You probably don’t care that George P. Bush is running for land commissioner in Texas. But you might look back at this race as critically important. To see why, you need to understand how George P. Bush’s grandfather started out in politics. Poppy Bush was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966, from a district in Houston, Texas. His biggest backer was his father Prescott Bush, a Republican from Connecticut who had served in the Senate from 1952-63, and who still had quite a bit of juice on Capitol Hill. But the rest of Poppy’s moneymen were oilmen who were primarily concerned with something called the “oil depletion allowance.” It was a tax write-off that Russ Baker detailed in his book: Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years.
During the Eisenhower years, the Texas oil industry really took off. Poppy was now part of a “swarm of young Ivy Leaguers,” as Fortune magazine put it, who had “descended on an isolated west Texas oil town—Midland—and created a most unlikely outpost of the working rich.” Central to these ambitions was continued congressional support for the oil depletion allowance, which greatly reduced taxes on income derived from the production of oil. The allowance was first enacted in 1913 as part of the original income tax. At first it was a 5 percent deduction but by 1926 it had grown to 27.5 percent. This was a time when Washington was “wading shoulder-deep in oil,” the New Republic reported.
“In the hotels, on the streets, at the dinner tables, the sole subject of discussion is oil. Congress has abandoned all other business.”
Following the discovery of the giant East Texas oil fields in 1931, there was nothing Texas oilmen fought for more vigorously than their depletion allowance. From its inception to the late 1960s, the oil depletion allowance had cost taxpayers an estimated $140 billion in lost revenue.
When Poppy arrived in Congress he was presented with a huge gift. He was the first freshman congressman since 1904 to have a seat on the powerful tax-writing Ways & Means Committee. That was where Bush sat when Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, and took power in 1969.
Poppy had barely completed his first term in the House. But he had an urgent task. President Nixon was under pressure to support a reduction in the depletion allowance, and some signals were emerging from the administration that he might do just that. Poppy, joined by Senator Tower, flew to Nixon’s vacation home in California to help save the day. The trip was apparently a success. Nixon affirmed his intention to block the reform efforts. Bush later wrote Nixon’s treasury secretary, David Kennedy, to thank him for reversing an earlier statement hinting that the White House might cave in to popular pressure for reform, adding: “I was also appreciative of your telling how I bled and died for the oil industry.”
Now, Poppy Bush came to Washington to bleed and die for the oil depletion allowance. The Texas land commissioner ‘administers state-owned lands and mineral resources,’ as well as the state schools. It’s a very powerful position that can lead to higher office. But when you consider that George P. Bush is the son of Jeb Bush, the nephew of George W. Bush, the grandson of George Herbert Walker Bush, and the great-grandson of Prescott Bush, you have to take note of this race.
His mother is Mexican, too.
