Well, we haven’t had a thread about our illustrious President-elect recently, so after reading part of “Shrub” by Molly Ivins and watching Bush’s cabinet appointments, I thought I would start one on a subject that has percolated in my mind recently.
My basic question: Can Bushies come up with examples where W has sided with non-corporate/business interests over corporate/business interests during his political life? I.e., are there examples when Bush has come out in favor of a bill that was strongly opposed by the corporate/business community (or come out in opposition to a bill that was strongly favored by them)?
By the way, this is an honest question in the sense that I do not know the answer. (I do have my suspicions…But at this point, with the impending Bush Presidency, I kind of want them to be proven wrong.) I even thought of posting to General Questions, but realistically I knew it would end up in GD anyway!
Well, remember that when we’re talking about W’s “political life”, we’re essentially limited to the six years he’s spent as Governor of Texas since 1994. And given that Texas is an extremely business-dominated state and much of Bush’s political support there has come from corporate connections, he’s had some dues to pay to corporate interests. Even if he did wish to support some non-business causes, he hasn’t yet had a whole lot of opportunity to do so without seriously injuring himself politically.
I also seem to recall (though I can’t check the facts because jshore borrowed my copy of Shrub ;)) that Ivins and Dubose commend Bush for having at least supported an educational initiative that former governor Ann Richards instituted. That’s not really siding with non-business interests over business interests, I guess, but it is at least some evidence that he values something besides deregulation and other corporate-friendly concessions.
Not very much, though. Has W ever rejected or opposed a measure that would be advantageous to businesses because it would be injurious to:
the environment? Not that I’m aware of: the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Council or whatever it’s called has been significantly weakened under his administration, and Texas pollution has famously gotten significantly worse.
labor interests? Not that I’m aware of.
civil rights? Not that I’m aware of, although I expect he will support broader interpretations of Second Amendment rights than the current administration tends to. His religious parochialism and social conservatism, however, don’t bode very well for the future of First Amendment rights, but that’s not so much an “anti-corporate” issue.
public health? Nope; cf. his resistance to raising enrollment limits for the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program, also detailed by Ivins and Dubose.
organized religion? I don’t think so, although the religious and pro-business communities in Texas politics are not very distinct. We’ll see what happens if he gets handed a real dilemma in this area as President.
social programs? Not that I’m aware of.
Again, not all of these are necessarily in opposition to corporate interests, and as I said W’s been significantly beholden to those interests up to now, so his freedom of action is somewhat limited. But I don’t think we will really see a big blossoming of “compassionate conservatism” once he gets into the White House; for one thing, he’s no less personally beholden to corporate interests now than he ever was (quite the contrary), and for another, I agree with the OP that he basically believes with Coolidge that “the business of America is business.” Period. Expect to see lots more antigovernment posturing as a disguise for corporate welfare in the next four years.
Thanks, all, for the responses. It looks like where we’ve gotten so far is that Bush has stood up against (or at least talked out against) pornographers, computer-game manufactures, and Hollywood. I notice a common theme here…He does seem willing to side with the religious Right / morality crowd over business sometimes. This is comforting…not.
Thanks, kimstu, for the detailed analysis. As for education, while I commend Bush for being interested in this area, I don’t think it can be cited as an example of standing against corporate interests. In fact, there were news stories last week about Bush’s successive meetings with traditional business leaders and high-tech business leaders. While the traditional ones apparently talked a lot about the need for tax cuts and the like, the high-tech leaders apparently were more interested in education issues because of their concerns about having a well-trained workforce.
And, in terms of the Second Amendment, I would say that, while this may involve a commitment to a civil right, it is not really standing up to business interests. In fact, the gun manufacturers are a non-trivial business interest / lobby themselves.
So, can anyone come up with examples of Bush siding with the environmental, labor, public health side against business interests?
Well, maybe you should have invested a little more time! Seriously though, I think one has to be careful not to include cases where public pressure forced him to do something and so he adopted the alternative being pushed by industry groups. This came up in the debate with Gore when Bush noted that he supported a patient’s bill of rights and Gore rightly pressed him on which bill he supported, since there was the one sponsored by the Republicans, pretty much at the behest of the insurance lobby I believe, in response to the Democratic bill with much more teeth in it!
I have tried to find more info on the second of the two bills that you cite. I can’t say I am ready to draw any final conclusion on it, but certain facts are not too encouraging. For example, there is press release by the Texas Chapter of the Sierra Club, http://www.sierraclub.org/chapters/tx/PressReleases/failure.html that does not portray Bush’s role in this bill in a very positive light. Here are some quotes from that release:
Sorry, but I ain’t ready to come up for air quite yet!
Another good link on Bush’s environmental record in Texas is the Texas Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility website: http://www.txpeer.org/Bush/
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All right, you’ve embarassed me into it. I dedicated another 2 minutes to the cause (on the same site) and came up with:
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…and…
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I suspect, though, that nothing is going to pass the test for you, based on your comments:
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This is sort of subjective, isn’t it? And couldn’t this also be described as compromise? BTW, I wouldn’t for a second suggest Bush isn’t strongly pro-business, perhaps more than he ought to be. I get the impression, though, that you’re not willing to concede anything short of him torching the local GM plant to clear ground for the building of a combination soup kitchen/women’s shelter.
Bob, the OP is looking for instances where Bush stood against business interests. You’ve cited some bills he signed, but I personally don’t equate signing a bill with support of it. It just implies a lack of absolute opposition to it.
In order to answer the OP, one would need to include Bush’s statements for or against, as well as statements by industry. For all I could tell from the bills you reference, Bush could have been against them (but signed in the spirit of ‘picking his battles’) or industry could have been in favor of them.
What Saltire said (especially the last sentence). Am I refusing to take YES for an answer? Well, maybe I am being a bit obstinate. But, I think it is fair to hold out for evidence that Bush has actively supported a bill or taken a position that was really contrary to what industry wanted.
I mean, if your standard is just going to be that it sounds like environmental protection or consumer protection (or even if it is but is supported by industry too) then that really isn’t evidence of standing up to corporate interests, is it? And God knows there are numerous examples I could cite of him standing up to labor interests or environmental interests! (Hell, there are also numerous examples of Gore standing up to labor interests or environmental interests! But, at least in his case, one can cite some examples going the other way.)
In particular, I believe the “access charges” debate pits local phone companies who own the lines against long distance service providers more than consumers vs. industry, and the bill against “slamming” is something that the bigger long distance providers like AT&T were begging for because they felt this is how some of the fly-by-night companies were stealing their business. (But, you don’t even want to get me started on how AT&T was engaging in its own more gentile form of slamming … or at least gross incompetence to the point that it amounted to pretty much the same thing. Been there, done that…Switched to MCI.)
