Breaking: Jeb Bush Announces Creation Of Leadership PAC He Announced Last Year

Jeb Bush officially takes a more formal step in running for president, by doing what he said he was going to do last year.

Last year, Jeb Bush announced he would be creating a leadership PAC in his journey toward thinking about running for president. This morning, the 61-year old former Florida governor announced he is filing papers to create that PAC.

Called the Right to Rise PAC, Bush launched the fundraising website this morning.

The people behind the creation are promoting it on Google, and have included Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter links. 

The name comes from a speech former GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan made in 2011, before the anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-women think tank Heritage Foundation.

“Here in America—unlike most places on Earth—all citizens have the right to rise,” Ryan told the group, which is now run by former Tea Party Sen. Jim DeMint.

The National Journal describes Bush’s embrace of the term.

Bush was enamored almost immediately. “Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: ‘The right to rise,’ ” Bush wrote in the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal a couple of months later.

While short on substance, Bush’s Right to Rise PAC does offer some insight into his political game.

“Millions of our fellow citizens across the broad middle class feel as if the American Dream is now out of their reach; that our politics are petty and broken; that opportunities are elusive; and that the playing field is no longer fair or level,” the PAC states, ignoring the fact that the Republican party is largely to blame for that very condition.

“Too many of the poor have lost hope that a path to a better life is within their grasp. While the last eight years have been pretty good ones for top earners, they’ve been a lost decade for the rest of America. We are not leading – at home or abroad.”

Many believe Bush’s brother, former President George W. Bush, is responsible for that “lost decade.”

“We believe the income gap is real,” Right to Rise continues, “but that only conservative principles can solve it by removing the barriers to upward mobility.”

This year there will be approximately one million fewer people eligible for food stamps, thanks to the GOP changing the formula and kicking them off the program.

“We will celebrate success and risk-taking, protect liberty, cherish free enterprise, strengthen our national defense, embrace the energy revolution, fix our broken and obsolete immigration system, and give all children a better future by transforming our education system through choice, high standards and accountability.”

Each one of those represents a feather in the GOP’s cap of obstruction today. For example, “embrace the energy revolution.” The GOP is largely responsible for trillions of dollars in subsidies to oil giants, while derailing high-speed rail projects and renewable energy initiatives. 

“We will strive to put our fiscal house back in order, re-limit government and ensure that America is a welcoming society.”

American has been anything but a “welcoming society” for millions of minorities and undocumented immigrant families, thanks to the GOP.

Curiously, the statement leaves out the GOP’s greatest obsession: religious preferences.

Bush has been in the news this week more than usual. On Sunday he delivered a widely-panned response to same-sex marriage becoming legal in his home state of Florida, and on Monday he released another statement attempting to sidestep criticism his previous statement attracted.

 

Image via Right to Rise PAC