Bush Twins

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party, he is the eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, and was the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.

Bush flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard in his twenties. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. He later co-owned the Major League Baseball team Texas Rangers before being elected governor of Texas in 1994. As governor, Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform, increased education funding, set higher standards for schools, and reformed the criminal justice system. He also helped make Texas the leading producer of wind-generated electricity in the United States. In the 2000 presidential election, he won over Democratic incumbent vice president Al Gore, while losing the popular vote after a narrow and contested Electoral College win, which involved a Supreme Court decision to stop a recount in Florida.

In his first term, Bush signed a major tax-cut program and an education-reform bill, the No Child Left Behind Act. He pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based initiatives. He also initiated the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in 2003, to address the AIDS epidemic. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 decisively reshaped his administration, resulting in the start of the war on terror and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to overthrow the Taliban, destroy al-Qaeda, and capture Osama bin Laden. He signed the Patriot Act to authorize surveillance of suspected terrorists. He also ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime on the false belief that it possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and had ties with al-Qaeda. Bush later signed the Medicare Modernization Act, which created Medicare Part D. In 2004, Bush was re-elected president in a close race, beating Democratic opponent John Kerry and winning the popular vote.

During his second term, Bush made various free trade agreements, appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and sought major changes to Social Security and immigration laws, but both efforts failed in Congress. Bush was widely criticized for his administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and revelations of torture against detainees at Abu Ghraib. Amid his unpopularity, the Democrats regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. Meanwhile, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars continued; in January 2007, Bush launched a surge of troops in Iraq. By December, the U.S. entered the Great Recession, prompting the Bush administration and Congress to push through economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

After his second term, Bush returned to Texas, where he has maintained a low public profile. At various points in his presidency, he was among both the most popular and the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history. He received the highest recorded approval ratings in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and one of the lowest ratings during the 2008 financial crisis. Bush left office as one of the most unpopular U.S. presidents, but public opinion of him has improved since then. Scholars and historians rank Bush in the lower half of presidents.

Early life and career

George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. He was the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, with four siblings: Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. Another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953. His paternal grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U.S. senator from Connecticut. His father was Ronald Reagan's vice president from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U.S. president from 1989 to 1993. Bush has English and German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Welsh, Irish, French, and Scottish roots.

Education

Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas, until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade. He then spent two years at The Kinkaid School, a college-preparatory school in Piney Point Village, Texas.

Bush later attended Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, where he played baseball and was the head cheerleader during his senior year. He attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. During this time, he was a cheerleader and a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon, serving as the president of the fraternity during his senior year. Bush became a member of the Skull and Bones society as a senior. Bush was a rugby union player and was on Yale's 1st XV. He characterized himself as an average student. His grade point average during his first three years at Yale was 77, and he had a similar average under a nonnumerical rating system in his final year.

In the fall of 1973, Bush entered Harvard Business School. He graduated in 1975 with an MBA degree, and is the only U.S. president to have earned an MBA.

Family and personal life

Bush was engaged to Cathryn Lee Wolfman in 1967, but the engagement did not last. Bush and Wolfman remained on good terms after the end of the relationship. While Bush was at a backyard barbecue in 1977, friends introduced him to Laura Welch, a schoolteacher and librarian. After a three-month courtship, she accepted his marriage proposal and they wed on November5 of that year. The couple settled in Midland, Texas. Bush left his family's Episcopal Church to join his wife's United Methodist Church. On November 25, 1981, Laura Bush gave birth to fraternal twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. Bush describes being challenged by Billy Graham to consider faith in Jesus "Christ as the risen Lord", how he began to read the Bible daily, "surrendering" to the "Almighty", that "faith is a walk" and that he was "moved by God's love".

Alcohol abuse

Before his marriage, Bush repeatedly abused alcohol. On September 4, 1976, he was pulled over near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, for driving under the influence of alcohol. He was arrested for DUI, was fined $150, and received a brief suspension of his Maine driver's license. Bush said that his wife has had a stabilizing effect on his life, and he attributes his decision to give up alcohol in 1986 to her influence. While governor of Texas, Bush said of his wife, "I saw an elegant, beautiful woman who turned out not only to be elegant and beautiful, but very smart and willing to put up with my rough edges, and I must confess has smoothed them off over time." Bush also says that his faith in God was critical in abstaining: "I believe that God helped open my eyes, which were closing because of booze".

Hobbies

Bush has been an avid reader throughout his adult life, preferring biographies and histories. During his presidency, Bush read the Bible daily, though at the end of his second term he said on television that he is "not a literalist" about Bible interpretation. Walt Harrington, a journalist, recalled seeing "books by John Fowles, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Gore Vidal lying about, as well as biographies of Willa Cather and Queen Victoria" in his home when Bush was a Texas oilman. Other activities include cigar smoking and golf. Bush has also painted many paintings. One of his best-known projects is a collection of 43 paintings of immigrants, titled ''Out of Many, One''. Another painting project was ''Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warrior''.

Military career

In May 1968, Bush was commissioned into the Texas Air National Guard. After two years of training in active-duty service, he was assigned to Houston, flying Convair F-102s with the 147th Reconnaissance Wing out of Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base. Critics, including former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, have alleged that Bush was favorably treated due to his father's political standing as a member of the House of Representatives, citing his selection as a pilot despite his low pilot aptitude test scores and his irregular attendance. In June 2005, the Department of Defense released all the records of Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, which remain in its official archives.

In late 1972 and early 1973, he drilled with the 187th Fighter Wing of the Alabama Air National Guard. He had moved to Montgomery, Alabama, to work on the unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Winton M. Blount. In 1972, Bush was suspended from flying for failure to take a scheduled physical exam. He was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve on November 21, 1974.

Bush remains the most recent president to have served in the military.

Business career

In 1977, Bush established Arbusto Energy, a small oil exploration company, which began operations in 1978. He later changed the name to Bush Exploration. In 1984, his company merged with the larger Spectrum 7, and Bush became chairman. The company was hurt by decreased oil prices, and it folded into Harken Energy Corporation, with Bush becoming a member of Harken's board of directors. Questions of possible insider trading involving Harken arose, but a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation concluded that the information Bush had at the time of his stock sale was not sufficient to constitute insider trading.

In April 1989, Bush arranged for a group of investors to purchase a controlling interest of Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers for $89million and invested $500,000 himself to start. He then was managing general partner for five years. He actively led the team's projects and regularly attended its games, often choosing to sit in the open stands with fans. Bush's sale of his shares in the Rangers in 1998 brought him over $15million from his initial $800,000 investment.

In the early or mid 1990s, before his gubernatorial campaign, Bush briefly considered a candidacy to become the Commissioner of Baseball.

Early political involvement

In 1978, Bush ran for the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 19th congressional district. The retiring member, George H. Mahon, had held the district for the Democratic Party since 1935. Bush's opponent, Kent Hance, portrayed him as out of touch with rural Texans, and Bush lost the election, receiving 46.8 percent of the vote to Hance's 53.2 percent.

Bush and his family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1988 to work on his father's campaign for the U.S. presidency. He was a campaign advisor and liaison to the media, and assisted his father by campaigning across the country. In December 1991, Bush was one of seven people named by his father to run his father's 1992 presidential re-election campaign as a campaign advisor. The previous month, his father had asked him to tell White House chief of staff John H. Sununu to resign.

Texas governorship (1995–2000)

Bush declared his candidacy for the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election at the same time his brother Jeb sought the governorship in Florida. His campaign focused on four themes: welfare reform, tort reform, crime reduction, and education improvement. Bush's campaign advisers were Karen Hughes, Joe Allbaugh, and Karl Rove.

After easily winning the Republican primary, Bush faced popular Democratic incumbent governor Ann Richards. In the course of the campaign, Bush pledged to sign a bill allowing Texans to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons. Richards had vetoed the bill, but Bush signed it into law after he became governor. According to ''The Atlantic'', the race "featured a rumor that she was a lesbian, along with a rare instance of such a tactic's making it into the public record – when a regional chairman of the Bush campaign allowed himself, perhaps inadvertently, to be quoted criticizing Richards for 'appointing avowed homosexual activists' to state jobs". ''The Atlantic'', and others, connected the lesbian rumor to Karl Rove, but Rove denied being involved. Bush won the general election with 53.5 percent of the vote against Richards' 45.9 percent.

Bush used a budget surplus to push through Texas's largest tax cut, $2billion. He extended government funding for organizations providing education on the dangers of alcohol and drug use and abuse, and helping to reduce domestic violence. His administration lowered the age at which juveniles can be sent to adult court for serious crimes to 14. Bush presided over 152 executions, more than any previous governor in modern American history; critics such as Helen Prejean argue that he failed to give serious consideration to clemency requests. Critics also contended that during his tenure, Texas ranked near the bottom in environmental evaluations. Supporters pointed to his efforts to raise the salaries of teachers and improve educational test scores.

In 1999, Bush signed a law that required electric retailers to buy a certain amount of energy from renewable sources (RPS),SB7
''Texas Legislature Online'', May 1999. Retrieved September 24, 2011. which helped Texas eventually become the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the U.S.

In 1998, Bush won re-election with a record 68 percent of the vote. He became the first governor in Texas history to be elected to two consecutive four-year terms. During his second term, Bush promoted faith-based organizations and enjoyed high approval ratings, which ranged between 62 and 81 percent. He proclaimed June 10, 2000, to be Jesus Day in Texas, a day on which he urged all Texans to "answer the call to serve those in need".

Throughout Bush's first term, he was the focus of national attention as a potential future presidential candidate. Following his re-election, speculation soared, and within a year he decided to seek the 2000 Republican presidential nomination.

Presidential campaigns

2000 presidential candidacy

Primary

Bush portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative, implying he was more centrist than other Republicans. He campaigned on a platform that included bringing integrity and honor back to the White House, increasing the size of the military, cutting taxes, improving education, and aiding minorities. By early 2000, the race had centered on Bush and Arizona senator John McCain.

Bush won the Iowa caucuses and, although heavily favored to win the New Hampshire primary, trailed McCain by 19 percent and lost. Despite this, he regained momentum and effectively became the front runner after the South Carolina primary, which according to ''The Boston Globe'' made history for his campaign's negativity. ''The New York Times'' described it as a smear campaign.

General election

On July 25, 2000, Bush surprised some observers when he selected Dick Cheneya former White House chief of staff, U.S. representative, and secretary of defenseto be his running mate. At the time, Cheney was serving as head of Bush's vice presidential search committee. Soon after at the 2000 Republican National Convention, Bush and Cheney were officially nominated by the Republican Party.

Bush continued to campaign across the country and touted his record as Governor of Texas. During his campaign, Bush criticized his Democratic opponent, incumbent vice president Al Gore, over gun control and taxation.

When the election returns were tallied on November 7, Bush had won 29 states, including Florida. The closeness of the Florida outcome led to a recount. The initial recount also went to Bush, but the outcome was tied up in lower courts for a month until eventually reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 9, in the controversial ''Bush v. Gore'' ruling, the Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court decision that had ordered a third count, and stopped an ordered statewide hand recount based on the argument that the use of different standards among Florida's counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The machine recount showed that Bush had won the Florida vote by a margin of 537 votes out of six million casts. Although he had received 543,895 fewer individual nationwide votes than Gore, Bush won the election, receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266 (Gore had actually been awarded 267 votes by the states pledged to him plus the District of Columbia, but one D.C. elector abstained). Bush was the first person to win a U.S. presidential election with fewer popular votes than another candidate since Benjamin Harrison in 1888.

2004 presidential candidacy

In his 2004 bid for re-election, Bush commanded broad support in the Republican Party and did not encounter a primary challenge. He appointed Ken Mehlman as campaign manager, and Karl Rove devised a political strategy. Bush and the Republican platform emphasized a strong commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, support for the USA PATRIOT Act, a renewed shift in policy for constitutional amendments banning abortion and same-sex marriage, reforming Social Security to create private investment accounts, creation of an ownership society, and opposing mandatory carbon emissions controls. Bush also called for the implementation of a guest worker program for immigrants, which was criticized by conservatives.

The Bush campaign advertised across the U.S. against Democratic candidates, including Bush's emerging opponent, Massachusetts senator John Kerry. Kerry and other Democrats attacked Bush on the Iraq War, and accused him of failing to stimulate the economy and job growth. The Bush campaign portrayed Kerry as a staunch liberal who would raise taxes and increase the size of government. The Bush campaign continuously criticized Kerry's seemingly contradictory statements on the war in Iraq, and argued that Kerry lacked the decisiveness and vision necessary for success in the war on terror.

Following the resignation of CIA director George Tenet in 2004, Bush nominated Porter Goss to head the agency. The White House ordered Goss to purge agency officers who were disloyal to the administration. After Goss' appointment, many of the CIA's senior agents were fired or quit. The CIA has been accused of deliberately leaking classified information to undermine the 2004 election.

In the election, Bush carried 31 of 50 states, receiving 286 electoral votes. He won an absolute majority of the popular vote (50.7 percent to Kerry's 48.3 percent).

Presidency (2001–2009)

Bush had originally outlined an ambitious domestic agenda, but his priorities were significantly altered following the September 11 attacks. Wars were begun in Afghanistan and Iraq, and there were significant domestic debates regarding immigration, healthcare, Social Security, economic policy, and treatment of terrorist detainees. Over an eight-year period, Bush's once-high approval ratings steadily declined, while his disapproval numbers increased significantly. In 2007, the United States entered the longest post-World War II recession.

Domestic policy

Economic policy

Bush took office during a period of economic recession in the wake of the bursting of the dot-com bubble. The September 11 terrorist attacks also impacted the economy.

His administration increased federal government spending from $1.789trillion to $2.983trillion (66 percent), while revenues increased from $2.025trillion to $2.524trillion (from 2000 to 2008). Individual income tax revenues increased by 14 percent, corporate tax revenues by 50 percent, and customs and duties by 40 percent. Discretionary defense spending was increased by 107 percent, discretionary domestic spending by 62 percent, Medicare spending by 131 percent, social security by 51 percent, and income security spending by 130 percent. Cyclically adjusted, revenues rose by 35 percent and spending by 65 percent. The increase in spending was more than under any predecessor since Lyndon B. Johnson. The number of economic regulation governmental workers increased by 91,196.

The surplus in fiscal year 2000 was $237billionthe third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever.Office of Management! and Budget; National Economic Council, September 27, 2000 In 2001, Bush's budget estimated that there would be a $5.6trillion surplus over the next ten years. Facing congressional opposition, Bush held town hall-style meetings across the U.S. to increase public support for his plan for a $1.35trillion tax cut program, one of the largest tax cuts in U.S. history. Bush argued that unspent government funds should be returned to taxpayers, saying "the surplus is not the government's money. The surplus is the people's money." Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned of a recession and Bush stated that a tax cut would stimulate the economy and create jobs. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, opposed some of the tax cuts on the basis that they would contribute to budget deficits and undermine Social Security. O'Neill disputes the claim, made in Bush's book ''Decision Points'', that he never openly disagreed with him on planned tax cuts. By 2003, the economy showed signs of improvement, though job growth remained stagnant. Another tax cut was passed that year.

Between 2001 and 2008, GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2.125 percent, less than for past business cycles. Bush entered office with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 10,587, and the average peaked in October 2007 at over 14,000. When Bush left office, the average was at 7,949, one of the lowest levels of his presidency. Only four other U.S. presidents have left office with the stock market lower than when they began.

Unemployment originally rose from 4.2 percent in January 2001 to 6.3 percent in June 2003, but subsequently dropped to 4.5 percent in July 2007. Adjusted for inflation, median household income dropped by $1,175 between 2000 and 2007, while Professor Ken Homa of Georgetown University noted that "Median real after-tax household income went up two percent". The poverty rate increased from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.3 percent in 2006 after peaking at 12.7 percent in 2004. By October 2008, due to increases in spending, the U.S. national debt had risen to $11.3trillion, more than doubling it since 2000. Most debt was accumulated as a result of what became known as the "Bush tax cuts" and increased national security spending. In March 2006, then-senator Barack Obama said when he voted against raising the debt ceiling: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure." By the end of Bush's presidency, unemployment climbed to 7.2 percent.

2008 financial crisis

In December 2007, the United States entered the longest post–World War II recession, caused by a housing market correction, a subprime mortgage crisis, soaring oil prices, and other factors. In February 2008, 63,000 jobs were lost, a five-year record, and in November, over 500,000 jobs were lost, which marked the largest loss of jobs in the United States in 34 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the last four months of 2008, 1.9 million jobs were lost. By the end of 2008, the U.S. had lost 2.6 million jobs.

To aid with the situation, Bush signed a $170billion economic stimulus package which was intended to improve the economic situation by sending tax rebate checks to many Americans and providing tax breaks for struggling businesses. The Bush administration pushed for significantly increased regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

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