Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 69.160.161.169 (talk) at 15:39, 10 July 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is a politician and currently the 43rd President of the United States. Bush, a member of the Republican Party of America, is part of the prominent Bush family, that includes his grandfather (former U.S. Senator Prescott Bush), his father (former President George H. W. Bush), and his brother (Jeb Bush, who is the current governor of Florida).

George Walker Bush
44th President
Vice President	Dick Cheney
Preceded by	Bill Clinton
Personal details
Nationality	american
Political party	Republican

Before becoming president, he was a businessman, involved in the oil industry and professional baseball. Administrator note He was elected the 46th Governor of Texas, and won the nomination of the Republican Party in the 2000 presidential election. Bush became President, defeating Vice President Al Gore of the Democratic Party in a particularly controversial and close election. Bush was re-elected in 2004, defeating Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Personal life, service and education

Bush is the son of George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut but grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas, with siblings Jeb, Neil, Marvin, and Dorothy. (A younger sister, Robin, died of leukemia in 1953 at the age of three.) The family enjoyed the summers and most holidays at the Bush Compound in Maine.

Like his father, Bush attended Phillips Academy (September 1961–June 1964) and later Yale University (September 1964–May 1968). At Yale, he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon (of which he was president from October 1965 until graduation) and the Skull and Bones secret society. He was a C student, scoring 77% (with no As and one D, in astronomy) with a grade point average of 2.35 out of 4.00. He played baseball and rugby union during his freshman and senior years. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1968. Bush's critics often state that Bush is not intellectually up to the job of being president; even his wife satired his intelligence. Yet, Bush received almost identical grades as John Kerry at Yale, while it was widely known that Kerry portrayed himself in contrast to Bush as the intellectual choice. This fact of the Bush-Kerry election remained sealed until after the 2004 campaign was over.

After graduating from Yale University, Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard on May 27, 1968, during the Vietnam War, with a commitment to serve until May 26, 1974. He was promoted once, to first lieutenant, on the November 1970 recommendation of Texas Air National Guard commander Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He served as an F-102 pilot until 1972.

In September 1973, he received permission to end his six-year commitment six months early in order to attend Harvard Business School. He transferred to inactive reserve status shortly before being honorably discharged on October 1, 1973. (PDF)

It has frequently been alleged that Bush skipped over a waiting list to receive a National Guard slot, that he did not report for required duty from 1972 to 1973, and that he was suspended from flying after he failed to take a required physical examination and drug test. These issues were publicized during the 2004 Presidential campaign by the group Texans for Truth and other Bush critics. See George W. Bush military service controversy for details.

Bush entered Harvard Business School in 1973. He was awarded a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree in 1975, and is the first U.S. president to hold an MBA.

On September 4, 1976, Bush was pulled over by police near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, admitted his guilt, was fined $150, and had his driving license suspended for 30 days within the state. , News of the arrest was uncovered by the press five days before the 2000 presidential election.

Bush has described his days before his religious conversion as his "nomadic" period and "irresponsible youth", and admitted to drinking "too much" in those years; he says that although he never joined Alcoholics Anonymous, he gave up drinking for good shortly after waking up with a hangover after his 40th birthday celebration. "I quit drinking in 1986 and haven't had a drop since then." He ascribed the change in part to a 1985 meeting with The Rev. Billy Graham. ], ].

Besides alcoholism, Bush has also faced controversy regarding possible drug use. In recordings secretly taped by Bush Senior aide Doug Wead and released to conincide with Wead publishing a new book about Bush, Bush said, "I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried." When Wead reminded Bush that the latter had publicly denied using cocaine, Bush replied, "I haven't denied anything." Bush went on to state that it might cost him the election to not answer the questions, but that he would not answer the questions. "You gotta understand, I want to be president, I want to lead," he tells Mr Wead., . See also George W. Bush substance abuse controversy.

Bush married Laura Welch in 1977. They had twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna Bush, born in 1981. In 1986, at the age of 40, he left the Episcopal Church and joined his wife's denomination, the United Methodist Church.

Business and early political career

In 1978, Bush ran for the U.S. House of Representatives but lost to a State Senator, Democrat Kent Hance. Ronald Reagan, then the former Governor of California and unsuccessful 1976 Presidential candidate, endorsed Bush's opponent in the Republican primary.

Bush began his career in the oil industry in 1979, when he established Arbusto Energy, an oil and gas exploration company he formed with leftover funds from his education trust fund and money from other investors. The 1979 energy crisis hurt Arbusto and, after a name change to Bush Exploration Co., Bush sold the company in 1984 to Spectrum 7, another Texas oil and gas exploration firm. Under the terms of the sale, Spectrum 7 made Bush its chief executive officer. Spectrum 7 lost money, and in 1986 it was merged into Harken Energy Corporation, with Bush becoming a director of Harken.

After working on his father's successful 1988 presidential campaign, he was told by a friend, William DeWitt, Jr., that another family friend, Eddie Chiles, wanted to sell the Texas Rangers, his Arlington-based Major League Baseball franchise. In April 1989, Bush assembled a group of investors from his father's close friends; the group bought 86% of the Rangers for $75 million. (Bush later appointed one of these partners, Tom Schieffer, to the post of Ambassador to Australia.) Bush received a two percent share by investing $606,302, of which $500,000 was a bank loan. Bush paid off the loan by selling $848,000 worth of stock in Harken Energy in 1990. As Harken Energy reported significant financial losses within a year of this sale (as did much of the energy industry due to the recession of the early 1990s), the fact that Bush was advised by his own counsel not to sell his shares later fueled allegations of insider trading. (See George W. Bush insider trading allegations for more information.) The federal Securities and Exchange Commission concluded: "it appears that Bush did not engage in illegal insider trading," but noted that its memo "must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result."

Bush served as managing general partner of the Rangers for five years. He was active in the team's media relations and in securing the construction of a new stadium, which opened in 1994 as The Ballpark in Arlington. Bush's prominent role with the Rangers gave him valuable goodwill and name recognition throughout Texas.

In 1994, Bush took a leave of absence from the Rangers to run for Governor of Texas against the popular incumbent, Democrat Ann Richards. On November 8, 1994, he defeated Richards, 53% to 46%.

As Governor, Bush forged a legislative alliance with powerful Texas Lt. Governor Bob Bullock, a longtime Democrat. Bush went on to become, in 1998, the first Texas governor to be elected for two consecutive four-year terms. (Until 1975, Texas governors served two-year terms.)

During Bush's terms as Governor, he undertook significant legislative changes in the areas of criminal justice, tort law, and school financing. Bush took a hard line on capital punishment, and received much criticism for it. More convicts were executed under his terms than any other Texas governor, although the rate of executions was not unusual for Texas. Although there is much consensus that Bush effected significant changes, there is little consensus as to whether these changes were positive or negative in nature. If nothing else, Bush's transformative agenda, in combination with his political and family pedigree, catapulted him onto the national political radar. As the campaigns to succeed Bill Clinton as president began in earnest, Bush emerged as a key figure.

Presidential campaigns

In Bush's 2000 presidential election campaign, he declared himself to be a "compassionate conservative". He campaigned on, among other issues, allowing religious charities to participate in federally funded programs, cutting taxes, promoting the use of education vouchers, supporting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, maintaining a balanced federal budget, and restructuring the armed forces. In foreign policy, he stated that he was against using the U.S. armed forces in nation building attempts abroad. He used a mispronuciation of his middle initial, namely "W." as "Dubya" as a campaign nickname.

After winning the Republican nomination, Bush faced Democratic candidate Vice President Al Gore. Bush took 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266, including the electoral votes of 30 of the 50 states. Neither candidate received a majority of the popular vote -- Bush took 47.9 percent; Gore, 48.4 percent -- but Gore received a plurality of about 540,000 more of the 105 million votes cast. Most of the votes that neither Bush nor Gore won went to Green Party candidate Ralph Nader (2,695,696 votes/2.7%), Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, (449,895/0.4%), and Libertarian Party candidate Harry Browne (386,024 votes/0.4%).

It was the first presidential election since 1888 in which the winning candidate received fewer popular votes than his opponent, the first since 1876 in which the winner of the electoral vote was in dispute, and the first ever to be directly affected by a Supreme Court decision.

The Florida vote, which favored Bush by a slim margin in the initial count, was hotly contested after concerns were raised about flaws and irregularities in the voting and tabulation processes. A series of contentious court cases ensued regarding the legality of county-specific and statewide recounts. After machine and manual recounts in four counties, and with Bush still prevailing, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a statewide manual recount of all counties. The Bush campaign appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, in its mid-December decision in Bush v. Gore, overturned the decision and halted all recounts. Gore then conceded the election.

In the final official count, Bush won Florida by 537 votes, giving him the state's 25 electoral votes and the presidency. See U.S. presidential election, 2000. (Also see The 2000 Florida Ballot Project.) Bush was inaugurated President on January 20, 2001.

In the 2004 election, Bush won a second term, an electoral majority by receiving more votes than any president in history, and also received 3.5 million popular votes more than his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. Bush was the first presidential candidate since his father, George H.W. Bush in 1988 to receive a majority of the popular vote. Bush carried 31 of 50 states for a total of 286 Electoral College votes. As in the 2000 election, there were charges raised alleging voting irregularities, especially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In 2004 they did not lead to recounts that were expected to affect the result. After a congressional electoral contest -- the second in American history -- failed, a lawsuit challenging the result in Ohio was withdrawn, because the congressional certification of the electoral votes had rendered the case moot.

Bush was inaugurated for his second term on January 20, 2005. The oath was administered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Bush's inaugural speech centered mainly on a theme of spreading freedom and democracy around the world. Bush stated in his second inauguration on January 20, 2005:

"From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?"

Related articles: 2004 U.S. election voting controversies; 2004 U.S. Election controversies and irregularities and its subsidiary articles on 2004 election (voting machines), 2004 election (exit polls), and 2004 election (voter suppression)

Years as President

• First Term
• Second Term

Presidency

Domestic policy

Faith-based initiatives

In early 2001, Bush worked with Republicans in Congress to pass legislation changing the way the federal government regulated, taxed and funded charities and non-profit initiatives run by religious organizations. Although prior to the legislation it was possible for these organizations to receive federal assistance, the new legislation removed reporting requirements that required the organizations to separate their charitable functions from their religious functions. Bush also created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Several organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have criticized Bush's faith-based initiative program, arguing that it involves government entanglement with religion and favoritism to religion in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Diversity and civil rights

Bush is opposed to the legal recognition of same-sex marriages and supports the establishment of civil unions ("I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement" - ABC News October 26, 2004), and has endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would define marriage as being the union of one man and one woman. Bush reiterated his disagreement with the Republican Party platform that opposed civil unions, and said that the issue of civil unions should be left up to individual states. In his February 2, 2005 State of the Union address he repeated his support for the constitutional amendment.

During Bush's first term, his nominee as ambassador to Romania, Michael E. Guest, became the first openly gay man to be confirmed by the Senate as a U.S. ambassador. (The first openly gay ambassador, James Hormel, received a recess appointment from Bill Clinton after the Senate failed to confirm the nomination.)

Bush has opposed most forms of affirmative action, but expressed appreciation for the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the selection of college applicants for purposes of diversity. Bush has met with the National Urban League as President, but has not yet met with the NAACP as a group since he became president, though he did address the NAACP at its 2000 convention in Baltimore as a presidential candidate, and he met with outgoing NAACP President Kweisi Mfume on December 21, 2004. Colin Powell became the first African-American man to serve as Secretary of State during Bush's first term in office. In 2005 he was succeeded by Condoleezza Rice, who became the first African-American woman to hold the post.

Economy

During his first term Bush sought and obtained Congressional approval for three major tax cuts, which increased the standard income tax deduction for married couples, eliminated the estate tax, and reduced marginal tax rates, and are scheduled to expire a decade after passage. Bush has asked Congress to make the tax cuts permanent.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, by 2003 these tax cuts had reduced total federal revenue, as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to the lowest level since 1959.

The effect of the tax cuts and simultaneous increases in spending was to create record budget deficits. In the last year of the Clinton administration, the federal budget showed an annual surplus of more than $230 billion. Under Bush, however, the government returned to deficit spending. The annual deficit reached record current-dollar levels of $374 billion in 2003 and $413 billion in 2004, though as a percentage of GDP these deficits are lower than the post-World War II record set under the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s. ,

In an open letter to Bush in 2004, more than 100 professors of business and economics at U.S. business schools ascribed this "fiscal reversal" to Bush's "policy of slashing taxes - primarily for those at the upper reaches of the income distribution". Bush's supporters have countered that, primarily because of the doubling of the value of the child tax credit, "7.8 million low and middle-income families had their entire income tax liabilities erased by the cuts."

According to the "baseline" forecast of federal revenue and spending by the Congressional Budget Office (in its January 2005 Baseline Budget Projections, ), the trend of growing deficits under Bush's first term will become shrinking deficits in his second term. In this projection the deficit will fall to $368 billion in 2005, $261 billion in 2007, and $207 billion in 2009, with a small surplus by 2012. The CBO noted, however, that this projection "omits a significant amount of spending that will occur this year--and possibly for some time to come--for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other activities related to the global war on terrorism." The projection also assumes that the Bush tax cuts "will expire as scheduled on December 31, 2010." If, as Bush has urged, the tax cuts were to be extended, then "the budget outlook for 2015 would change from a surplus of $141 billion to a deficit of $282 billion."

After the last jobs report before the 2004 election was released, Kerry supporters continued to criticize Bush as the first American president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs during his term. With the subsequent November and December numbers, however, Bush ended up with a net gain of jobs during his first term.

Social Security

Bush has called for major changes in Social Security, identifying the issue as a priority early on in his second term. From January through April of 2005, he toured the country, stopping in over 50 cities across the union, pressing his argument that there is a "crisis", a view disputed by critics. Initially, Bush emphasized his proposal for partial privatization, which would allow individual workers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts. One criticism of this approach was that it would actually worsen the imbalance between revenues and expenses that Bush was pointing to as a looming problem. Bush then endorsed a change in the benefit calculation formula that would produce lower Social Security benefits for anyone retiring more than a few years in the future, except for the lowest-income workers. Many Democrats and some Republicans have opposed changes that they view as turning Social Security into a welfare program that would be politically vulnerable. See Social Security debate (United States).

Health

Bush signed the Medicare Act of 2003, which added prescription drug coverage to Medicare, subsidized pharmaceutical corporations, and prohibited the Federal government from negotiating discounts with drug companies.

Bush is pro-life; his aim, in his words, is to "promote a culture of life."

Education

In January of 2002, Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, with Senator Ted Kennedy as chief sponsor, which targets supporting early learning, measures student performance, gives options over failing schools, and ensures more resources for schools. Critics (including Senator Kerry and the National Education Association) say schools were not given the resources to help meet new standards, although the House Committee on Education and the Workforce said in June, 2003 that in three years under the Bush administration the Education Department's overall funding would have increased by $13.2 billion . Some state governments are refusing to implement provisions of the act as long as they are not adequately funded. In January of 2005, USA Today reported that the United States Department of Education had paid $240,000 to conservative political commentator Armstrong Williams "to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same." Williams did not disclose the payments.

The House Education and Workforce Committee stated, "As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act, signed by President Bush on January 8, 2002, the federal government today is spending more money on elementary and secondary (K-12) education than at any other time in the history of the United States."

Science

Scientists have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for reducing funding for scientific research, setting restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (Bush's supporters have responded that he is also the first president to give funding to "adult" stem cell research), ignoring scientific consensus on global warming, and hampering cooperation with foreign scientists by enforcing deterring immigration and visa restrictions. In February 2004, over 5,000 scientists (including 48 Nobel Prize winners) from the Union of Concerned Scientists signed a statement "opposing the Bush administration's use of scientific advice". They stated that "the Bush administration has ignored unbiased scientific advice in the policy-making that is so important for our collective welfare."

On June 8, 2005, The New York Times reported that it had obtained internal White House documents which proved that Philip A. Cooney, a Bush Administration official with ties to the energy industry, had altered national climate change reports during 2002 and 2003 to undermine consensus findings that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming. Two days after the article was published, Cooney resigned his position as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and is due to start work for ExxonMobil in the fall of 2005. Prior to working for the Bush Administration, Cooney was a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying organization which has, since 1997, opposed emissions limits by claiming that there was too much uncertainty in climate science.

On January 14, 2004, Bush announced the largest financial increase to NASA, Vision for Space Exploration, calling for a return to the Moon by 2020, the completion of the International Space Station by 2010 and eventually sending astronauts to Mars. Although the plan was met with a largely tepid reception (), the budget eventually passed with a few minor changes after the November elections. In January 2005 the White House released a new Space Transportation Policy fact sheet which outlined the administration's space policy in broad terms and tied the development of space transport capabilities to national security requirements.

Environment

Bush's environmental record has been attacked by environmentalists, who charge that his policies cater to industry demands to weaken environmental protections. He signed the Great Lakes Legacy Act of 2002, authorizing the federal government to begin cleaning up pollution and contaminated sediment in the Great Lakes, as well as the Brownfields Legislation in 2002, accelerating the cleanup of abandoned industrial or brownfield sites. In December 2003, Bush signed legislation implementing key provisions of his Healthy Forests Initiative; environmental groups have charged that the plan is simply a giveaway to timber companies. Another subject of controversy is Bush's Clear Skies Initiative; opponents say that the initiative will in fact allow utilities to pollute more than they do currently. Bush has opposed the Kyoto Protocol saying it would harm the U.S. economy. Environmental groups note that many Bush Administration officials, in addition to Bush and Cheney, have ties to the energy industry, automotive industry, and other groups that have fought against environmental protections. However, Bush claims his reason for not supporting the Kyoto Protocol is that it is unfairly strict on the U.S. while being unduly lenient with developing countries, especially China and India. He has also questioned the science behind the global warming phenomenon, insisting that more researc