Let's Examine
the Record --
Indeed

This article was written 3/20/2004 -- and the 2004 presidential campaign is already underway.  The Republicans tell us that they will examine John Kerry's record -- every bit of it.  They should be careful because the Democrats are likely to examine George W. Bush's record -- every bit of it -- and it's ugly.

This is an introductory article.  I will write separate articles and link them to this one -- each of those articles will address one item of George W. Bush's record before he was selected as president by the Supreme Court.  Come back to this site every few days to see what has been published -- send you friends to read this site -- let's examine the record.

As governor of Texas, Bush inherited from Ann Richards a true surplus of over $7.5 billion cash in the bank.  After he rammed through the Texas legislature special tax cuts and exemptions on his rich friends and corporations, he left Texas not only broke, but deep in the hole -- the Texas deficit is over $12 billion and rising -- Bush wiped out $19.5 billion in Texas -- and that was just a warm-up for what he did to the nation.

Bush started his drive for privatization in Texas -- he wanted to privatize the whole state.  Nationally, he wants to privatize Social Security.  In Texas, he tried to turn the state welfare system over to Lockheed-Martin.  He combined privatization with his "faith-based initiative" and exempted church-related organizations from all state regulation.  Under Bush in Texas, orphanages and shelters for children that are run by churches or by anyone claiming to be a religious organization are exempt from fire, health, and safety inspections; staff are not required to be certified; they are not even required to have smoke detectors.  And, when children escaped from "homes" run by one of Bush's biggest religious right supporters with reports of abuse and beatings, the police were not able to investigate.

Bush claimed great advances in the Texas school system.  His claims were lies, lies, and more lies.   He claimed a one percent dropout rate in Texas schools -- in fact, the true dropout rate was 19 percent (and the guy who cooked the books to make the dropout rate look like one percent is now the Secretary of Education).  Texas SAT scores are steadily dropping while scores on the state's standardized test are rising -- because schools and teachers have stopped all pretense of education and are teaching the state tests.   And this is what he wants to impose on the entire US through his "no child left behind" initiative.

George W. Bush was at the center of four -- count 'em, one, two, three, four -- Enron-like business failures in which he either owned or was CEO of a company  -- he helped cook the books, sold the stock just before the crash, and skated with a pocket full of millions.  Four times he failed to report insider trading to the SEC.  Then, there are sweetheart loans, land grabs, and other shady deals that left him with a pile of money when he should have been in handcuffs.

His environmental record in Texas is, without doubt, the worst of any governor of any state in modern history.  Under his administration, Houston passed LA as the city in the country with the worst air.  Just as he did in Texas, as president he put executives from oil, gas, timber, and mining companies in charge of environmental enforcement.  In Texas, he quietly killed environmental protection and now that he is in Washington, not a week passes without some regulation being gutted or simply not enforced.

Secrecy?  Bush attempted to have his gubernatorial papers stashed in his father's presidential library where they would not become public.  After the courts ruled against him, the papers became public -- and that's how we learned about his long, close association with Ken Lay and Enron.  He continued this secrecy in his presidential administration -- studies damaging to his administration are removed from government agency websites; the FOIA is gutted; and The Dick Cheney meets with oil company officials to
plan the "national energy policy" in secret.

In Texas, Bush was a master at holding down spending by refusing to offer services.   On the national scene, the Bush junta has cut services to veterans by not advertising those services.   In July 2002, the secretary of the Dept of Veterans Affairs sent a memo to all regional directors to stop all outreach efforts -- they were ordered to stop activities aimed at attracting new enrollees -- no more health fairs, no more displays at veterans conventions, no more open houses.  Bush has done the same thing to many other federal agencies -- cut budges for enforcement of SEC regulations, cut out workplace health and safety inspections and inspectors, and the like.

Another common Bush ploy is to have it both ways.  For example, Bush claims that in Texas he "passed the corporate governance reform act" -- a state law that reformed certain aspects of corporate governance.  What Bush does not say is that he was totally against the legislation and fought it every way he could -- then he learned that the bill was about to pass the Texas legislature on a UNANIMOUS vote -- so he suddenly was in favor of it.  As President he continued the practice of having it both ways -- there he was in the summer of 2002 greeting the rescued Pennsylvania coal miners in a photo op -- a few days after he gutted the budget for the very agency charged with inspecting coal mines.  Less than a year after his emotional visit to Ground Zero where he had a love-in with firefighters, he vetoed $340 million in federal funding to local fire departments, $100 million in federal funding to improve local fire-police communications, and, he vetoed $90 million in federal funding to monitor the long-term health effects of those who worked at Ground Zero.

In her book Shrub, Molly Ivins does an excellent job of investigating Bush's record prior to his selection as President.  She has published a second book, Bushwhacked, in which she describes how Bush has done to the nation what he did to Texas -- and when Bill Clinton did the same thing to Monica, he was impeached.  Why is George W. Bush not on trial?

So, let's look at the record.