Jeb Bush made his bid for the White House official Monday, saying “we need a president willing to challenge and disrupt the whole culture in our nation’s capital.”
“I will be that president because I was a reforming governor, not just another member of the club,” Bush said in his speech at Miami-Dade Community College.
The former Florida governor spoke out against Barack Obama’s tenure and warned against a Hillary Clinton presidency, saying: “The presidency should not be passed on from one liberal to the next.”
Laying out his agenda, Bush said his economic goal as president is “four percent growth, and the 19 million new jobs that come with it.”
He promised to reform the federal tax system. “Leaders have to think big, and we’ve got a tax code filled with small-time thinking and self-interested politics,” Bush said. “What swarms of lobbyists have done, we can undo with a vastly simpler system – clearing out special favors for the few reducing rates for all.”
Bush said he would reverse burdensome federal regulations. “What the IRS, EPA, and entire bureaucracy have done with overregulation, we can undo by act of Congress and order of the president,” he said.
He said he would stand up for religious charities, which have battled the Obama administration with their objections to laws on religious grounds.
“The most galling example is the shabby treatment of the Little Sisters of the Poor,” he said, “a Christian charity that dared to voice objections of conscience to Obamacare. The next president needs to make it clear that great charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor need no federal instruction in doing the right thing.”
On foreign policy, Bush said of the Obama administration: “With their phone-it-in foreign policy, the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team is leaving a legacy of crises uncontained, violence unopposed, enemies unnamed, friends undefended, and alliances unraveling.”
Bush’s prepared speech didn’t include a reference to immigration, an issue the Republican Party reminds divided over. But after protesters interrupted him, he said: “The next president of the United States will pass meaningful immigration reform.”
While he discussed education, Bush did not specifically address the Common Core education standards, an issue he differs on with some conservatives. But he said: “Every school should have high standards, and the federal government should have nothing to do with setting them.”
During his speech, he spoke Spanish and then said in English: “In any language, my message will be an optimistic one because I am certain that we can make the decades just ahead the greatest time ever to be alive in this world.”
The announcement event leaned heavy on Bush’s ties to the Hispanic community. His wife, Columba, was born in Mexico.
Bush’s mother, Barbara Bush, was in attendance for the speech, but two members of his family were absent: his brother and father, the two former presidents.
Before his speech, Bush tweeted a photo that showed him talking to his father on the phone.
Talking to Dad backstage. Head to http://t.co/Z3wh8EUriV to watch the speech, starting soon! pic.twitter.com/g6j0lOC7eE
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) June 15, 2015
Bush is the 11th Republican to enter the race. Others running include Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki. Others are expected to join the race in the coming weeks.