The Election of George W. Bush
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush became the second U.S. president whose father had held the same office (John Quincy Adams was the first).
President George W. Bush
Official presidential portrait of U.S. President George W. Bush.
The general election of 2000 was highly contested. After two vote recounts, Democratic presidential candidate and incumbent Vice President Al Gore filed a lawsuit for a third recount. The Supreme Court's controversial decision in Bush v. Gore resolved the dispute. The Florida Secretary of State certified Bush as the winner of Florida, and Florida's 25 electoral votes gave Bush, the Republican candidate, 271 electoral votes, enough to defeat Al Gore. Bush was reelected in 2004, and his second term ended on January 20, 2009.
Political Philosophy
Bush had campaigned with a promise of “compassionate conservatism” at home and non-intervention abroad. These platform promises were designed to appeal to those who felt that the Clinton administration’s initiatives in the Balkans and Africa had unnecessarily entangled the United States in the conflicts of foreign nations.
The guiding political philosophy of the Bush administration has been termed neoconservatism. By the time Bush became president, the concept of supply-side economics had become an article of faith within the Republican Party. The oft-repeated argument was that tax cuts for the wealthy would allow them to invest more and create jobs for everyone else. This belief in the self-regulatory powers of competition also served as the foundation of Bush’s education reform. By the end of his two terms in 2008, however, Americans’ faith in the dynamics of the free market had been badly shaken.
The specific elements of neoconservative leadership have been discussed in policy papers by leading members of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Influential leaders in this philosophy include Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. In September of 2000, the PNAC issued a report stating that, in order to maintain military leadership, the U.S. must be prepared to take military action. The PNAC argued that defense spending and force deployment must reflect the post-Cold War duties that U.S. forces are obligated to perform. PNAC advocated that the U.S.-globalized military should be enlarged, equipped, and restructured for the "constabulary" roles associated with shaping the security in critical regions of the world.
First Term: Major Initiatives and Events
Taxes and Social Conservatism
When Bush took office in January 2001, he was committed to a Republican agenda. He cut tax rates for the rich and tried to limit the role of government in people’s lives, in part by providing students with vouchers to attend charter and private schools, and by encouraging religious organizations to provide social services instead of the government. He pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program, largely benefiting the wealthiest Americans, and passed the No Child Left Behind Act, an educational reform act that supported standards-based education reform based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals could improve individual outcomes in education. While his tax cuts pushed the United States into a chronically large federal deficit, many of his supply-side economic reforms stalled during his second term.
Bush pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based welfare initiatives. He reinstated the Mexico City Policy, requiring any non-governmental organization receiving U.S. government funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services in other countries. Also, in 2002, President Bush withdrew funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a key player in promoting family planning in the developing world.
"The War on Terror"
After the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, Bush declared a global "War on Terrorism" aimed largely at Muslim states. In October of 2001, he ordered an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, destroy Al-Qaeda, and capture Osama bin Laden on the pretense that "weapons of mass destruction" were being hidden by these groups. In March of 2003, Bush received a mandate from the U.S. Congress to lead an invasion of Iraq, asserting that Iraq was in violation of United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1441.
Re-Election and Second Term
Running as a self-styled "war president" in the midst of the Iraq War, Bush won re-election in 2004; his campaign against Senator John Kerry was successful despite controversy over Bush's handling of the Iraq War and the economy.
Bush's second term was highlighted by several free trade agreements, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 alongside a strong push for offshore and domestic drilling, the nominations of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, a push for Social Security and immigration reform, a surge of troops in Iraq, and several different economic initiatives aimed at preventing a banking system collapse, stopping foreclosures, and stimulating the economy during the recession.
Hurricane Katrina and the Mortgage Crisis
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina brought to light ongoing racial injustices embedded within American society and government, underscoring the limited capacities of the federal government under Bush to assure homeland security. In combination with increasing discontent over the Iraq War, these events handed Democrats a majority in both houses in 2006. Largely as a result of a deregulated bond market and dubious innovations in home mortgages, the nation reached the pinnacle of a real estate boom in 2007, followed almost immediately by the Great Recession of 2008. The threatened collapse of the nations’ banks and investment houses required the administration to extend aid to the financial sector. Many resented this bailout of the rich, as ordinary citizens lost jobs and homes in the Great Recession.
Bush Cabinet Meeting
President George W. Bush answers a question from the reporter at the end of a Cabinet Meeting to discuss his energy plan. In his second term, the Bush administration passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005.