A Conservative Turns on Jeb
What was Paul Craig Roberts thinking?

By Rod Thomson, a writer living in Florida
March 30, 2001 12:30 p.m.

lorida Gov. Jeb Bush is keeping mum on his plans to run for a second term — saying that he will announce his decision in June — even while a campaign team is quietly assembling to start raising money for that option.

But this uncertainty has not tempered the attacks on him. The Democrats made great hay after the presidential-election debacle, throwing every problem at the steps of the governor's mansion. All race problems, real and contrived, are now Bush's because of the post-election fracas and the governor's rather successful affirmative-action alternative. Democrats have seen success as his once sky-high popularity has retreated to more normal levels, and so they keep the attacks coming.

But it is not only political opponents who are taking pot shots at the younger Bush.

In a recent TownHall.com column, respected conservative economist Paul Craig Roberts made two somewhat contradicting and surprisingly non-conservative charges. First, that Bush is not being political enough by pursuing policies that are hurting Republicans and, second, that Bush is being too political by paying off development interests with "velvet favors."

Both of these charges, from a writer I read regularly, raise the barometer on the "good-government" meter - and both fall short of conservative merit.

Roberts writes, "Voters in the Florida panhandle voted Republican by a two-to-one margin. Their reward? Gov. Bush's budget recommends terminating the Dog Fly Eradication Program in Bay, Gulf and Walton counties."

The budget needed trimming in areas to bring a shortfall into balance and still try to provide some tax relief. Solid fiscal goals. But Roberts's example suggests that Bush should aim cuts only at Republicans and at Republican businesses. As politically appealing as that may sound, it is awful governance, and not really in character with Bush. At least until November, the younger Bush had the same reputation for being able to work with the opposing party as did his older brother in the White House.

The question here, completely missed by a politics-for-me-only attitude, is whether the state should be doing dog-fly eradication, or whether the counties that have the problem and are getting the direct benefit should be responsible. The conservative principle of government closest to the people suggests that it should fall to the county. Why should a waitress in Miami pay to kill pest flies in the panhandle?

And that brings up the second issue.

Roberts blames Bush for a state law that protects landowners from having central-planning bureaucrats change land-use regulations and significantly degrade the value of their property for a government-determined, "greater good." The way things had worked before, for example, planners could designate properties where regular subdivisions could be built as important open-use areas, or environmentally important areas, or "just-nice-for-rural" areas. That simple designation on a map could wipe out the value of the land with no recourse.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled takings by government to be unconstitutional, and Florida, like a few other states, put teeth into those rulings by passing a law requiring compensation to landowners for the lost use of their lands. If the government wants to change the allowed uses on that land, thus de-valuing the property, it has to pay the landowner.

But Roberts has a different prescription for the panhandle. He sees the law being used unscrupulously by evil developers bent on "destroying" older communities by threatening lawsuits against hapless local officials. "Often to avoid suits, the county governments abandon the communities and permit them to be destroyed," he writes. "The way the law is working out, only Johnny-come-lately developers have property rights. Long-time residents, who bought into a community or neighborhood when they purchased their homes, have none."

He blames Bush. Unfortunately for his argument, the compensation law that put muscle behind the takings rulings was passed in 1995, three years before Bush was elected governor.

In different times, Florida was a leader in denying basic property rights for the "good" of the broader community, often by introducing increasingly intrusive government to accomplish this goal. Some city codes are so strict as to regulate not only height, setback, and design, but also rigidly determine the specifics of how the outside of a building is to be decorated and the type of foliage that can be planted, and where. Perhaps Roberts is comfortable with such overweening regulation. But most conservatives are not.

Like so many Democratic opponents, Roberts fails to take into account the very real possibility that Bush actually believes in the old-fashioned notion of property rights, even when people do things with their property that he doesn't like. A former developer, he has seen that world from both sides.

Jeb Bush's campaign team has a big fundraising goal: $40 million. It will be a big fight. Bush needs that money in order to promote his candidacy and to blunt the assaults of Democratic foes, not presumptive allies.