That Other Bush Boy

The president’s brother Neil hopes to profit from his family’s influence.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


It has been more than a decade since Neil Bush, the president’s younger brother, helped run a Colorado savings and loan into the ground, costing taxpayers $1 billion. In 1991, federal regulators restricted Neil’s banking activities and fined him $50,000 — but his family connections rescued him, as Republican supporters contributed to a special fund to defray his legal costs. Before long, Neil was once again living off the Bush name, fl ying to Kuwait with his father to sell antipollution equipment to oil contractors.

Now, with another Bush in the White House, Neil is back. During the presidential campaign he launched Ignite, an Internet start-up company poised to benefit from federal plans to pump more money into public education — a move his brother fully supports. With Neil at the helm, Ignite quickly raised $7.1 million from 53 investors to produce educational software designed to enable teachers and administrators to track student learning through Web-based lessons. Public schools in Oklahoma are already looking at the system — but those involved say that schools will need more public money to pay for it.

That’s where George W. comes in. The federal government currently picks up more than 25 percent of the cost of providing schools with technology, and industry lobbyists want President Bush to increase the present subsidy of $1.5 billion — paying for research to help private companies and providing grants to purchase technology services for schools. The Bush administration has responded favorably to the push for privatization. As Education Secretary Rod Paige said in February, “The market forces are going to be there.”

Neil has drawn on his family connections to position himself at the forefront of those market forces. Ignite declined a request for an interview, but it has loaded its advisory committees with Bush loyalists, assuring the company a sympathetic ear in Washington. According to the company, its big-name consultants include Bill Brock, a former senator from Tennessee who chaired the Republican National Committee; Bob Stearns, a Houston investor appointed to a Texas technology board by George W.; Peter Su, a former campaign adviser of the president, and two executives from Bessemer Trust, an exclusive investment firm that manages a portfolio for Neil’s dad.

The family name has also given Neil instant status within the industry. In March, he was invited to take center stage at the annual convention of the Software & Information Industry Association, the lead lobbying organization for online education. Mark Schneiderman, the group’s director of federal education policy, says the association had a “combination of reasons” for asking Neil to speak. “One of them,” he says, “is that his brother is president.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate