Revision as of 21:40, 24 March 2006

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current president of the United States. Bush, a Republican, was elected 46th governor of Texas in 1994 and was re-elected in 1998. From there, he moved on to win the nomination of the Republican Party for the 2000 presidential race and ultimately defeated Democratic Vice President Al Gore. In 2004, Bush was elected to a second term, defeating Democratic Senator John Kerry. This term will expire January 20, 2009.

Biographical

Born July 6th, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut. Son of George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush. Brother of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Husband to Laura Bush.

Graduated in 1968 from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts in History and entered the Texas Air National Guard. After two years of learning how to fly jets, he was promoted to First Lieutenant on the November 1970 recommendation of his commander Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He served as an F-102 pilot until 1972.

He later attended Harvard Business School, from which he earned his MBA in 1975; he is the first U.S. President to hold an MBA. After graduation Bush returned to Texas to enter the oil business. Two years later, he married Laura Welch, a librarian originally from Midland. They have twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, born in 1981.

In 1994, Bush ran for Governor of Texas against the incumbent, Democrat Ann Richards. On November 8, 1994, he defeated Richards by a margin of 53% to 46%. As Governor, Bush forged a legislative alliance with powerful Lt. Governor Bob Bullock, a longtime Democrat. In 1998 Bush went on to win re-election in a landslide victory with nearly 69% of the vote, becoming the first Texas governor to be elected for two consecutive four-year terms (before 1975, the gubernatorial term of office was two years). During Bush's governorship, he undertook significant legislative changes in criminal justice, tort law, and school financing.

Presidential campaigns

In the 2000 presidential election Bush defeated Democratic candidate Vice President Al Gore, winning 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266 and carrying 30 of the 50 states. Gore had received a plurality of the national popular vote, but this fact is not relevant in deciding presidential elections. It should be pointed out that if the American system were based on the popular vote, rather than the Electoral College, then the focus and methods of campaigning would be different. Because of this, the validity of using popular-vote totals under the present system to predict who would have won an actual popular vote election is questionable. In that election, Gore failed to win the popular vote in his home state of Tennessee, making him the first major party presidential candidate to have lost his home state since George McGovern lost South Dakota in 1972.

In the 2004 election, Bush carried 31 of 50 states for 286 Electoral College votes. In that election, he also received more popular votes than any previous presidential candidate. Democrat challenger, Senator John Kerry, carried a mere 19 states and the District of Columbia, earning him 251 Electoral College votes and only 48 percent of the popular vote to Bush's 51 percent.

George W. Bush became the first candidate since his father—George H. W. Bush, elected in 1988—to receive a majority of the popular vote. It also marked the seventh consecutive election in which the Democratic nominee failed to reach that threshold.

The counties where Bush led in the popular vote amount to 83% of the geographic area of the U.S. (excluding Alaska, which did not report results by borough/census area, but had all electoral districts but one of the two in Juneau vote for Bush).

The election marked the first time an incumbent president was reelected while his political party increased its numbers in both houses of Congress since Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 election. It was the first time for a Republican since William McKinley in the 1900 election.

Presidency of the United States

After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush's quick response to the crisis lead to his approval rating to soar to a record 89 percent. On October 7, 2001, the United States launched a war against the Afghani Taliban regime, which harbored various al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden. Democratic elections were held on October 9, 2004.

Starting in the spring of 2002, the Bush administration promoted urgent action in Iraq because Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a threat to U.S. security because he destabilized the Middle East, inflamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, financed terrorists, refused and hindered weapons inspections, breached a 1991 ceasefire, attempted to have a former US president assassinated, and had been continuously violating numerous UN resolutions which legally required the US and other nations to remove Saddam Hussein from power. It had been, since 1998, U.S. policy for the president to plan for the removal of Saddam Hussein by a law (the Iraq Liberation Act) passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed by President Bill Clinton.

Nearly forty other countries agreed joined the United States in the called for the liberation of the Iraqi people and the removal of Saddam Hussein, the United Kingdom being the strongest ally. Dubbed the "Coalition of the Willing", this alliance includes a disproportionately large fraction of the world's economically powerful countries.

For instance:

• 15 of the 30 OECD nations;
• 15 of the 27 EU nations (Including the two acceding nations);
• 5 of the top 10 nations by GDP;
• 4 of the G8 nations;
• Nations with 61% of the global GDP.

Named "Operation Iraqi Freedom", the removal of Saddam Hussein from power commenced on March 20, 2003. By May 1, 2003, the regime of Saddam was declared officially over. Once US and allied military forces entered Iraq, they discovered that various international terrorists had been given sanctuary by Saddam and ran their terrorist operations from Iraq. Notable terrorists found included Muhammad Zaidan aka Abu Abbas and Sabri Khalil al-Banna aka Abu Nidal.

On immigration issues Bush has had one of the most liberal policies in the history of the United States. He has proposed an immigration bill that would greatly expand the use of guest worker visas. His proposal would match employers with foreign workers for a period up to six years.

Since nearly 70 percent of the American public is opposed to redefining the definition of marriage to include matrimony between to people of the same gender, Bush is also opposed to legal recognition of gender-neutral marriage. However, he strongly 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).

Bush is the first Republican president to have appointed an openly gay man to serve in his administration (Scott Evertz as director of the Office of National AIDS Policy), and the first president to see one such appointment, that of openly gay Ambassador to Romania Michael E. Guest, receive Congressional confirmation. Bush also supports the executive order banning employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. During his 2000 campaign trail he met with the Log Cabin Republicans, a first for a Presidential candidate and the organization endorsed him.

In his first term, Bush appointed Colin Powell as Secretary of State, who became the first African-American man to serve in that position. He was succeeded by Condoleezza Rice in 2005, who became the first African-American woman to hold the post. In 2005, he appointed Alberto Gonzalez as the United States Attorney General, the first Hispanic to hold that position. In total, Bush has appointed more women and minorities to high-level positions within his administration than any other U.S. President.

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. The cuts are currently scheduled to expire a decade after passage. Bush has asked Congress to make the tax cuts permanent. Inflation under Bush has remained near historic lows at about 2-3% per year.

The Misery Index, which adds together the rates of inflation and unemployment during the first term of the Bush administration was better than it had been in most years since World War II. By the end of 2004 it was 7.4, which is lower than it had been in every one of President Bill Clinton's first four years. It was at 8.4 when Clinton was re-elected in 1996.

Bush signed the Medicare Act of 2003, which added prescription drug coverage to Medicare (United States), subsidized pharmaceutical corporations, and prohibited the Federal government from negotiating discounts with drug companies. The law would give the elderly more control over their health care. Seniors can buy a Medicare-approved discount card for $30 or less to help offset the increasing costs of prescription drugs. The legislation also adds prescription drug coverage to the federal health insurance program for the elderly, starting in 2006.

In January of 2002, Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, with Senator Ted Kennedy as chief sponsor, which aims to close the achievement gap, measures student performance, provides options to parents with students in low-performing schools, and targets more federal funding to low-income schools. The House Education and Workforce Committee stated, "As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act, signed by Bush on January 8, 2002, the Federal government today is spending more money on elementary and High School (K-12) education than at any other time in the history of the United States".

On December 19, 2002, Bush signed into law H. R. 4664, far-reaching legislation to put the National Science Foundation (NSF) on a track to double its budget over five years and to create new mathematics and science education initiatives at both the pre-college and undergraduate level. In the first three years of those five, the R&D budget has increased by fourteen percent.

On January 14, 2004, Bush announced a major re-direction for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Known as the Vision for Space Exploration, it calls for the completion of the International Space Station by 2010 and the retirement of the space shuttle while developing a new spacecraft called the Crew Exploration Vehicle under the title Project Constellation. The CEV would be used to return American astronauts to the Moon by 2018, with the objective of establishing a permanent lunar base, and eventually sending future manned missions to Mars.

In 2002, Bush had the highest approval rating of any president during a midterm congressional election since Dwight Eisenhower. In an unusual deviation from the historical trend of midterm elections, the Republican Party retook control of the Senate and added to its majority in the House of Representatives. Typically, the President's party loses congressional seats in the midterm elections; 2002 marked only the third midterm election since the Civil War that the party in control of the White House gained seats in both houses of Congress (others were 1902 and 1934).

Starting in 2005, in the Middle East there have been less negative statements made against Bush than what is usual for an American president now that there is a "growing democracy" that has occured in the area since the Democratic elections in Iraq in January 2005. For example, in Iran a poll conducted in early 2005 suggests that 74% of Iranians believe that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is supplementing in Iran emerging as a free democracy. Also, in February 2005, the assassination of former Lebanon Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was translated in the minds of many as a Syrian tactic against Lebanon which prompted Bush to request that all Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon remove themselves from the country immediately. Bush's request led to unusual pro-Bush rallies in Beirut where some were even chanting, "Thank You, Mr. Bush!"

A 2005 survey conducted by James Lindgren of Northwestern University Law School for the Federalist Society and The Wall Street Journal as ranked President Bush as the 19th greatest president in American history, above both his father and his predecessor Bill Clinton. [1]