Jeb Bush’s Florida Magic Reconsidered

When GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush is asked how he can double the U.S. economy’s growth rate to 4 percent, his answer is simple: “Check out my record when I was governor of Florida,” he says in a recent campaign website posting.

Florida’s economy did grow at a 4.4 percent annual pace from 1999 through the end of 2006, his years in office. Yet a housing bubble, not Bush’s tax cuts and other policies, was responsible for most of that growth, analysts say. “If there was a tax cut that could get the economy growing at 4 percent, any politician—whether it’s Jeb or Bernie Sanders—would be pushing it,” says Bruce Bartlett, an official in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. “But there’s not one. Period. Full stop.” Bush campaign spokeswoman Kristy Campbell, in a statement, called the former governor’s record “impressive,” citing economic and job growth, balanced budgets, and a AAA bond rating during his time in office.