What Decisions Defined the Bush Presidency?

Since I was unable to generate any discussion with my first post, I'll try to stir up some energy with this one.


What decisions defined the Bush presidency?


Right now is an awkward time to look back at the Bush presidency. A good number of Americans (the 53-54% who voted for Obama) would say it was a disaster. Although I don't share their view, I won't stick my neck out to defend Bush either. In this piece I will try to outline the good and bad decisions that led to the strong negative sentiment in the USA and around the world as a result of eight historic years with President Bush. I won't cover everything, but I'll do my best to outline the decisions that historians will highlight to define Bush's legacy.


Most American's don't remember but Bush inherited a signifigant recession in January 2001, primarily caused by a collapse in the stock market after the internet bubble burst and the 9/11 attacks which occured shortly thereafter. President Clinton's much talked about surplus got sucked up bailing out the country during the recession from 2001-2003. In response to the challenges that the country faced, Bush made five major policy decisions in his first term. I'll start by describing the three major domestic decisions, and follow it up with a outline of the two international choices.


Bush's 2000 campaign had three domestic proposals, the first was to lower taxes, the second to create a national education program, and the third to provide a prescription drug plan for seniors. Each of these proposals were passed in his first term. Each brought benefits and subsequent problems.


Most economists will argue that Bush's reduction in taxes helped pull the economy out of the last recession, however they also left a signifigant budgetary hole which we are still dealing with today. His tax cuts were primarily targeted at higher income Americans, based on the thinking that their spending and investment provides greater net economic growth than tax cuts for lower income earners. For the last recession the tax policy worked and was the right decision. It's questionable whether low taxes on high income earners is still necessary to fight the current recession.


It became apparent throughout the 1990's that America's education system was falling behind its international competitors. The system was a relic of our small 'r' republican tradition. American school's were run and regulated by the states. In effect the USA had 50 different education policies. The Bush team correctly recognized that a national bill was needed to increase America's educational competitiveness. The product was No Child Left Behind which like the tax cuts has strengths. Any non-partisan observer will recognize that teachers and schools, like people in the business world and businesses themselves, need a system that holds them accountable for their performance. No Child Left Behind does this through testing and incentives. The bill's major blunder however is its lack of funding from the national level. NCLB still leaves education funding up to the states rendering it to be an unfunded mandate crippling state budgets across the country. Thus, Bush's second decision to push for a national education bill was the right decision based on strong ideas, nevertheless his subsequent refusal to fund it properly was a poor decsion.


Part of America's strength is the support that we provide for our elderly. The pillars of this support are Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. American's tend to forget, but when Lyndon Johnson's Great Society theme created Medicare/Medicaid there was a future promise for a prescription drug plan for seniors. With rising healthcare costs over the last few decades, seniors have been squeezed more than the middle class. Bush's Prescription Drug bill was intended to "ease" seniors pain. Like his tax cut and education bills the drug bill was the correct decision, but arguably poorly enacted. The bill provides relief for seniors but also has huge monetary benefits for drug companies which siphon billions of discretionary funds from the budget every year. President elect Obama recognizes the bills strengths, but has argued for major financial changes which allow the government to reduce its overall costs through use of generic drugs and national negotiation on drug prices. In hindsight, Bush's drug bill was the right decision, however like NCLB was improperly funded. It seems that that has become a theme of the Bush administration, passing legislation which attacks the problem in the correct way but neglecting to properly fund it and letting the national budget go to ruin in the process.

This brings the Bush Administration to what will ultimately define its legacy, the decisions to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan was the right war at the right time. Like all wars in history mistakes have been made, but we are there for the right reasons. Iraq is a whole other animal. For the Bush team 9/11 changed the game. It was a watershed moment where America lost its invicibility and any and all threats had to be examined like they were possible. To a certain extent it both paralyzed the administration and gave it free reign to do whatever it wanted. Bush's team, paralyzed by fear, considered Iraq, which in hindsight was little or no threat, to be a major threat in an age of terror. Contrary to popular belief, the war almost didn't happen.

In the summer and fall of 2002 most of the world was convinced that Iraq was a threat, that it had weapons of mass destruction, that Sadaam terrorized his people, and that he would be willing if given the opportunity to support terror against America. These beliefs in hindsight were mostly all wrong. During this same period a small but historically signifigant battle was ongoing in the Bush administration. On one side stood Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld on the other Colin Powell. Historically hawks, Cheney and Rumsfeld presented their case to Bush for a pe-emptive war against Iraq based on the the beliefs outlined above. Powell on the other side urged caution, and encouraged Bush to not take action against Iraq. Ultimately, Cheney and Rumsfeld won and Bush made the decision to go to war. The decision was actually made prior to the special UN session in which Powell presented the case for war in November 2002. The irony of history is that Powell, performing his duties as Secretary of State, presented the reasons for a war that he did not support.

It was Bush's decision to side with Cheney and Rumsfeld that will ultimately go down in history as his most important. To this day, the USA has done its best to win a war it probably should not have started. It is because of the honor and compassion of America and the US military that Iraq, after being destroyed has a chance to become a state again. Americans can rightfully be distressed about the decision to fight the war and the mistakes made along the way (esspecially Abu Ghraib), but at this point it is America's war not Bush's. It goes without saying that finding a humane way out will have an incalcuable effect on millions of humans around the world.

Although each of these decisions have led in part to a majority negative view of the last eight years (not to mention the mis-placed push to partially privative Social Security and the Administration's poor response to Katrina), there is a positive story to tell. It has been Bush's leadership decisions and creation of the Department of Homeland Security that have protected the country from a second terrorist attack. Bush also has a positive legacy in Africa, where his efforts to prevent hunger and fight AIDS have benefitted millions of poor Africans.

So where have these decisions left America today? I'll answer that question in a later post about the challenges that Obama faces.