Presidency of George W Bush

8/6/2019 Presidency of George W Bush

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Domestic Policies of George W. Bush

When George W. Bush took the oath of office, he became the third President out

of the past four who had cut his teeth in public life as a governor. True to thispedigree, the issues Bush initially focused on were domestic in nature.They ranged from cutting taxes and seeking to expand energy production tobolstering public education. In fact, he was in Florida on September 11, 2001,trying to draw attention to his education initiatives when the planes hit the WorldTrade Center and the Pentagon.Of course, the events of that day -- and Bush's response to them -- shaped everyaspect of his presidency from that moment forward. But Bush pursued hisdomestic agenda with considerable success both before and after 9/11.The Tax CutterDuring the 2000 election campaign, the Bush camp allowed visitors to thecampaign's Internet web site to plug in their income and deductions to figure outhow much they would get back from a Bush tax cut.In September 1999, President Clinton vetoed a $792 billion tax cut over 10 yearsthat the Republican Congress sent to him as a pre-election year ploy. Al Gore,the Democrats' nominee-in-waiting, previewed his 2000 campaign language bydenouncing the GOP gambit as a "risky scheme."Clinton himself actually taunted the Republican presidential candidates -- Bushincluded -- by quipping that they could now run on a tax cut. Bush was alreadydoing just that, and he seized the initiative on this issue by proposing a tax cuteven larger than the one Clinton had vetoed.

In the first week of Bush's presidency, Federal Reserve Board chairman AlanGreenspan testified that Bush's proposed tax cuts -- he was now asking for a$1.6 trillion cut over 10 years - would not harm the already slowing economy, andmight do some good.Democratic congressional leaders Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt promptlyannounced that they'd accept a 10-year figure of up to $900 billion. ModerateDemocratic senator John Breaux of Louisiana, set a ceiling of $1.25 trillion -- thenumber that passed the Senate on Bush's 77th day in office.By then, the President had finally signaled that, he too, would compromise, andafter differences were ironed out between the House and Senate versions of thelegislation, Bush had wrangled out of Congress a tax cut estimated at $1.3 trillion

to $1.4 trillion over 10 years.The measure, signed by Bush in the East Room on June 7, 2001, exemptedmillions of Americans from paying any taxes, created a new 10 percent bracketfor the working poor, while lowering the top three brackets as well: by 2006, thetop tax rate was to decline from 39.6 percent to 35 percent; the 36 percent rate to33 percent, and the 28 percent rate to 25 percent."A year ago, tax relief was said to be a political impossibility. Six months ago, itwas supposed to be a political liability. Today, it becomes reality," Bush said at


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the bill signing ceremony. "This tax relief plan is principled. We cut taxes forevery income taxpayer. We target nobody in, we target nobody out. And tax reliefis now on the way."Indeed, as he spoke, $300 and $600 rebate checks were being prepared formailing to American taxpayers. This idea originated, ironically, with

Representative Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the only Socialist in Congress.Negative Consequences of the Tax CutOne was that if the economy were to slow down further, the effects on the federaldeficit could be explosive. The second was that the most politically popularportions of the bill -- ending the so-called marriage penalty, phasing outinheritance taxes, and doubling the child credit -- were not phased in for yearsunder the legislation -- and that there would be political pressure to expeditethem, adding even more to the deficit."I think this is kind of a tax-cut time bomb," Bruce Bartlett, an economist for theNational Center for Policy Analysis, noted when the bill passed. "No matter what

happens in the 2004 elections, there probably has to be another tax cut in 2005."Bartlett proved prophetic -- although Bush did not even wait that long to propose-- and sign -- legislation escalating the speed with which the cuts were to takeeffect. For his part, the President insisted that his tax cuts had shortened therecession he inherited in both duration and depth. Many economists agreed, butthey also noted that the deficits the Bush administration were running in 2004were the largest in history -- with no end in sight.

No Child Left Behind ActIn time, this piece of legislation would be disparaged so successfully by the

National Education Association, which was always skeptical of it, that most of theDemocrats running for President in 2004 would routinely allude to it negatively intheir standard stump speech.But its history serves mainly as a cautionary tale about the difficulty of effectingchange in Washington. When No Child Left Behind passed, it had as muchbipartisan support as any major legislation in many years. Moreover, both themachinery and objective of this program were borrowed from President Clinton,who aggressively promoted his version of school accountability ("Goals 2000")for eight years, and who devoted much of his 1999 State of the Union Address toexplaining why it was important to keep the momentum on education reformmoving forward.

In his inauguration address, Bush said that in accepting low scholasticachievement by minority students as the norm, the United States was engagingin the "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Bush's version of a plan to addressthis condition passed the House on a vote of 381-41; the Senate approved it 87-10. The President signed the bill on January 8, 2002, while sitting at a schooldesk in Hamilton, Ohio.The legislation mandates student testing and ties federal funding to the results;low performing schools won't have their funding withdrawn, but must take


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concrete steps to improve. From the start, however, Democrats expressedconcerns that not enough money was being appropriated for what Bush wastrying to accomplish.In early March of 2002, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democratwho'd shepherded the bill through the Senate and appeared in public with Bush

to promote it, broke with the White House over funding. Kennedy called theadministration's budget requests for education "a severe blow to our nation'sschools" -- and less than the administration had promised. "It's time for theadministration to match its rhetoric with real resources," Kennedy added.In time, this refrain became a rallying cry for the Democrats and for the teachers'unions, and was echoed by big-city school districts whose finances had sufferedfrom a downturn in their local economies.By the 2004 campaign, John Kerry was offering the No Child Left Behind Act asan example not of bold reform but of a broken promise from a President who "ismisleading the American people." Bush, in his final debate with Kerry, counteredthat he had increased Department of Education spending some 49 percent. In

fact, the President was understating the case. The true figure was closer to 60percent.This pattern of "point-counterpoint" became a feature of Washington politics.Bush would work an issue, get bi-partisan support, then watch as Democrats --even those who'd voted for the legislation -- refused to give him any credit, andindeed, criticized the legislation bitterly.It happened on No Child Left Behind, the Patriot Act, and a broad-based reformof Medicare that included the first-ever drug benefit for seniors. In the Bush WhiteHouse, the Democrats' change of heart on these issues was evidence that theDemocratic Party is too easily whipsawed by powerful liberal special interestgroups.

Democrats viewed it differently. To them, Bush's conciliatory rhetoric andbipartisan legislation were undermined by an unwillingness on his party to fundhis own programs sufficiently, and by an incompetent execution of his ownpolicies. And they didn't limit this criticism of the President to domestic policy.

September 11 attacksThe September 11 attacks (often referred to as September 11,September 11th or9/11, in combination with the attacks' side effects on thatday) were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon theUnited States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda

terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.[2][3] The hijackersintentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World TradeCenter in New York City, killing everyone on board and thousands of thoseworking in the buildings. Both towers collapsed within two hours, destroyingnearby buildings and damaging others. A third airliner was crashed into thePentagon. Hijackers had redirected the fourth plane toward Washington, D.C.,targeting either the Capitol Building or the White House, but crashed it in a field


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near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to retakecontrol of the airliner. There were no survivors from any of the flights.Nearly 3,000 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks. Among the 2,753victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center were 343 firefightersand 60 police officers from New York City and the Port Authority, and 8 private

emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

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Another 184 people werekilled in the attack on the Pentagon.The overwhelming majority of casualtieswere civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries. Suspicion quickly fell onal-Qaeda. Its leader Osama bin Laden initially denied involvement, but in 2004he finally claimed responsibility for the attacks.[1] Al-Qaeda and bin Laden citedU.S. support of Israel, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, and sanctionsagainst Iraq as motives for the attacks. The United States responded to theattacks by launching the War on Terror, invading Afghanistan to depose theTaliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda members, and by enacting the USAPATRIOT Act. It was not until May 2011 that bin Laden was found and killed.Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and

expanded law enforcement powers. Some American stock exchanges stayedclosed for the rest of the week following the attack and posted enormous losseson reopening, especially in the airline and insurance industries. The destructionof billions of dollars' worth of office space caused serious damage to theeconomy of Lower Manhattan.The damage to the Pentagon was cleared and repaired within a year, and thePentagon Memorial was built adjacent to the building. The rebuilding of the WorldTrade Center site began in 2002 and remains ongoing. Ground was broken forthe Flight 93 National Memorial on November 8, 2009, and the first phase ofconstruction is expected to be ready for the 10th anniversary of the attacks onSeptember 11, 2011.

Foreign AffairsIn the second presidential debate of the 2000 campaign, moderator Jim Lehrerasked Al Gore to explain the justification for American military interventions in ahost of places, including Kosovo to Haiti. Lehrer then turned to Bush and askedhim specifically about Somalia. "Started off as a humanitarian mission and itchanged into a nation-building mission, and that's where the mission wentwrong," Bush replied."The mission was changed. And as a result, our nation paid a price. And so Idon't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building. I thinkour troops ought to be used to fight and win war. I think our troops ought to be

used to help overthrow the dictator when it's in our best interests. But in this caseit was a nation-building exercise, and same with Haiti. I wouldn't have supportedeither."As President, Bush developed a more benign view of the value of nation-building-- a reaction, he explained, to the attacks of 9/11 -- but looking back there issomething buried in Bush's comment in that debate which proved more telling:his matter-of-fact statement about using American military force to "overthrow thedictator."


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AfghanistanThe Twin Towers had not yet collapsed before CIA director George Tenet wastelling subordinates that the attacks had Osama bin Laden's fingerprints all overthem. The Al Qaeda leader was then holed up in Afghanistan where the Talibanhad given him sanctuary. The United States immediately demanded the Taliban

turn him over, but Bush and his foreign policy advisers knew this was unlikely tohappen; the night of the attacks, Tenet told the President that in his opinion, theTaliban and Al Qaeda were one and the same.Nine days later, on September 20, 2001, Bush went to Capitol Hill to deliver aspeech that members of Congress understood to be a declaration of war. Bushexplicitly demanded that the Taliban surrender to the United States not only binLaden but all al Qaeda leaders currently operating within Afghanistan. He alsocalled on it to free all foreign journalists, diplomats, and aid workers "unjustlyimprisoned" there, close every terrorist training camp, and arrest "every terroristand every person in (the terrorists') support structure.""They will hand over the terrorists, Bush said, "or they will share in their fate."

Emphasizing a theme he would return to many times, Bush took pains to say thatIslam was not the enemy; rather, the United States was fighting a "fringe form ofIslamic extremism . . . [advocated by those following] in the path of fascism, andNazism, and totalitarianism.""The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arabfriends," Bush added. "Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and everygovernment that supports them."British prime minister Tony Blair attended the speech as a show of solidarity withthe United States, and subsequently issued his own ultimatum to the Taliban:"Surrender bin Laden or surrender power," Blair warned.The war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001. "On my order, U.S. forces

have begun strikes on terrorist camps of al Qaeda, and the military installationsof the Taliban regime in Afghanistan," Bush said in a somber, televised addressfrom the White House Treaty Room. The air assaults, he said, were joined byGreat Britain, with assorted intelligence efforts and logistical support coming fromseveral other nations, including France, Germany, Australia, and Canada.Apparently anticipating U.S. retaliation for 9/11, Al Qaeda had, a few days beforethe attacks, assassinated Ahmed Shad Massoud, the leader of an anti-Talibanrebel force known as the Northern Alliance. It was widely believed that withoutMassoud, the Northern Alliance would fracture as a fighting force. Instead,bolstered by U.S. warplanes and U.S. Special Forces, the Northern Alliancehelped oust the Taliban, first by taking Mazar Al-Sharif on the northern frontier

and then the capital city of Kabul. A fledgling democracy was installed inAfghanistan, but even before that country was truly pacified, the Bushadministration had turned its attention to an old adversary, Iraqi strongmanSaddam Hussein.

"Axis of Evil"


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Iraq had not been implicated in the attacks of 9/11. But Bush said that hisdecision to invade the country and seek to replace its Baathist regime with ademocracy was based on several considerations that grew out of that attack.Convinced by intelligence reports, which later proved erroneous, that Saddamhad amassed huge caches of biological and chemical weapons -- and was trying

to develop nuclear devices -- a group of hawks in the Bush administration, led byVice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,argued that Iraq would be a likely source for terrorists to obtain such weapons.These officials argued for a final decisive move against Saddam. The UnitedStates had fought a war against Iraq ten years earlier when Bush's father wasPresident -- Cheney had been the senior Bush's secretary of defense -- butSaddam was allowed to remain in power after his troops were ejected fromKuwait, subject to various considerations. Among these terms were that Iraqiwarplanes were not allowed to fly in Shiite areas of the southern part of thecountry or Kurdish areas in the north, and that Saddam destroy his caches ofbiological and chemical weapons, and dismantle his nuclear weapons research

program.In his January 29, 2002, State of the Union address, Bush made it clear that hewould not allow Saddam to acquire such weapons, and included Iraq in a list ofnations -- the other two were Iran and North Korea -- that he termed "an axis ofevil."From that day until March 19, 2003, when the invasion began, Bush spokepublicly about Iraq 164 times. Each time, he cited multiple reasons to replaceSaddam's regime:

that Saddam was acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and that hisgassing of Kurdish towns and Iranian troops in the 1980s had proven hiswillingness to use them;

that Iraq had been defying United Nations resolutions since the end of thePersian Gulf War;

that the regime was a destabilizing influence in the region, having invadedKuwait and Iran, and launched Scud missiles against Saudi Arabia andIsrael;

that Saddam supported terrorism, even to the point of paying offPalestinian suicide bombers who killed Israeli citizens;

that a democracy in Iraq would set a badly needed example for the Arabworld;

that such a government, in turn, would make it easier to forge a lastingpeace in Israel and Palestine;

and that Saddam and his sons and his secret police had inflictedunimaginable horrors on the Iraqi people, who have every much as right tobe free as Americans.

"Freedom is not America's gift to the world," Bush said many times. "It is theAlmighty's gift to every man and woman in this world."


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The Road to BaghdadBush's decision to invade Iraq became by far the most controversial of hisadministration, and costly in numerous ways. In October 2002, he presentedCongress with a resolution authorizing him to invade Iraq if Saddam Hussein didnot surrender what everyone on both sides of the debate assumed to be a reality:

its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.On October 11, the measure passed both houses of Congress with broad bi-partisan support. In the House, the tally was 296-133. The percentage in theSenate was even greater, where it passed on a vote of 77-23. All Republicansenators save one gave it their support; 29 Democrats voted for it, with only 22 inopposition. "America speaks with one voice," Bush said after the vote. SenateDemocratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said much the same thing, butit was never quite that simple."This is the Tonkin Gulf resolution all over again," West Virginia Democraticsenator Robert Byrd warned his colleagues. "Let us stop, look, and listen. Let usnot give this President or any President unchecked power. Remember the

Constitution."From his perch in Baghdad, Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Tawab Al-MulahHuwaish termed the administration's insistence that Iraq retained chemical andbiological weapons "a lie" and offered to let U.S. officials inspect anymanufacturing facility it harbored suspicions about. "If the Americanadministration is interested in inspecting these sites, then they're welcome tocome over and have a look for themselves," he said.Those who feared America was rushing needlessly into war asserted that Iraqwas not a threat to the United States, and that the no-fly zones, U.N. sanctions,and other measures had put Saddam in a box from which he could not easilymaneuver -- and that, in any event, no attack appeared imminent. In the White

House, Bush believed that one lesson of 9/11 was that you never knew for surewhen an attack was coming."Some have said that we must not act until the threat is imminent," Bush said inhis January 28, 2003, State of the Union Address. "But trusting in the sanity andrestraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy and it is not an option."Regarding Iran, the Bush administration deferred to European-led non-proliferation protocols; in North Korea, Bush himself pushed for -- and got --multi-party talks designed to pressure Kim Jong Il. But when it came to Iraq, theadministration was busy lining up military allies. On November 8, 2002, Bushsecured a 15-0 vote in the U.N. Security Council authorizing the return ofweapons inspectors and promising "serious consequences" if Iraq did not

cooperate.The clock was ticking. On March 17, Bush made a nationally televised speechgiving Saddam 48 hours to give up power or face an invasion. Two nights later,the war began. In the midst of his March 19, 2003, speech informing Americansthat the invasion had been launched, Bush paused to speak directly to the U.S.armed forces. It was then 4 a.m. in Baghdad. The rationale for war, he told thetroops, was based on human rights.


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"To all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces now in the MiddleEast, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people nowdepend on you," Bush said.Nineteen months later, 1,100 American soldiers, sailors, and Marines had beenkilled, and 7,500 wounded. Another 138 men fighting in the coalition forces have

died, entire cities are off-limits to foreigners, and a terrorist organization affiliatedwith Al Qaeda has kidnapped and beheaded civilians from numerous countriesand detonated bombs that have killed thousands of Iraqi citizens.The capture of Saddam and the killing of his sons did nothing to alleviate thechaos -- and the crisis in Iraq emerged as the central issue in the 2004 generalelection. "The President has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment,"Kerry said in the first presidential debate. He was speaking for millions ofdisillusioned Americans. Bush responded, as he has throughout the electionseason, that progress is being made, that elections are coming to Iraq inJanuary, and that someday Americans will look back on the sacrifices that weremade with pride.

"I think it's worth it because I know in the long term, a free Iraq, a freeAfghanistan will set such a powerful example in a part of the world that's sodesperate for freedom," Bush replied. "It will change the world so we can lookback and say we did our duty."

Documents

Presidency of George W Bush