We made taxes fairer, improved the state's infrastructure, improved education and built a better juvenile justice system. We even took a complicated issue like electric deregulation and passed a bill that is a model for the rest of the nation. Partisan politics was never a factor. The Democrats didn't treat me like a Republican. They treated me like a governor.
People are sick of the partisan wrangling that has paralyzed Washington in recent years.
The real reforms have occurred at the state level, where officeholders have ignored party labels and actually tackled the problems facing their people. Consider what we have done in Arkansas the past three years. We've passed the state's first major, broad-based tax cuts. No longer do families with incomes beneath the poverty line have to pay state income taxes. Standard deductions have been increased, the marriage penalty has been eliminated, the capital gains tax has been reduced by 30 percent, property tax refunds have been increased and we've enacted a Property Taxpayers' Bill of Rights.