Tag Archives: George W. Bush

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Deficit plummets; cheers pending, yes?

Take a look at this report on the state of the current federal budget deficit.

Deficit was $680 billion in 2013

It’s fallen to “only” $680 billion. I know that’s still a lot of money to be in the red. The government should be balanced. It’s not and it doesn’t look as though it’ll reach balance any time soon.

But the link also shows the trend the deficit has taken the past five years. It’s gone down — a lot.

It peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009, when President Bush handed the keys to the White House to President Obama. It has done down a little each year since. However, at $680 billion, the deficit is down about 51 percent from its high-water mark, which suggests a significant improvement in the nation’s economic performance.

Of course, the cheering has been muted. The political climate in D.C. and in the nation won’t allow the Loyal Opposition to offer a good word on that. They still bemoan the sluggish job growth, the still-too-high unemployment rate (7.2 percent, also down from 10 percent four years ago) and other factors.

Indeed, some folks perhaps are going to suggest the federal budget sequestration — which kicked in automatic budget cuts — deserves some of the credit for the narrowing of the deficit. Maybe so.

I’m inclined to think the government’s stimulus packages had a hand in it as well, putting more people to work, generating more tax revenue for the Treasury and helping the nation inch back toward the balance it achieved in the second term of President Clinton’s administration.

I’m a deficit hawk. I don’t like spending money we don’t have in the bank. As the Treasury Department report notes, though, the deficit also comprises a shrinking percentage of the Gross Domestic Product — which is more good news.

I’m still waiting to hear the applause.

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Words have consequences, Rep. Chaffetz

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, used an interesting term to describe the influence senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett has on Obama administration policy.

He said Jarrett has “tentacles on every issue.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/330669-chaffetz-valerie-jarrett-has-tentacles-into-every-issue-at-the-white-house

Tentacles.

Not her hands. Not her fingers. She’s not merely involved. She has tentacles.

When I think of the term “tentacles,” I think of the slimy deep-sea creature that skulks along the ocean floor. Now I suppose Rep. Chaffetz, a tea party golden boy, is trying to ascribe some seedy description to the Obama administration’s senior political adviser.

Why is it such a surprise that President Obama relies on an individual to give him advice? President George W. Bush had Karl Rove. President Bill Clinton had his wife. President George H.W. Bush had Jim Baker. President Ronald Reagan relied on Mike Deaver.

I guess they all had “tentacles” on their respective bosses’ policies.

Jarrett is no different. It’s the pejorative term “tentacles,” though, that seems so irksome.

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Hance leaving Tech chancellor’s office

Kent Hance’s announced retirement shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

The former Texas state senator, congressman, railroad commissioner and now university administrator has been in the public eye since The Flood, or so it seems. He’s outgoing, gregarious, funny as the dickens, homespun yet sophisticated and he carries himself with a West Texas aplomb that is impossible to duplicate.

Texas Tech University’s chancellor is retiring next year and will assume the role as “chancellor emeritus,” whatever that means.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/11/kent-hance-to-step-down-as-texas-tech-chancellor/

A university chancellor’s main role is to raise money. Hance surely could do that.

The native of Dimmitt has a unique place in Texas political history: He is the only politician ever to defeat George W. Bush for elective office, doing so in 1978 when both men were running for the West Texas congressional seat being vacated by the legendary U.S. Rep. George Mahon. Hance was a Democrat back then, but he would switch to the Republican Party years later.

My association with Hance goes back to my first year in Texas. In 1984, I arrived at my post in Beaumont to work on the editorial page of the Beaumont Enterprise. Hance was running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the late Sen. John Tower.

In that year’s Democratic primary for the Senate seat, Hance finished second in a three-way near dead heat with state Sen. Lloyd Doggett and former U.S. Rep. Bob Krueger. Doggett would beat Hance in a runoff a few weeks later. Hance came to Beaumont to try to persuade the newspaper to endorse his candidacy and I was blown away by the man’s wit and charm.

I had heard the stories about his campaign in 1978 when he put on his good ol’ boy charm to beat Bush for the West Texas seat in Congress. He brought it with him to Beaumont in 1984 as well. Indeed, he has kept it all through his public life.

His time at Tech’s helm was marked with plenty of success. The school is setting student enrollment records seemingly every year. He came to Amarillo a couple of years ago to declare that, in his view, Texas Tech ought to consider expanding its medical center complex in Amarillo to a full four-year medical school.

An expansion, he said, would require Amarillo to demonstrate it can support such a move.

I don’t yet know where that will go. My hope is that as chancellor emeritus, Hance will be able to keep that flame burning.

Thank you for your service, Kent.

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Patrick tells only part of in-state tuition story

State Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston has launched his first TV ad touting his candidacy for Texas lieutenant governor.

Wouldn’t you know it, he distorts a critical issue in this still-developing campaign. He said he is the “only candidate to oppose in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/10/patrick-launches-border-security-tv-ad/

Good for him.

Except to say in-state tuition applies to all “illegal immigrants” ignores a key provision that’s been supported by the likes of former Gov. George W. Bush, current Gov. Rick Perry and other reasonable Republicans. The provision applies to those immigrants who came to Texas as children, those who were brought here by their parents, those who have grown up as Texans.

Back in late 2011, when Perry was running for the GOP presidential nomination, he got in trouble with the far right of his party when he spoke out in favor of granting in-state tuition to those immigrants. He stood firm against the criticism, to his great credit.

I see nothing wrong with granting those Texans who came here as children and who qualify academically for entrance into our many fine public colleges and universities the same tuition rates as granted to other Texans.

They have grown up as Texans and Americans. Give them the education they deserve at a price they can afford.

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Don’t mess with this Texas slogan

Texas tries to get serious about littering … so much so that it has adopted a slogan that to many millions of Americans, and even some Texans, has taken on an entirely new meaning.

“Don’t Mess With Texas” has been around since the mid-1980s. The state’s General Land Office launched the anti-littering campaign with the slogan that has, shall we say, become as popular as a Friday night football tailgate party.

The New York Times story linked here discusses how Texas is trying to protect the integrity of its slogan. I have an idea: How about using it exclusively for its intended purpose, which was to tell people they shouldn’t litter the state’s vast and varied landscape.

Texas officials say they’re trying to preserve the slogan’s original meaning. Some leading politicians, though, aren’t following suit. As the Times article noted, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush used the phrase in a political context when he accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2000. Other pols have thrown the slogan around to tout some people’s view of Texas machismo.

As the Times reported: “The phrase is known around the world, and it is important for everyone to recognize that ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ means ‘Don’t litter,’ ” Veronica Beyer, a (Texas) Transportation Department spokeswoman, said in a statement. “When an alleged infringement is discovered, the department quickly seeks the appropriate legal remedy, which is usually a cease-and-desist demand of the unauthorized use and all future uses thereof. In the majority of such cases, our request for the violator to cease and desist has been all the action required.”

I couldn’t agree more with that view. The problem for the state, though, is how to reel in those who keep abusing the slogan.

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Waiting on Mac Thornberry to weigh in on Syria

Has anyone seen or heard from U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry lately?

I know that’s a rhetorical question. Some folks have seen and/or heard him as he travels through the vast 13th Congressional District of the Texas Panhandle, which he has represented since 1995.

But here’s the deal: The nation is roiling at this moment over whether President Obama should order missile strikes against Syrian military forces in retaliation for their use of chemical weapons, but Mac Thornberry, a senior Republican member of the House Armed Services and Permanent Select Intelligence committees, has been all but silent on the matter.

http://thornberry.house.gov/

I spent some time this morning perusing Thornberry’s website. I looked for press releases, issues statements, “white papers” on national security. Nothing in there about Syria.

I’m waiting for Thornberry to offer some wisdom on this matter, given that so many members of Congress have weighed in already.

I am acutely aware that much of the public commentary on Syria has come from the usual cadre of Democratic and Republican legislative blowhards. Thornberry isn’t one of them. He’s been a quiet and fairly studious member of Congress since winning the House seat in that landmark 1994 election.

However, he’s also had a ringside seat on some difficult national security issues. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Thornberry has been required to study diligently issues relating to the use of our massive military might. What’s more, as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, he has had access to some of the most sensitive national security material imaginable. The late U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-Lufkin — who also served on that panel — once told me that committee members saw virtually everything the president saw. I’m quite certain Thornberry has access to a lot of information about Syria and its possession of deadly nerve agents.

The nation has entered the most serious national security debate since President George W. Bush sought authorization to go to war with Iraq, citing dictator Saddam Hussein’s supposed cache of chemical weapons — which we learned later did not exist.

President Obama’s national security team has presented what appears to be compelling proof that Syria has used the gas on civilians and it has more of it stashed away. He wants to hit those stockpiles in a series of air strikes. The military says it’s ready to go.

Mac Thornberry, our elected representative, has had time to digest the information.

I’m waiting to hear whether he supports striking at a seriously evil dictator.

Talk to us, Mac.

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Sessions ‘not being partisan’?

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is using an interesting tactic in criticizing President Obama’s handling of the Syria crisis.

He said that President George W. Bush would have frightened Syrian dictator Bashar as-Assad enough to prevent the Syrians from using chemical weapons on innocent civilians.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/09/06/sen_sessions_if_bush_threatened_assad_he_wouldnt_have_used_chemical_weapons.html

Sessions assured a town hall audience, mind you, that he isn’t being partisan. “We have only one president at a time,” he said. But by golly, if the 43rd president had said the same thing the 44th president said in warning Assad, the dictator would be scared.

I think the senator, who’s as partisan as they come in his view of policy and politics, has thrown out the Mother of All Hypotheticals.

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Bush kin on right immigration track

The Bush family name be politically toxic in much of the nation, but it remains fairly golden in Texas.

The reasons for that long-lasting good will might be difficult to explain. I’ll add that on immigration reform, the Bush family is ahead of the curve and is on the right side of history.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/09/bush-family-back-in-political-spotlight-with-immigration-reform/

As the San Antonio Express-News blog notes, the Bushes can mark their return to public life with their strong stance on reforming the nation’s broken immigration system.

George P. Bush, the son of the former Florida governor, Jeb, is running as a Republican for Texas land commissioner — an office that doesn’t have much to say directly about immigration issues. But his father and his mother — Columba, a native of central Mexico — both have been strongly encouraging serious immigration reform that includes a “path to citizenship” for those who are here illegally. And as someone with Latino blood in his veins, George P. is seen as a rising Latino star within the Republican Party.

Uncle George W., the 43rd president of the United States, is another one who speaks wisely about immigration issues. The Express-News blog notes that former President Bush’s silence since leaving office in 2009 is beginning to break with his views on the subject. He was strong on immigration while serving as Texas governor and as president.

To his great credit, Rick Perry — who succeeded Bush as governor — has been equally outspoken on the issue, much to the dismay of his conservative allies within the GOP, some of whom argue stupidly that we should just round up all them “illegals” and send ’em back to where they came from. Perry, meanwhile, has supported legislation granting undocumented immigrants who’ve grown up in Texas “in-state tuition” incentives to enroll in our state’s public colleges and universities.

It encourages me to know that not all Republicans have gone around the bend on some of critical issues. I just hope they’ll listen to the wisdom — at least on the matter of immigration — to the Bush family of Texas.

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‘No doubt’ about chemical weapons

I’m hearing it already, the talk that compares the impending strike against Syria to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and the faulty intelligence — some call it outright lying about it — that supposedly justified the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Let’s hold on a minute.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said this week there is no doubt, none, that Syrian government forces gassed civilians, including infants. President Obama says that he has no intention of getting into a ground war, that he would use airstrikes only to punish Syria for using the chemical weapons in violation of “international norms.”

http://news.msn.com/us/white-house-to-congress-no-doubt-on-syria-chemical-weapons

How does that differ from a decade ago? Well, the Bush administration said it had intelligence confirming that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons. President Bush’s military high command assembled an invasion force to enter the country, to occupy it and to get rid of the weapons. It turned out the weapons didn’t exist. U.S. forces eventually found Hussein hiding in a “spiderhole.” He was tried for crimes against humanity in an Iraqi court and hanged. But we stayed on, and on, and on — fighting to gain control of the country before handing it over to the Iraqi government.

It’s good to ask: Does anyone really believe the Obama administration, knowing what happened when it was learned that the intelligence gathered before the Iraq War was so bad, that it’s going to repeat that horrible mistake this time around? Is it going to risk the most intense worldwide condemnation imaginable if it isn’t certain that Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s forces used the chemicals on innocent civilians? I hardly think so.

The Iraq War was launched on false pretenses. The Syrian strikes — if they come — are certain to be based on much stronger evidence than we ever gathered before marching headlong into Iraq.

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GOP sets new impeachment standard

I have concluded something sad about today’s Republican Party: It has reset the standard for impeaching the president of the United States.

Some GOP members of Congress are so intent on impeaching President Obama that at least one of them admits to having dreams about it. For what reason? What precisely are the “high crimes and misdemeanors” the president committed that warrant such a drastic act? They aren’t saying.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/us/politics/ignoring-qualms-some-republicans-nurture-dreams-of-impeaching-obama.html?ref=politics&_r=0

Suffice to say that it appears — to me, at least — that Republicans, led by the tea party wing of their party, have decided impeachment is one way to get rid of a guy they dislike, whose policies they detest.

It has gotten me to thinking about whether this new standard would have come into play during previous recent administrations. Was it plausible, therefore, to impeach:

* President Ford, for issuing a summary pardon to his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for any crimes he might have committed against the nation?

* President Carter, on whose watch the Iranian hostage rescue mission went so horribly wrong, causing the president and his national security team tremendous heartache?

* President Reagan, who misled the nation during the Iran-Contra crisis, which resulted in arms sales to the Contras in Central America while negotiations were underway with the rogue Iranian government that was holding seven American hostages?

* President George H.W. Bush, who promised never to raise taxes as long as he was president, and who then reneged on that solemn pledge?

* President George W. Bush, whose national security team — along with much of the rest of the world — sold Americans a bill of goods that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had a huge cache of chemical weapons? Turns out, after we invaded Iraq in March 2003, there were no such weapons — anywhere.

The answer to all of those, of course, is “no.”

You’ll notice, naturally, that I didn’t include President Clinton in that roster of past leaders. The House did impeach Clinton … for having an affair with a White House intern and then lying to a federal grand jury about it. In my view, the GOP set a pretty low standard for impeachment then as well. The Senate then tried Clinton, but acquitted him.

Are we heading back down that path now, with Republicans simply drooling over the possibility of impeaching a president?

They’re going to have to come up with a whole lot more than they’ve presented to date as reasons to do such a thing. And to date, they’ve produced nothing.