On the campaign trail, a recurring theme among Republican candidates is how they have cut taxes and reduced the size of government. For former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, that message is a core part of his presentation.
On June 2 at Gov. Rick Scott's Economic Growth Summit in Orlando, Bush noted how he cut taxes for Floridians. Bush said the following:
"In Florida, for eight years we cut taxes every year, totaling $19 billion."
PolitiFact Florida looked into Bush's record to see if his claim was accurate and reporter Joshua Gillin says Bush gets a HALF TRUE rating. Gillin says there are tax cuts that Bush can take credit for and others where he cannot.
"We took the detailed analysis provided by his campaign and showed it to several economists," Gillin said. "They responded that the methodology that they used to get to the $19 billion figure was pretty clear. We do have to point out that the $19 billion is in 2007, and it has been adjusted up to cover the time he was in office. The $19 billion includes tax cuts, but that's not the only thing in there. Adjustments to fees are in there, as well, as well as appropriations and the way that things were appropriated."
Gillin said, though, that some things included in the analysis were items that Bush had no control over.
"There were two big items in Bush's list," Gillin said. "One was the intangibles tax. This is the amount that you pay on investments and stocks. The other was the federal estate tax. This one is the amount that your estate pays in taxes to the government when you die. In both of those cases, Bush didn't have any control over those, so our experts questioned whether or not he could take credit for those."
Because Bush provided the detailed analysis to back up his claim, it gave PolitiFact a good overview of his claim. However, the analysis showed that there were things included that were outside of Bush's control while he was Florida governor, earning this claim a HALF TRUE.
SOURCES: Jeb Bush's record on cutting taxes
- PolitiFact ruling
- Right To Rise PAC, "Tax Reductions in Florida From 1999 And 2007," accessed June 4, 2015
- Florida TaxWatch, "Accelerated Estate Tax Changes Pose Threat to Florida: First Year Impact $460 Million Additional on Florida," May 2001
- New York Times, "Jeb Bush Ponders Future, Not Knowing What It Holds," Jan. 2, 2007
- Washington Policy Center/Maine Heritage Policy Center, "Governor Jeb Bush: A Record of Leadership and Policy Accomplishment," 2007
- The Urban Institute, "Back from the dead: State estate taxes after the fiscal cliff," Nov. 14, 2012
- Washington Times, "Jeb Bush’s tax stand could plague possible 2016 presidential run," Oct. 26, 2014
- Politico, "Reinventing Jeb Bush," Dec. 2, 2014
- Wall Street Journal, "What Kind of Republican is Bush? His Time as Governor Offers Clues," Dec. 16, 2014
- Washington Examiner, "Jeb Bush is a tax-cutter, but won't pledge to it," Dec. 17, 2014
- CNN, "The other Bush on taxes," Dec. 17, 2014
- Christian Science Monitor, "Eight things to know about Jeb Bush's record," Dec. 18, 2014
- Washington Post, "Jeb Bush hopes his Florida record erases doubts of conservatives," March 1, 2015
- TaxAnalysts.com, "Economic Analysis: The Jeb Bush Tax Cuts in Florida," April 6, 2015
- Forbes, "How Much Did Jeb Bush Cut Taxes In Florida?," April 7, 2015
- Forbes, "As Governor, Jeb Bush Catered Tax Cuts to the Wealthy," April 21, 2015
- Tampa Bay Times, "What you don't know about Jeb Bush's economic record," May 1, 2015
- Forbes, "Jeb Bush's Strong Economic Record Of Tax Cuts Speaks For Itself," May 12, 2015
- PolitiFact Florida, "The saga of state spending enforcer Jeb Bush's one-time alias, Veto Corleone," May 26, 2015
- Florida Office of Economic & Demographic Research, Fiscal Analysis in Brief archive, accessed June 8-10, 2015
- Interview with Matt Gorman, Right To Rise PAC spokesman, June 4-10, 2015
- Interview with Norton Francis, The Urban Institute senior research associate, June 8, 2015
- Interview with Shannon Meraw, Tax Analysts communications coordinator, June 8-9, 2015
- Interview with Amy Baker, Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research coordinator, June 10, 2015
- Interview with Kurt Wenner, Florida TaxWatch vice president of tax research, June 10-11, 2015