Bush Bucks by Peter Schweizer

Author:Peter Schweizer [Schweizer, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Corruption, Cronyism, Jeb Bush, Politics
ISBN: 9780996778701
Publisher: Peter Schweizer
Published: 2015-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

As I so often have observed in my previous work, serving in public office and exercising government power creates opportunities for politicians to enrich themselves. There are the obvious illegal methods, such as taking bribes, but relatively few politicians take this route. Why risk going to jail? The more indirect approach, but perhaps even more lucrative, is to perform favors for those who can reward you later on for the decisions you made while in public office. This does not need to be an explicit quid pro quo—you do this and I will give you something in return. It can be more indirect than that. But that does not make it any less troubling. Decisions made for the benefit of powerful entities—whether they be corporations, labor unions, or individual investors—that will be repaid later on for politicians undermine the very fabric of our electoral system and breed cynicism.

Sometimes that self-enrichment takes place while the politician is in office. Perhaps they receive a beneficial financial deal from someone for whom they are doing a favor. Or perhaps a family member gets put on the payroll. But self-enrichment can also take place after one has left public office. In the case of Jeb Bush, numerous corporations or investment firms benefited from his direct actions on their behalf as governor and later paid him lucrative fees or granted him stock options in the years immediately following his departure from the governor’s mansion. No one, of course, should fault a politician who has left public life and started a business or is making money that is disconnected from favors he or she performed for corporations or individuals while in office. Hitting the lecture circuit? Sure. But what if the bulk of their moneymaking after leaving office comes from entities they did favors for while in public life? Or what if the “services” they perform in the private sector relate to their political relationships with government officials, or may tie in to other family members who are still in office?

Bush Bucks raises concerns that are similar to those brought up in Clinton Cash. Obviously, the scale and amount of money is much smaller in Jeb Bush’s case than that of the Clintons. While the Clintons have collected more than $150 million in personal income and more than $2 billion in Clinton Foundation donations since 2001, the flow to Jeb Bush has been far less.120 According to tax returns, Bush took in approximately $30 million in the years following his tenure as governor, and his private foundation’s annual budget has hovered around $10 million a year. Also, the flow of money to Jeb Bush is not global. A large amount of the money flowing to the Clintons came from foreign entities; the flow of funds to Jeb is essentially from the United States. There are other radical differences. In the case of the Clintons, money flowed to them both personally and via their foundation while Hillary Clinton was in political office, first as a senator then as the Secretary of State.

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