| Feature Story
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Money Talks,
They Listen |
George
W. Bush
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| Caricature
©1999 Bill Yund |
Texas Governor George W. Bush, the GOP’s
number-one presidential contender, gave Crown Central Petroleum an
award last year for taking part in his voluntary pollution
reduction compliance program. Not long afterwards, the state of
Texas fined Crown $1.1 million for polluting the air.
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Texas workers creatively
protest the Crown
Petroleum lockout. George W. Bush gave the polluting company
an award. Photo ©PACE |
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In April, two PACE International Union members,
among the 252 who were locked out by Crown starting in 1996, went
to Bush’s mansion to protest the so-called "voluntary
program" as a sham. They were promptly arrested. PACE special
projects director Joe Drexler said he found it disturbing that
Bush was "arresting American citizens for exercising their
constitutional right to free speech." He added that Bush’s
program "lets polluters like Crown off the hook. It’s no
surprise, however, since Crown CEO Henry Rosenberg is a regular
contributor to Governor Bush’s campaign."
'A man of little
substance'
It’s not too hard to figure out which side
George W. Bush is on. As Bobby Phillips, a locked out Crown
worker/activist points out, "His dad was born with a silver
spoon in his mouth, and so was he."
George W. Bush, son of the former president, is
the Republican Party’s star contender in the 2000 presidential
race, and the contributions have been pouring in. But working
people from Texas don’t have a lot of good things to say.
"Basically, he seems to be a man of very
little substance," observes PACE political action director
Paula Littles, a Texas native. "In the first legislative
session after Bush was elected governor, he had not a single major
item on the agenda. He has never even seemed very knowledgeable
about the issues." The one thing Bush did push hard for in
his five years as governor, he lost: a property tax relief bill
that would have handed $2 billion back to the state’s better-off
residents.
A campaign that seems
singularly lacking in content ...
So far, Bush’s presidential campaign also seems
singularly lacking in content. In declaring his candidacy, he did
outline a few positions. He wants to cut taxes, "reduce the
regulations that strangle enterprise," "embrace free
trade," at least partially privatize Social Security, and
increase military spending. He’s had next to nothing to say
about our nation’s health care crisis. But he does say he wants
more welfare "reform," including withholding benefits
from the children of recipients if their parents are deemed
unwilling to work. As it is, in Bush’s state, a single mom
staying home with her two kids gets all of $188 a month.
That’s a pretty tough stance for someone who’s
had many a helping hand himself. Before George Bush was elected
governor, he was a Texas oilman. He started his oil-drilling firm
using money from his trust fund. In 1986, after two of his oil
ventures failed, Bush was "bailed out," reports the
Texas Observer, by Dallas-based Harken Energy, run by a GOP funder.
Bush was still at Harken when his dad won the presidency. Two
years later, Harken, which had reportedly never drilled a well
overseas or in water, won exclusive offshore drilling rights from
the government of Bahrain. Bush insisted that his father being
president had nothing to do with it. Soon afterwards, Bush used
the $850,000 he got from selling his shares in Harken to help pay
off loans he had taken in 1989 to buy a big stake in the Texas
Rangers baseball team.
That Rangers deal turned out pretty well for Bush
too. His $605,000 investment in the team netted him between $10
and $14 million when he and his cohorts sold it last year —
twenty-three times his original investment. However, Bush and
friends didn’t pay a bill along the way: they owe the city of
Arlington, site of the team’s new ballpark, some $7.5 million
due to a court judgment which found that the city did not get a
fair price for the land the ballpark occupies. Bush and friends
apparently got the city to condemn the 13-acre site, then picked
it up for a song. They also turned to taxpayers to repay the bonds
sold to build the ballpark. Meanwhile, Texas moms are getting away
with murder with that $188 a month.
Bush is getting another big helping hand in
financing his presidential bid. He hauled in more money in his
first four months of campaigning ($36.3 million) than any previous
presidential candidate has in 18 months. Bush backers include
Enron, Bass Brothers, Texas Utilities, Merrill Lynch, and the Bank
of America.
See also:
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