Dubya's Real Record

by Richard Miniter

How would George W. Bush govern as President? It is important question that most Republicans seem afraid to ask.

While most Republican governors, congressmen, and state lawmakers have jumped on the Bush bandwagon, few have examined Bush's record as Texas governor—perhaps the best predictor of presidential performance. Maybe they are afraid of what they might find.

If the past is prologue, conservatives can expect symbolic defeats on social issues, puny tax cuts, double-digit spending hikes, and little progress on hot-buttons like school reform, affirmative action, abortion, or gun rights.

Purists point to a handful of symbolic state-level decisions that alarm them: the naming of state highway 35 after John B. Coleman, a controversial abortion doctor, over the loud objections of local pro-life groups; a June 10th fund-raising letter announcing that Bush favors “free and fair trade,” a Clintonian attempt to favor both open markets and protectionism; and even Bush's “compassionate conservatism” strikes some as insulting and signals a return to his father's “kinder and gentler” conservatism which led to tax hikes and the loss of the White House. Perhaps the most grumbling among the activist set concerns Bush's naming a state holiday for Cesar Chavez, the former head of the United Farm Workers Union, who often praised Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Intended as Hispanic outreach, the holiday is a politically tone-deaf move that is sure to anger Cubans in South Florida and conservatives around the country.

To be sure, many expect “Dubya,” as he is known in Texas, to be a social moderate. But a look at the more substantive side of his record is sure to raise questions among Republicans.

Taxes

Bush likes to brag about approving the “largest tax cuts in [Texas] history,” but this boast is more rhetoric than reality. On paper Bush's tax cuts add up to some $2.9 billion, but most Texans received little or no tax relief—while the state enjoyed record surpluses in excess of $7 billion. About $1 billion worth of the Bush tax cuts are simply a 1997 increase in the standard exemption for school property taxes from $5,000 to $10,000. This break saved homeowners less than $140 a year. Even that paltry savings soon vanished as more than half of the state's school boards increased rates or ordered quick property reappraisals—a predictable move that Bush's bill did nothing to prevent. Consequently only a few Texas homeowners saw even a penny of tax reduction.

Republican Lt. Governor Rick Perry conceded that the 1997 tax cuts were “rather illusory,” adding “that tax cut didn't stand the test of time as well as many of us would have liked it to.” The political price for the disappearing tax cut? An unprecedented $8.3 billion boost in school spending.

Bush signed another $1.9 billion collection of tax trims in 1999. The centerpiece of the measure was another Faustian bargain with teachers' unions. In exchange for an end to social promotion and a property tax cut equal to $6 per $10,000 of home value, the bill gives teachers a $3,000 pay raise and lavishes tens of millions on school improvements. Again, actual tax savings are small. More than 600 out of some 1,100 districts will see either no tax relief or tax increases.

Texas' 8.25 percent state sales tax is among the nation's highest. Bush's response? A three-day long holiday from the sales tax for clothing and footwear items that cost less than $100 each. Again, the tax relief is tiny. A family purchasing $200 worth of clothing during the tax holiday would save $16.

Even Texas liberals think Bush's tax cuts should have been bolder. Mary Nell Mathis, who sits on the board of Common Cause/Texas, derides the Bush tax holiday as “laughable.” Mathis' organization favored a permanent one-half cent across the board sales tax cut.

Bush's stance as a tax-cutter is also complicated by his record of proposed tax increases. Since 1994, Bush proposed some 58 tax increases over his two terms as governor. (Critics claim that Bush proposed more than 75 tax hikes; but they are double-counting.)

Still, in his 1994 campaign, Bush pledged never to raise the sales tax. In 1997, he proposed a one-half cent rise in the sales tax, one of the largest hikes in state history. Bush also proposed a new kind of tax on the personal income of business partnerships, everything from car repair to consulting practices. This would make taxes “fairer” by shifting the tax burden onto the rich, he said, enabling the average Texan to pay somewhat less. Lawmakers didn't buy that it was a “net tax cut” and the state Senate rejected it.

When confronted with his 1994 pledge not to raise taxes, Bush, in 1997, denied that he ever signed it. “It is not the governor's signature on the pledge,” Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said, “It's a copy of his signature. It is either a tracing or an auto-pen of his signature.” The tax pledge was a key part of his 1994 campaign. Then Mary Williams, who runs the group that solicited the pledge, presented a 1994 letter from Bush printed on campaign letterhead. “I oppose establishing a state personal income tax or increasing the sales tax,” Bush wrote. Bush “did not personally sign the letter, though he authorized its content,” Hughes explained. This sounds like Clinton.

Spending

Bush increased spending by a cumulative 36 percent since 1994—almost twice the rate of the Clinton Administration over the same period.

Bush's 1999 budget includes a 14 percent increase in spending. Bush even favors spending the state surplus. The state constitution requires that some $470 million of the state's current $4 billion surplus be put into the state's rainy day fund—unless the legislature quickly voted to spend it. Bush signed an “emergency appropriation” to spend the surplus, lest it be put aside for an economic downturn or returned to tax payers.

Education

Unlike his brother, Jeb Bush, Florida's governor, Bush has never pushed a voucher bill in the state legislature. Instead, he favored a pilot program affecting only a handful of schools. “I'm sure [Bush] wouldn't like me saying this,” Texas Federation of Teachers President John Cole, “but he is a Texas Democrat.”

His appointments show a coolness toward conservative reforms. He named Michael Moses to run the Texas Education Agency. Over the objections of conservatives, Moses approved textbooks featuring educational fads, such as “fuzzy math,” where the right answer is less important than the process the student uses to get the answer, and “rainforest algebra,” which focuses more on environmentalism than algebra. Even Bush's advisor on education, Margaret La Motague, told Texas reporters that the standards are “too lax.”

Affirmative Action

“If I am president of the United States, I will eliminate racial preferences, quotas,” Bush told the Miami Herald, but his Texas record tells a different story.

Bush has signed several affirmative action laws. One closed affirmative action files to the public while another enshrined the Historically Underutilized Business program, which punishes contractors who are found not to be making “good faith efforts” to hire women and minority subcontractors, in law. Asked specifically if race or sex should be a factor in state contract decisions, Bush told the Austin American Statesman, “I support goals. I think it is important to have goals.”

Bush also approved an amendment to a state electric utility restructuring bill that requires private utilities to meet the state's affirmative action goals. When asked about the provision at a press conference, Bush replied curtly: “It must have been acceptable. I signed the bill.” He then stepped away from the podium.

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Conservative Republicans today find themselves in a situation similar to that of liberal Democrats in 1992. They want to win enough to ignore the fine print. Like Clinton, Bush may be a winner, but Republicans shouldn't have any illusions about what they will be getting in return for the White House.

Based on his Texas record, George W. Bush will, for better or worse, be a lot like his father—a skillful executive with little stomach for conservative activism.