protested that "every single tax dollar due by any company that I own an interest in has
been paid." [fn 22]
The status of the Rural Electrification Administration was also a campaign issue.
Goldwater had said in Denver, Colorado on May 3, 1963 that the time had come "to
dissolve the Rural Electrification Administration." Wishing to appear as an orthodox
Goldwater clone in every respect, Bush had failed to distance himself from this demand.
The REA was justly popular for its efforts to bring electric power to impoverished sectors
of the countryside. Yarborough noted first of all that Bush "wouldn't know a cotton boll
from a corn shuck," but he insisted on levelling "so un-Texan a blow at the farmers and
ranchers of Texas. To sell the REA's in Texas to the private power monopoly would be
carrying out the demands of the big Eastern power structure and the wishes of the New
York investment bankers who handle the private power monopoly financing. My
opponent is in line to inherit his share of that New York investment banking structure,"
Yarborough told a gathering of Texas REA officials.
Following in Prescott Bush's footsteps, George Bush was implacably hostile to
government-sponsored infrastructure projects. Such projects are of course the essence of
the American System of political economy as understood by Franklin, Hamilton, Lincoln,
and FDR. One ongoing water project in Texas in 1964 was the Trinity River project.
Early in the campaign, Bush said that he could not support this project because it was
exacerbating a federal budegt defecit that was already too high. But this stance proved so
unpopular in the Texas electorate that Bush later flip-flopped, saying that he had been
sympathetic to the Trinity River project all along, and that maybe there was a way to get
it done without adding to the defecit.
On other issues, Bush had the following positions:
On education: "Education is a responsibility of the States. Federal aid inevitably means
eventual federal control. I favor retention of more tax money by the States so as to build
the local and state education programs. We must meet the challenge of education BUT at
the State and local levels." Has the Education President advocated anything different?
On Food stamps: Bush called them a "New Frontier gimmick" with "interesting black
market possibilities here."
On school prayer Bush was duly sanctimonious: "I am concerned about the erosion of our
moral fibre and religious heritage. I believe that prayers in the public schools on a
voluntary basis are in keeping with the great traditions upon which this country was
founded...Vicious attacks in the courts on prayers in the schools or in reference to God in
our lives must be repudiated."
On Red China: Beijing, said Bush in 1964 "must never be admitted to the UN. In the
event this does occur, then I advocate withdrawal from the United Nations." Bush was
the man who later cast his vote for the admission of Red China to the world body in
1971.