(Reuters) - Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush showed courage in breaking his "read my lips: no new taxes" campaign pledge to broker a 1990 budget compromise that may have cost him re-election two years later, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation said on Sunday.
The organization honored the 41st U.S. president with its 2014 Profile in Courage Award, praising the Republican leader's "decision to put country above party and political prospects" in the deal with congressional Democrats.
"America's gain was President Bush's loss," Jack Schlossberg, grandson of former president John F. Kennedy and a member of the award committee, said during a ceremony at the library in Boston.
Bush did not attend the event. Granddaughter Lauren Bush Lauren, niece of former president George W. Bush, accepted the award on her grandfather's behalf.
"Candidly speaking, my grandfather did not want to raise taxes in 1990," she said. "But in our constitutional system of governance, Congress also gets a say - and more than that, he felt he owed the American people action and results."
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And how did he get defeated, with the support of those praising him now?
ReplyDelete"It's the economy, stupid."
Perhaps if he had kept his campaign promise, the economy wouldn't have been such a mess, thereby leading to his defeat.
So what gain did America have, exactly?
yet he failed to do what was right.
ReplyDeleteCUT SPENDING ON A MEANINGFUL LEVEL!