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Bush family transportation legacy
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Crist cornered
From the inauguration of President Obama until just recently, the Bush family has tried to stay out of the public eye. The name Bush is still cringe-worthy for many Americans and will continue to be until the economy improves, the wars George W. Bush started come to a conclusion and the reputation for America abroad ameliorates. Bus 41 and 43 are still off the radar, but another Bush is started to address the cameras with increasing frequency: Jeb.
The former Governor of Florida was recently interviewed for Esquire magazine by Tucker Carlson on his thoughts about the state of the GOP. Jeb is now being touted by some in the Republican Party as a leader (due to the fall from grace of a number of up-and-comers in the party such as Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford and John Ensign) despite the last name.
The interview was insightful. He concedes that the GOP has not had any new ideas since 1990 and when asked why President Obama is so popular, his irritated reply was “who cares?”
The “Smart Bush” holds all the same views as his W., his older brother on global warming (both are deniers), economic policy (tax cuts cure all), Obama (bad) and public transportation (gut it). The Bush distaste for mass transit goes back a generation. The time period in which America fell far behind Europe in mass transit and fortified US oil-dependence was when George H. W. Bush was Vice-President to Ronald Reagan. 1981 was the year the French TVG line from Paris to Lyon was brought into service. This line arguably opened the modern era of high speed trains.
As Europe was speeding ahead, the only Reagan and Bush Sr. infrastructure reform in the US was the creation of an underfunded Mass Transit Account as part of the Highway Trust Fund. Less that 20% of the funds raised by taxing fuel went to mass transit while the other 80+% went to building highways. This meager funding let passenger rail in fall into the poor state it is still in today.
Bush Sr. did well to keep mass transit unavailable to the public, but his sons have gone out of their way to outclass their old man. Jeb was even more opposed to rail options for Americans than W. While Bush 43 kept public transportation off the agenda for the whole of his presidency, he did not publically go out of his way to kill a project. After the citizens of Florida approved a measure to have a high speed rail corridor built in the Sunshine State, Bush rallied opposition to have another vote. A Rovian propaganda campaign against the corridor was successful and voters dropped the plans for high speed rail in 2004.
Jeb Bush is George W. Bush, only a little younger. Energy and transportation policy espoused by Jeb is the same ideas already given by his dad, a one term president and his brother, a man who left office with a 22% approval rating. This is the potential future leader of the Republican Party.
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