created 1.3 million new jobs.” [Jeb Bush op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 9/8/15]
George Bush: “Our goal is to maintain the pro-growth policies that have strengthened our economy and will stimulate the creation of good jobs and higher wages.” [George W. Bush press release, 12/8/06]
On changing Washington:
Jeb Bush: “To achieve these policies, we have to change the way Washington works. And we have to change who we send there to lead.” [Jeb Bush op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 9/8/15]
George Bush: “We came not to have Washington change us, but for us to change Washington.” [George W. Bush remarks, 5/22/01]
DON’T FORGET FOREIGN POLICY: RECYCLED IDEAS, RECYCLED ADVISORS
19 of the 21 people who advise Jeb Bush on foreign policy “worked in the administrations of his father or brother.” “Former Florida governor Jeb Bush will announce his foreign policy vision in a speech Wednesday in Chicago. Accompanying that speech is a rollout of a slate of experts who will help guide the candidate on foreign policy issues. If Bush’s goal is to present himself as his ‘own man,’ that list of advisers undermines the point somewhat: 19 of the 21 people on it worked in the administrations of his father or brother.” [Washington Post, 2/18/15]
Jeb Bush inherited “the same advisory team” on foreign policy as his brother and father. “Bush has access to a lot of people by virtue of his family’s long history in Washington. That can be a mixed blessing. ‘Each president learns from those who came before — their principles . . . their adjustments,’ Bush plans to say in Chicago. ‘One thing we know is this: Every president inherits a changing world . . . and changing circumstances.’ And, on occasion, they inherit the same advisory team.” [Washington Post, 2/18/15]