Though I am far from proud to have George W. Bush as my president, I have always found solace in the fact that Bush is neither my governor nor my congressperson. Sadly, those in Congressional District 8 have not been so lucky. They've unfortunately been served by Bush-clone Congressman Mark Green for the last eight years, who has voted in Washington to rubberstamp President Bush's failed policies on everything from student financial aid cuts to banning stem-cell research to the war in Iraq.

You might ask: Why is this significant? Do we, as Wisconsin voters, want a George W. Bush carbon-copy as our governor? Well, let's examine some of the more impressive and notable points in George W. Bush's record as governor of the state of Texas.

As governor, George Bush supported a Republican-led fight to cut $250 million from kindergarten funding and use it to fund massive tax-cuts that exclusively benefited only the wealthiest Texans. He also significantly eased pollution laws for power and oil companies, ultimately leaving Texas as the most polluted state in the country. During Bush's governorship, Texas also ranked second in the nation in uninsured children, leaving 1.5 million young people without a basic health safety net. To remedy the problem, Bush not only supported, but actively campaigned for the federal/state Children's Health Insurance Program to start its eligibility at 150 percent of the federal poverty level. This "solution" would have cut 200,000 of the 500,000 of the children who would originally be insured from the state's rolls. Apparently Gov. Bush's solution to all of the state's problems was to significantly cut state programs that benefited middle-class and working families, especially children, and replace them with massive tax breaks for his wealthy buddies. That sounds oddly familiar (TABOR anyone?)

It seems logical to me that if Congressman Mark Green agrees with George W. Bush 92 percent of the time, George Bush's record as governor is a pretty good indication of the type of governor Mark Green would make. But to really get a clear picture of how bad Green would be for Wisconsin, let's examine Congressman Green's record alongside President Bush on issues that affect real Wisconsin families.

Without missing a beat, Congressman Green has supported President Bush's massive tax breaks, which have given away billions to the wealthiest Americans and big oil and big drug companies, while providing the middle-class in Wisconsin with almost nothing. Congressman Green has walked hand-in-hand with George Bush in trying to shut down life-saving stem-cell research in Wisconsin, voting for or co-sponsoring legislation eight times to ban or even criminalize proven methods of stem cell-research. In fact, just last year, Congressman Green (again getting his cues from George Bush) voted against bipartisan legislation overwhelmingly passed by Congress that would have provided federal funding for stem-cell research. It was no surprise, then, that Green voted this summer to uphold the president's veto of the bill. And earlier this year, Congressman Green was the deciding vote to pass a George Bush-supported budget that gutted federal student financial aid by more than $12 billion — the largest cut in the program's history.

Congressman Green has been such a Bush loyalist that the president even came to a fundraiser in Wisconsin this summer to raise him a reported $600,000-plus from the special interests.

We have seen what George Bush did and tried to accomplish in Texas when he served as governor. We have seen that Congressman Green is a faithful rubberstamp for President Bush. The picture of Wisconsin if Green is elected is crystal clear: Do we really want George Bush as our governor?

Texans deserved better, and so do we.

Awais Khaleel ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.