When the Florida recount grinded to a halt in 2000 and it became clear that Al Gore would be heading back to life as a private citizen, Democrats gritted their teeth and started planning how, in four long years, they’d get George W. Bush the second time around. But after enduring a period that saw two foreign wars and economic indicators pointing to an impending meltdown, Bush did what few Democrats thought was possible, and won another term. And here we are, after eight long years of the 43rd President of the United States, and it’s finally over. Well, almost anyway. “Are you better off now than you were before the incumbent took office?” That’s a popular line political candidates like to use when highlighting their own records as incumbents, or as challengers attacking the records of their opponents. Put to that test, the Bush years are really drawn into perspective. Let’s take a look. The Economy: -In December of 2000, just one month before George W. Bush took office, unemployment had reached a decade low of 3.9%. Eight years later, unemployment has ballooned to 5%, with more job losses on the horizon. -On January 14, 2000, just six days before Bush was sworn in, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 11723. Today, it has fallen more than 2,500 points to its current level of 9050. -In 1999, Bill Clinton took what had been a massive federal budget deficit, and turned in a surplus of $122.7 billion. The next year, he did it again, but this time turned in a surplus of $230 billion. George W. Bush inherited nearly $500 billion in surplus. The surplus long gone, the Office of Management and Budget estimates that the US federal budget will run a deficit of $1 trillion in 2009. -The national debt had been paid down substantially during the Clinton Administration, so that on his way out the White House door, Clinton’s budget analysts projected that at current payment levels, the US national debt would be paid off completely by 2010. But then Bush took the reins, and almost doubled what was then a $5.75 trillion debt, handing over to his successor a $10.7 trillion hole. More than 8% of the federal budget today goes to paying of simply the interest- not the principal- of that debt. -In the fall of 2008, the national home foreclosure rate topped 1.19%, the first time the number had eclipsed the 1% mark since recordkeeping on the data began being maintained twenty-nine years ago. That number represents a 25% increase over home foreclosure rates in 2000. Foreign Policy -After making incredible inroads with Russia during the Bill Clinton - Boris Yeltsin years, Bush immediately renewed tensions with the Eastern power by withdrawing from the SALT II treaty, the first time in modern history that a world power had withdrawn from a major international defense treaty. Today, Russia is forming strong alliances with nations considered hostile to the United States, like Venezuela, Colombia, and Iran. In recent months, Russia has been cozying up to China, and both of their leaders sent congratulations messages to retired Cuban dictator Fidel Castro on the 50th anniversary of the communist Cuban Revolution. -The price tag on the Iraq War has reached nearly $900,000,000,000. More than 4,200 soldiers have been killed, and another 30,000 have been wounded. Close to 100,000 civilians are believed to have been killed. -In Afghanistan, where violence has been escalating in recent months despite 7 years of coalition operation, more than 1,000 Coalition troops have been killed, including 626 American soldiers. -Despite holding a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council (formerly the UN Commission on Human Rights) since its inception, the US announced that it would not seek the seat again in 2006, but would retain observer status. It did the same in 2007, and in 2008, relinquished even that title. Other Western nations including Canada, France, Germany, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland all hold member status. Domestic Policy -The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that from 1990-1999, the annual rate of illegal immigration into the United States was roughly 485,000. Despite massive increases in spending, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that from when George W. Bush took office in 2000 to present, that number has swollen to 850,000 per year. -No Child Left Behind represented the largest encroachment of the federal government into state education in history, and runs a price tag in excess of $50 billion annually. Major parts of the program, like the Reading First Program, have been designated “ineffective” by the Department of Education. -In 2006, Bush made the first cut to the National Institute of Health- the organization responsible for funding medical research- in more than 36 years. -In 2002, Bush pledged to double the budget of the National Science Foundation within five years. By 2006, the research and development budget had increased a measly 14%. -The mismanagement of FEMA and incredibly poor response to Hurricane Katrina was a national embarrassment. More than 1000 were killed due in part to faulty levies, which the City of New Orleans had been pleading with the federal government to repair. The city is still under reconstruction. -Civil liberties and civil rights took a significant hit during the Bush years. The USA PATRIOT Act gave the executive branch unprecedented power to conduct eavesdropping investigations and hold secret tribunals. Moreover, the treatment of detainees, including “extraordinary rendition”, represent a bald-faced violation of the anti-torture clauses of the Geneva Conventions- the same treaties that bar our captured soldiers from being tortured under international law. -In eight years, George Bush has not addressed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) one time. He is the first sitting president not to do so since Herbert Hoover more than 75 years ago. -It took George W. Bush more than six years to use the presidential veto. But when he did, it was to squash a bill that would have provided funding for embryonic stem cell research, which would have allowed scientists to study the discarded embryos of fertility clinics. -Bush was responsible for the withdrawal of a bill amendment called the Matthew Shepard Act, which would have included gays in the same hate crime legislation that imposes tough penalties on predators who target people based on race and gender. The bill was named for a gay student in Wyoming who was tortured and murdered because of his sexual identity. Barack Obama has said that passage of the Act will be a priority of his Administration.
