Presidency of George W. Bush
's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office after defeating the Democratic incumbent vice president Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Four years later, he won re-election in the 2004 presidential election, after defeating the Democratic nominee John Kerry. Alongside Bush's presidency, the Republican Party also held their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate during the 108th and 109th U.S. Congresses following the 2002 and 2004 elections, thereby attained an overall federal government trifecta. Bush was constitutionally limited to two terms and was succeeded by Democrat Barack Obama, who won the 2008 presidential election against Bush's preferred succcessor, John McCain. He is the eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush.
A decisive event reshaping Bush's administration were the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In its aftermath, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security and Bush declared a global war on terrorism. He ordered an invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to overthrow the Taliban, destroy al-Qaeda, and capture Osama bin Laden. He also signed the controversial Patriot Act in order to authorize surveillance of suspected terrorists. In 2003, Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, alleging that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction. Intense criticism came when neither WMD stockpiles nor evidence of an operational relationship with al-Qaeda were found. Before 9/11, Bush had pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program and the No Child Left Behind Act, a major education bill. He also pushed for socially conservative efforts, such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based welfare initiatives. Also in 2003, he signed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, which created Medicare Part D.
In economic terms, Bush's legacy is mixed, with GDP growth running at 2.3% annualised from the start of 2001 to the third quarter of 2008. This was 1.4% below the rate under Bill Clinton, and notably weaker than the 3.3% average since 1953. The average hourly wage for households only grew by 1.1% adjusted for inflation compared to 6.7% under Clinton. From January 2001 to October 2008, 4,414,000 jobs were created. However, productivity posted the best average annual growth since Lyndon B. Johnson's tenure and corporate profits grew 9.4% in current dollars, the best advance since Reagan.
During his second term, Bush reached multiple free trade agreements and successfully nominated John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. He sought major changes to Social Security and immigration laws, but both efforts failed. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continued, and in 2007 he launched a surge of troops in Iraq. The Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina and the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy came under attack, with a drop in his approval ratings. The 2008 financial crisis dominated his last days in office as policymakers looked to avert a major economic disaster, and he established the Troubled Asset Relief Program to buy toxic assets from financial institutions.
At various points in his presidency, Bush was among both the most popular and unpopular presidents in U.S. history. He received the highest recorded approval ratings in the wake of the September 11 attacks, but also one of the lowest such ratings during the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis. Although public sentiment of Bush has improved since he left office, scholars ranked his presidency as below-average.
2000 election
The oldest son of George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, George W. Bush emerged as a presidential contender in his own right with his victory in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. After winning re-election by a decisive margin in the 1998 Texas gubernatorial election, Bush became the widely acknowledged front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential election. In the years preceding the 2000 election, Bush established a stable of advisers, including supply-side economics advocate Lawrence B. Lindsey and foreign policy expert Condoleezza Rice. With a financial team led by Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, Bush built up a commanding financial advantage over other prospective Republican candidates. Though several prominent Republicans declined to challenge Bush, Arizona senator John McCain launched a spirited challenge that was supported by many moderates and foreign policy hawks. McCain's loss in the South Carolina primary effectively ended the 2000 Republican primaries, and Bush was officially nominated for president at the 2000 Republican National Convention. Bush selected former secretary of defense Dick Cheney as his running mate; though Cheney offered little electoral appeal and had health problems, Bush believed that Cheney's extensive experience would make him a valuable governing partner.With Democratic President Bill Clinton term-limited, the Democrats nominated Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee for president and Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut for vice president. Bush's campaign emphasized their own candidate's character in contrast with that of Clinton, who had been embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal. Bush held a substantial lead in several polls taken after the final debate in October, but the unearthing of Bush's 1976 DUI arrest appeared to sap his campaign's momentum. By the end of election night, Florida emerged as the key state in the election, as whichever candidate won the state would win the presidency. Bush held an extremely narrow lead in the vote by the end of election night, triggering an automatic recount. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a partial manual recount, but the United States Supreme Court effectively ordered an end to this process, on equal protection grounds, in the case of Bush v. Gore, leaving Bush with a victory in both the state and the election. Bush won the presidential election with 271 electoral votes compared to Gore's 266, though Gore narrowly won a plurality of the nationwide popular vote, receiving 543,895 more votes than Bush. Bush thus became the fourth person to win the presidency while losing the popular vote. In the concurrent congressional elections, Republicans briefly secured a government trifecta after retaining their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, leaving the partisan balance in the Senate at 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, with vice president Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote giving Republicans control of the chamber.
Administration
Rejecting the idea of a powerful White House chief of staff, Bush had high-level officials report directly to him rather than Chief of Staff Andrew Card. Vice President Cheney emerged as the most powerful individual in the White House aside from Bush himself. Bush brought to the White House several individuals who had worked under him in Texas, including Senior Counselor Karen Hughes, Senior Adviser Karl Rove, legal counsel Alberto Gonzales, and Staff Secretary Harriet Miers. Other important White House staff appointees included Margaret Spellings as a domestic policy adviser, Michael Gerson as chief speechwriter, and Joshua Bolten and Joe Hagin as White House deputy chiefs of staff. Paul H. O'Neill, who had served as deputy director of the OMB under Gerald Ford, was appointed secretary of the treasury, while former Missouri senator John Ashcroft was appointed attorney general.As Bush had little foreign policy experience, his appointments would serve an important role in shaping U.S. foreign policy during his tenure. Several of his initial top foreign policy appointees had served in his father's administration; Vice President Cheney had been secretary of defense, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had served on the National Security Council, and deputy secretaries Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage had also served in important roles. Secretary of State Colin Powell had served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the first president Bush. Bush had long admired Powell, and the former general was Bush's first choice for the position. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had served in the same position during the Ford administration, rounded out the key figures in the national security team. Rumsfeld and Cheney, who had served together in the Ford administration, emerged as the leading foreign policy figures during Bush's first term.
O'Neill, who opposed the Iraq War and feared that the Bush tax cuts would lead to deficits, was replaced by John W. Snow in February 2003. Frustrated by the decisions of the Bush administration, particularly the launching of the Iraq War, Powell resigned following the 2004 elections. He was replaced by Rice, while then-deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley took Rice's former position. Most of Bush's top staffers stayed on after the 2004 election, although Spellings joined the Cabinet as secretary of education and Gonzales replaced Ashcroft as attorney general. In early 2006, Card left the White House in the wake of the Dubai Ports World controversy and several botched White House initiatives, and he was replaced by Joshua Bolten. Bolten stripped Rove of some of his responsibilities and convinced Henry Paulson, the head of Goldman Sachs, to replace Snow as secretary of the treasury.
After the 2006 elections, Rumsfeld was replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates. The personnel shake-ups left Rice as one of the most prominent individuals in the administration, and she played a strong role in directing Bush's second term foreign policy. Gonzales and Rove both left in 2007 after controversy regarding the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, and Gonzales was replaced by Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge.