George W. Bush

George W. Bush's Second Term

Reelection

In 2004 Bush focused his energies on his campaign for reelection against his Democratic challenger, U.S. Sen. John Kerry. According to opinion polls, the candidates entered the fall elections in a virtual dead heat. Bush's key campaign platform was his conduct of the war on terrorism, which he linked with the war in Iraq. Kerry countered that the Iraq War had been poorly planned and executed and that Bush had neglected domestic priorities. The election was notable for the prominent role played by independent political-action groups in organizing and fund-raising and for the influence of highly partisan blogs as alternative sources of political news. Bush defeated Kerry with a slim majority of the electoral and popular vote, and the Republicans increased their majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Social Security and immigration

The major domestic initiative of Bush's second term was his proposal to replace Social Security (the country's system of government-managed retirement insurance) with private retirement savings accounts. The measure attracted little support, however, mainly because it would have required significant cuts in retirement benefits and heavy borrowing during the transition to the private system.

Bush also proposed a reform of immigration laws that would have allowed most of the estimated 12 million people living in the country illegally to remain temporarily as “guest workers” and to apply for U.S. citizenship after returning to their home countries and paying a fine (though citizenship would not be guaranteed). Although the proposal was supported by some prominent Democrats, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, most other Democrats and many members of Bush's own party remained wary of the idea. Some conservative critics denounced the program as an amnesty that would encourage a new wave of illegal immigration, while liberal opponents warned that it would create a permanent underclass of poor and disenfranchised workers. More than two years of debate produced no reform legislation, though Bush did sign a measure that authorized the construction of a 700-mile (1,127-km) fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Environmental and science policy

The Bush administration's environmental policies reflected its conviction that economic development could be accomplished without serious harm to the environment and that limits on development, where necessary, should be achieved through voluntary cooperation by industry rather than regulation by government. In keeping with the recommendations of the energy task force, the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act would have introduced a cap-and-trade system to regulate major sources of air pollution by power plants throughout the country. Although the measure would have reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and mercury by 70 percent by 2016, critics charged that the reductions were less than what would be achieved by enforcing the existing Clean Air Act. Largely because of disagreements about whether the Clear Skies Act should regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, the measure died in the Senate in 2005. Despite this setback, the administration soon implemented the Clean Air Interstate Rule, a regional cap-and-trade system for 28 Eastern states and the District of Columbia.

After the Supreme Court ruled in April 2007 that greenhouse gas emissions by automobiles constitute a form of air pollution under the Clean Air Act, Bush signed energy legislation that imposed increases in automobile fuel economy standards by the year 2020. In December, however, the Environmental Protection Agency blocked a proposal by California and 16 other states to issue regulations that would have required fuel economies greater than those called for in the new federal law.

The Bush administration was frequently accused of politically motivated interference in government scientific research. Critics charged that political appointees at various agencies, many of whom had little or no relevant expertise, altered or suppressed scientific reports that did not promote administration policies, restricted the ability of government experts to speak publicly on certain scientific issues, and limited access to scientific information by policy makers and the public. Numerous complaints by environmental and scientific groups led to Congressional hearings in 2007 on political interference in the work of the Surgeon General of the United States and in research on climate change conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In most cases the administration claimed that the interventions were an appropriate attempt to ensure scientific objectivity or simply a benign exercise of the authority of political appointees.

2006 elections

The continued lack of progress in the Iraq War, a series of corruption scandals involving prominent Republican politicians, and the administration's poor response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and surrounding areas in August 2005 helped the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections of November 2006. The new Congress soon began investigations of the NSA spying program undertaken in 2002 and of allegedly improper political influence in the dismissals of several United States attorneys in December 2006. In the latter investigation the testimony of Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush's attorney general since 2005, was viewed with skepticism by both parties and reinforced the impression that the Justice Department under his leadership was not sufficiently independent of the White House. Gonzales resigned in August 2007 and was replaced in November with Michael Mukasey.

The Plame affair

In March 2007 Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, was convicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with an investigation into the leak of the identity of a covert CIA agent in 2003. The agent, Valerie Plame, was the wife of Joseph C. Wilson, a retired foreign service officer who had traveled to Africa in early 2002 at the request of the CIA to help determine whether Iraq had attempted to purchase enriched uranium from Niger. Wilson reported that there was no evidence of an attempted purchase, and in July 2003 he publicly speculated that the administration had ignored or distorted intelligence reports such as his to justify a military invasion of Iraq. Libby allegedly identified Plame as a CIA agent to journalists to discredit Wilson by suggesting that his selection for the CIA mission was the result of nepotism. In testimony before a grand jury and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Libby falsely claimed that he had not discussed Plame's identity with journalists. Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence in July 2007.

During his second term Bush appointed two Supreme Court justices: John G. Roberts, Jr. (confirmed as chief justice in 2005), and Samuel A. Alito, Jr. (confirmed in 2006). The appointments increased to four the number of solidly conservative justices on the nine-member Supreme Court.

As Bush entered the final year of his presidency in 2008, the country faced enormous challenges. Although al-Qaeda had been subdued, it had not been destroyed. The United States and its allies continued to fight skirmishes with terrorists and their Taliban supporters in Afghanistan, and the insurgency in Iraq continued to claim U.S. casualties. The surpluses in the federal budget in 2000 and 2001 were a distant memory, as the combined effects of military spending, tax cuts, and slow economic growth produced a series of enormous budget deficits starting in 2003. Later in 2008 the economy was threatened by a severe credit crisis, leading Congress to enact a controversial Bush administration plan to rescue the financial industry with up to $700 billion in government funds. Despite Bush's 2000 campaign promise to be “a uniter, not a divider,” the country remained politically polarized to an extent not seen since the Vietnam War. While Bush's critics faulted him for these problems and many others, his supporters vigorously defended him as a strong leader who had guided the country through one of the most dangerous periods in its history.

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