Mitch Perry
In a speech Monday at Florida State University, Jeb Bush will say that if elected president he will use all of his influence to enact into law a six-year ban on lobbying for ex-members of the House and Senate.
The former Florida governor returns to the state capital to speak on government reform at 10 a.m. on the FSU campus, and according to the Washington Examiner he observed as governor how lobbyists and legislators grew too comfortable in each other’s company “cutting deals that didn’t have much to do with the public interest.” He will then go into detail on some of the lobbying reforms that he signed in office, and even before he took office.
“As governor, we ended the practice of lawmakers accepting gifts from lobbyists, ” Bush will say. “The reforms I signed also required lobbyists to disclose information about their clients, their expenses, and their compensation – so the public would know who they were working for.”
As he talks about bringing those reforms to Washington, D.C., he’s being attacked by American Bridge, the Democratic opposition research political action committee.
In a memo penned by the group’s Jessica Meckler titled, “Jeb says he’ll climb mountains but drove Florida towards a cliff,” the press release blasts Bush, and quotes University of Florida economist Dave Denslow saying, “Jeb’s Florida fails as a model for the nation.”
The job growth Bush will tout was driven by construction and real estate jobs in the housing bubble, which peaked in his last year in office.
Three-fifths of the job creation under Bush was erased in the four years after he left office. As a result, Florida plunged into a recession even deeper than the one experienced nationally.
The $19 billion in tax cuts Bush pushed through primarily benefited the wealthy and businesses.
Florida had one of the highest costs of doing business in the country when Bush left.
The release includes hyperlinks to stories in the The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal quoting economists saying that Florida’s growth in the Bush years was led by the housing bubble, and wasn’t sustainable.
There are also numerous links referring to Florida State University’s relationship with the Koch brothers. It’s been well reported that in 2007 when the Charles Koch Foundation considered giving millions of dollars to Florida State University’s economics department, the offer came with strings attached.
