More headlines: George W. Bush on Budget & Economy
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A biennial budget will avoid budget gridlock
With a split government -- the current Democratic administration vs. the GOP-controlled Congress, for example -- yearly budgeting often results in gridlock. “A biennial budget
would lead to conservative budgeting. A yearly budget leads to squabbling.” Bush added that he would seek to draft legislation that would end the threat of government shutdowns.
Source: CNN.com
Oct 21, 2000
1980 tax cuts, deregulation, and trade led to strong economy
Who deserves credit for the longest economic expansion in U.S. history? Did the White House help foster it, or were the Democrats, as Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush contends, just lucky? “The momentum of today’s prosperity began in the
1980s-with sound money, deregulation, the opening of global trade and a 25% tax cut. The economic growth of the 1980s provided the venture capital for the technology revolution of the 1990s,” Bush said in a major speech on taxes.
Source: Peter G. Gosselin, LA Times
Aug 21, 2000
Country is not better off as a result of Clinton/Gore years
Bush insisted that Gore was mistaken in arguing that the country is better off today. “I don’t think the school system is better off. I don’t think the morale in the military is better off. I don’t think our standing in the world is better off. No
question the stock market is higher. But prosperity hasn’t reached throughout all of society.” One of the central aims of this week’s convention is to convince voters that the nation now is in a stronger position than when Bush’s father was president.
Source: Ronald Brownstein, LA Times
Aug 13, 2000
The Texas budget is balanced, despite Gore’s attack
Our Texas budget is balanced and in the black. We have a surplus of $1.4 billion in the bank. For Vice President Gore to claim otherwise for his own political purposes is a
travesty - he should be ashamed. Texas doesn’t need the Vice President to lecture us about balanced budgets - every budget I have signed in Texas has been balanced. The
Texas Legislature, Democrats and Republicans, will make an appropriation when it convenes in January to pay for higher than expected costs in Medicaid and in prisons - we have more than enough money to pay those costs. I am proud that under my
leadership, Texas has increased spending for education and health care, built and funded prisons, cut taxes by record amounts, and we still have a large surplus.
Source: Speech, “Response to Gore’s Attack on Texas”
Jul 20, 2000
Commit funds to education and tax cuts
We can show Washington how to handle a budget surplus. During times of plenty, we must not commit our state to programs we cannot afford in the future. We must meet basic needs, dedicate the lion’s share of new money to public schools, then send money
back to the hands who earned it - the taxpayers of Texas. Tomorrow, I will submit a budget that is balanced and limits government’s growth. It reflects my two major priorities: school children and taxpayers.
Source: 1999 State of the State Address, Austin TX
Jan 27, 1999
Tax financing of sports stadiums ok, after vote
Gov. Bush supports using local tax money to finance the building of sports stadiums, if it is “approved by voters and does not raise state taxes.” Gov. Bush supports banning the casino-style slot machines known as “eight-liners.”
Source: Vote Smart NPAT 1998
Jul 2, 1998
Guarantees future surpluses with his tax plan
Q: Let’s suppose that the projected surpluses in your tax plan fail to materialize in full or in part. What part of your tax package gets dropped first?
A: I refuse to accept the premise that surpluses are going to decline if I’m the president. I think they’re going to increase, because my plan will increase productivity by cutting marginal rates.
Source: Phoenix Arizona GOP Debate
Dec 7, 1999
Bush questions Gore’s tax break for oil interests
Campaigning here in the Midwest battleground where gas costs are the highest in the nation, Bush accused Gore of backing a multimillion-dollar tax break for oil companies. Bush’s claims are a direct counterattack on Gore’s recent charges that the Texas
governor is too close to Big Oil, and they made Bush sound more like a Democratic populist than a conservative Republican. Bush specifically attacked a part of the Gore plan calling for the extension of a moratorium on payment of royalties to the
government for natural gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. “My opponent is giving major oil companies a huge tax break. I believe the royalties moratorium ought to happen when the price declines. We ought not have moratoriums when the price is high.
I look forward to hearing his explanation on why big gas producers ought to be given a big tax break.”
Source: Terry M. Neal & Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post, p. A04
Jun 29, 2000
OPEC will increase oil supply out of respect for Bush
Bush said today that he would bring down gasoline prices by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude. “I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot,
to increase the supply. Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.” Implicit in his comments was a criticism of the Clinton administration as failing to take advantage of
the good will that the US built with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Also implicit was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait,
Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil-producing nations that they owed the US something in return.
Source: Katherine Q. Seelye, NY Times
Jun 28, 2000
No withdrawals from strategic oil reserve needed
Q: The Energy Secretary said he would not tap US strategic petroleum reserves in order to drive down prices saying those reserves are for emergencies. But given the shortages that exist, do
you consider this an appropriate time to tap those reserves? A: No, I don’t. I agree with the energy secretary that the strategic petroleum reserve is meant for a national wartime emergency. What I think the
president ought to do is get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots. One reason why the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven up. OPEC
has gotten its supply act together and it’s driving the price, like it did in the past. And the president must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price. And if in fact there is collusion amongst big oil, he ought to intercede there as well.
Source: GOP Debate in Manchester NH
Jan 26, 2000
Encourage oil exploration and more natural gas
Q: What would you do to get the price of oil down again? A: I would encourage exploration. It’s a matter of supply & demand. I would keep plans in place to say to our drillers we want you to continue exploring. I also have got great hope for the natural
gas business, which is immune to OPEC and hemispheric in nature. The natural gas business is finally recovering from the foolish ways of the Jimmy Carter era when they tried to nationalize in essence the natural gas business with price fixing and demand.
Source: Phoenix Arizona GOP Debate
Dec 7, 1999