Beginning To Look At The Bush Legacy

Issue By Issue, The Ups And Downs Of An Unpopular Presidency

(AP)  A look at the ups and downs of George W. Bush's presidency on some of the biggest issues of the day:

Budget

Bush inherited a federal budget that had just posted a record $236 billion surplus, but the U.S. government's fiscal picture deteriorated sharply on his watch. The deficit for the recently completed 2008 budget year registered a record $455 billion, and the 2009 deficit is sure to be far worse as slumping revenues, the costs of the fiscal bailout and a huge economic stimulus bill promise to produce a deficit exceeding $1 trillion - the latest estimate is $1.2 trillion.

The flood of red ink has almost doubled the national debt during Bush's tenure in office. The gross debt was $5.8 trillion in 2001, but now registers $10.7 trillion. Interest payments on the debt cost $451 billion in 2008.

The deficit has been fueled by ever-increasing spending, including a wartime defense budget that has doubled since 2001 - from $290 billion to $594 billion in 2008. Overall, the budget has grown from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3 trillion in 2008.

On taxes, Bush's landmark 2001 and 2003 tax cut bills have reduced taxes on income, investments and large estates. The child tax credit was doubled to $1,000 per child and the so-called marriage penalty was eased.

Congress

Bush's two terms are in many ways a study in contrasts. For the first four years, his popularity and role as a wartime president translated into notable successes in Congress. In his second term, Bush was never able to cash in on the "political capital" he claimed after his re-election.

His first term was defined by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, coming just eight months after his inauguration. He oversaw the revamping of homeland security and took the lead in the war on terrorism. With the backing of Congress, he initiated military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the homefront, Bush, enjoying Republican majorities in Congress for most of the term, moved quickly to enact more than $1 trillion in tax cuts and pass the No Child Left Behind education reforms. At the end of 2003, he advocated and signed the Medicare prescription drug benefit act, vastly expanding the federal role in health care. He also pushed through Congress a much-hailed program to help AIDS victims in Africa.

Things quickly turned after his 2004 re-election. Despite a personal national campaign, his effort to privatize some aspects of Social Security went nowhere in Congress. Hurricane Katrina and bad news from Iraq sent his popularity plummeting and in the 2006 election Democrats captured control of Congress. He was unable to advance major immigration legislation and last spring was unable to stop Republicans from joining Democrats in overriding his veto of a $290 billion farm bill. The most lasting achievement of his second term may be his appointment of two conservatives to the Supreme Court: John Roberts as chief justice and Samuel Alito as associate justice.

Economy

Bush has endured economic travails the likes of which no president has seen since the days of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. There have been two recessions during his time in office. The first was a relatively mild downturn that began in March 2001, just after he took office, and lasted eight months, ending in November 2001.

The second downturn began December 2007 and has already lasted longer than any recession in a quarter century. If it does not end until the second half of this year, which many economists believe is likely, the current recession will have surpassed in length all other downturns of the post-World War II period.

The current recession has been accompanied by the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression, prompting the government to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in an attempt to spur banks to resume more normal lending, an effort that so far has had mixed results. Despite the massive amounts of assistance, some big names on Wall Street collapsed in 2008 or were taken over by competitors. American households have seen trillions of dollars in savings evaporate while job losses have steadily mounted. The Dow Jones industrial average fell by 33.8 percent in 2008, the biggest decline since 1931.

Since the start of the recession, the economy has lost nearly 2 million jobs. Even when the economy has not been in recession, job creation has been anemic. While the recession ended in late 2001, there was a long stretch of a "jobless recovery" in which job losses continued even though economic output was growing again. Job growth did not resume on a sustained basis until September 2003, continuing until January 2007, a period of 52 months.

While the administration often cited this figure to show that the economy was prospering, job growth during the Bush years has been sub-par. Since Bush took office in 2001, the economy has created a net 3.7 million payroll jobs. By comparison, during the eight years of the Clinton administration, the economy created 22.7 million payroll jobs.

Environment

Bush came into office by making clear his dislike of government-imposed pollution limits to combat climate change, and particularly the emission cuts required under the Kyoto Protocol. And he was determined to overhaul environmental regulations, especially clean air rules, to make them less onerous to business.

The result has been one of mixed success.

Bush stopped in its tracks further consideration of the Kyoto agreement and successfully fought any attempts in Congress to impose mandatory caps on carbon dioxide, the leading pollutant linked to climate change.

But his efforts to streamline clean air regulations fizzled. Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative, which would have changed how the EPA regulated mercury and other air pollutants from power plants, was stymied by Congress, never making it out of a Senate committee. Separate attempts to ease controls of mercury and other air pollutants from power plants were struck down by the courts - as was an administration bid to ease protection of roadless national forest areas.

However, the administration fulfilled its promises to scale back federal wetland standards, narrowing what must be considered a wetland. It also scaled back an EPA requirement for reporting toxic chemical releases from factories and businesses.

Bush promised to eliminate within five years a $4.9 billion maintenance backlog in the National Park system, repeating the pledge later as president. But little progress was made. Eight years later the backlog has soared to $8.5 billion, says the National Parks and Conservation Association, an advocacy group.

In the final days of his presidency, burnishing his environmental record, Bush deemed three Pacific Ocean areas to be national marine monuments, in what amounts to the largest marine conservation effort in history.

Energy

Within weeks of becoming president, Bush directed Vice President Dick Cheney to produce a report on the country's energy priorities. It called for a push for more domestic production of oil and gas, development of renewable energy sources, reduction on reliance on foreign oil, greater support for nuclear energy and need to modernize the aging electric power grid.

Nearly eight years later, most of those goals have yet to be met - at least fully - and progress on some has fallen back.

The Bush administration fulfilled, to the consternation of many environmentalists, its promise to give energy companies greater access to tens of thousands of acres of federal land in the intermountain West. It issued 35,000 drilling permits and changed federal land-use rules to promote oil and gas development.

It also succeeded as promised to get more support for nuclear energy, prompting talk - though not yet certainty - of a civilian nuclear renaissance, and it won support for a dramatic increase in the use of ethanol as a substitute for gasoline. Congress recently followed Bush's lead and ended the long-standing ban on offshore oil drilling along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. But Bush never succeeded in opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling.

And while the Cheney task force viewed greater development of domestic energy as key, U.S. oil production in the last eight years has dropped from 5.8 billion barrels a day in 2001 to just under 5 billion barrels a day this year as imports of petroleum have increased.

Through most of his tenure, Bush strongly opposed attempts in Congress to increase the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard. In 2007 he called for cutting gasoline use by 20 percent in 10 years by making available more ethanol and expansion of hybrid vehicles. He also called for changing how the CAFE rules are implemented, but continued to oppose attempts by Congress to mandate a higher numerical CAFE standard. When Congress approved a 40 percent hike in the standard to 35 mpg as part of an energy bill, Bush embraced the legislation and said it "delivers" on his plan.

[kevzgrl]

A legacy of thousands of our service people dead, maimed and permanently damaged psychologically, the U.S. loathed and despised all over the world, the nation on the brink of full-scale economic collapse - Yep, I''d say his work here is done...
Thank God!

[blog_fever2]

George W. Bush - The pinnacle of idiocracy for the GOP (Greed over Principle). We are all fortunate to be able to learn from his mistakes to never repeat them again. This is exactly what happens to a productive organization when you appoint someone in charge that thinks of nobody but themselves. Think about it people.

[johncarl54]

i live in texas, this is where he began his lying and cheating and deregulation of industry. he took a surplus left by ann richards and turned it back to industry. as he did in 2000. clinton left the largest surplus in history and the "fiscal conservatives" bankrupted this nation, oh, and his it chief, recently killed, stole the 2004 election with his computer skills. please put him and his henchmen in prison.

[differnet]

mitch... My it must be so wonderful to be so smart. I never voted for Bush, however, I can understand how people could be fooled by him. He was charismatic and he said the right things. Personally, I tend to think he did loose the first election, but let''s say that he did win it. As far as the second election goes, you are like a person blaming a rape victim. Bush and his team did everything they could (and the media never called them on it) to gin up fear. He used the terror warning system like a political toy. So, he bamboozled people. You are actually blaming people for being defrauded. Do you kick people in wheelchairs too?

[mitch5511]

The only thing we need to remember about the last 8 years of GW Bush is NOT to repeat his "legacy"! Everything he touched turned to ***. I cannot believe the idiots who actually voted for this jerk...twice! Apparently only greed and stupidity reigned supreme!

[tuppman]

I am nearing 64 years of age and I can truthfully say that George W. Bush never did the right thing in eight years in office. He and Cheney belong in prison for all the ileagle things that they have done. I would like to do them a favor anyway. I would like them to share the same cell

[mytoosense]

Wow! If the truth makes you that ill, imagine what effect four years of Hussein Al-Bama`s lies will cause!
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Posted by DaVicar3

You seem to throw around words like Truth, Dignity, Honor, and Integrity With No Truth, Dignity, Honor, or Integrity at all.

[mytoosense]

... it`s refreshing to see George Walker Bush return dignity, honor, and integrity to the office of The President of the United States.
Thank you, Mister President, for reinstalling pride and character to all Americans.
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Posted by DaVicar3


Rrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllffffff!!!!!!

***, I just lost my lunch.

[chris32324]

bush will be best forgotten,and never mentioned again,,sorta like the red headed step-son.

[ubrew12]

mrs_zambesi said: "The Bush years will be referred to as "Americas Golden Age" by future generations. "

the color a lawn turns when its not watered?

the color of ''trickle down'' p*ss?