Jeb Bush Campaign Press Release - Washington, Iowa

Governor Bush published the following op-ed in the Des Moines Register:

Every time I come to Iowa, I'm struck by how Iowans view Washington D.C. They see it as the remote and gleaming city of marble and glass I like to call Mount Washington.

There's a lot of frustration with Mount Washington right now — and I agree. Taxes are too high, regulations too intrusive, spending too reckless and borrowing too irresponsible.

It goes against the way Iowans live. This state has the lowest credit card debt per capita in the nation. And despite an economy that is growing at a sluggish pace under President Obama's failed leadership, Iowans are managing to save for the future, invest in their local communities and live within their means.

That's why my goal isn't to climb Mount Washington to take in the view from the heights. Rather, I'm running for president to disrupt the established order, change the culture and make possible the real changes that this nation needs.

I'm familiar with this kind of challenge. When I got to Tallahassee as governor in January 1999, I called the city "Mount Tallahassee" because it was so remote from the people. But I took it on, and we ended the status quo. That made it possible to do some really big things: Balance budgets, cut taxes, rebuild reserves, reform education and make the state's government more efficient and more accountable.

It's that record I plan to repeat when I take on Washington D.C.

I will start with a demand for accountability. These past six years have seen government agencies and government leaders spend more, borrow more and fail more — and the keepers of Mount Washington have not bothered to survey the damage.

There was the failure of healthcare.gov. The extended wait times for care at VA hospitals — and the lying to cover it up. The partisan abuses at the IRS, and another cover-up. The ignoring of warnings over cyberhacking at OPM, and the failure to prevent the loss of personnel records and security information for nearly 22 million people.

And through it all, almost no accountability. That's what you get when you build a government that is as big as a mountain and acts like one.

Now is time for a new approach: It starts by cutting off the oxygen to Mount Washington — the tax-spend-and borrow culture of Washington.

In my time in office, we balanced eight budgets in a row and increased our state's reserves by 8 billion dollars. The state's bond rating was upgraded to AAA status. I cut the state bureaucracy by more than 10 percent, and put 16,000 government managers on at-will contracts, making them fully accountable for their decisions.

I vetoed more than 2,500 spending items, producing $2 billion in savings, and I'm glad somebody was keeping count. Legislators started calling me Veto Corleone. I also was the first governor to put an entire state budget online, keeping government out in the open, where it belongs.

Here's how I think we can repeat this record in Washington D.C.: First, I will urge Congress to submit a balanced budget amendment to the states and let the people decide. Second, I would seek a constitutionally sound line-item veto.

Third, I will push to budget the way most Americans do — start from zero every year, and end the assumption among government agencies that they are owed an increase just because the population and inflation went up.

I will place a freeze on federal hiring, and only hire one new person for every three who leave. My goal will be to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy by 10 percent within 4 years, saving tens of billions of dollars, and without adding to unemployment.

If we do these things, we will change the culture in Washington. And if we change the culture, we will be able to do some really big things: Bring the deficit down. Reform our tax code. Fix our broken immigration system. Double the pace of economic growth. Create 19 million new jobs.

It's all possible, and it's all within reach.