Main content
US history
Course: US history > Unit 9
Lesson 3: The United States after 2000The presidency of George W. Bush
AP.USH:
KC‑9.3.II.A (KC)
, KC‑9.3.II.B (KC)
, Unit 9: Learning Objective F
, WOR (Theme)
During Bush's presidency (2001-2009) the United States embarked on a Global War on Terror and suffered from a severe economic recession.
Overview
- Republican George W. Bush served two terms as president, from 2001-2009.
- The September 11, 2001 terrorist attack led President Bush to reframe American foreign policy as a War on Terror, and to fight two wars in the Middle East.
- A housing market crash led to a severe economic downturn in President Bush’s final years in office.
The presidential election of 2000
Republican George Walker Bush served for two terms as President of the United States from 2001-2009.
Describing himself as a “compassionate conservative,” Bush—former governor of Texas and the son of former President George H.W. Bush—became President of the United States in 2001 in one of the closest US presidential elections ever. Al Gore, Bush’s Democratic rival, won the popular vote by a narrow margin, but Bush attained a plurality of votes from the electoral college.
Ultimately, the outcome hinged on election results from the state of Florida, where voting irregularities created uncertainty about who had truly triumphed. The Florida Supreme Court authorized a vote recount, but the Bush campaign appealed the decision. The case of Bush v. Gore went to the Supreme Court, which decided to halt the recount and declare Bush the winner.start superscript, 1, end superscript
President Bush’s foreign policy
On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked and crashed 4 airplanes into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. (the fourth plane crashed in a field in central Pennsylvania).squared Shortly thereafter, the Bush administration declared a Global War on Terror. The first front in this war was Afghanistan, where the governing Taliban regime had provided safe haven to al-Qaeda.
In 2003, the United States went to war with Iraq. Though US forces quickly ousted (and eventually killed) Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the conflict dragged on for years. Before the war began, intelligence agencies in the United States and around the world claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, but no such weapons were found during the war or in its aftermath.
A key component of the Global War on Terror was the USA Patriot Act (2001) which sought to protect the nation from future acts of terror by expanding domestic surveillance programs and permitting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques to extract information from detainees. Critics of the law insisted that it subverted valuable individual freedoms, and that the act violated the Geneva Convention by allowing what they considered torture. The Patriot Act prompted an ongoing public debate about the balance between security and freedom in an age of terrorism.
President Bush’s domestic policy agenda
George W. Bush came into office with an ambitious domestic policy agenda that included reforms in the areas of education, Social Security, and immigration.
Although most elements of Bush’s domestic agenda were conservative, he also supported spending on programs traditionally associated with liberal Democrats. He actively supported the No Child Left Behind Act, a bipartisan effort to raise school standards in low-income areas. His successful support for a new federal program that subsidized the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly was considered by many the sort of government program historically supported by Democrats.
The Bush administration increased funding for many federal programs and agencies, while implementing some of the largest tax cuts in history. This substantially enlarged both the federal debt and the federal budget deficit. During Bush’s presidency the national debt doubled from around $5 trillion to $10 trillion.cubed
In 2007 and 2008 the United States tumbled into a sharp economic recession when a multi-trillion dollar housing price collapse led the Federal Reserve and US Treasury Department to intensive direct economic intervention in the private sector to bail out failing financial institutions.
A combination of tax cuts, increased federal spending, economic recession, and vast expenditures on two wars in the Middle East led to the “Great Recession,” the worst economic crisis the country had faced since the Great Depression.
What do you think?
How did the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon fundamentally reshape US foreign policy?
Does President Bush bear responsibility for the “Great Recession”? Why or why not?
What were the most significant events of the Bush presidency?
Want to join the conversation?
U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein and turned him over to the new Iraqi government for trial. They executed him.(17 votes)
Correct, it was the Iraqi government which tried, sentenced and executed Saddam Hussein. One of several mistakes in this piece. Some are correlations which are mistaken as causality (e.g. while there is correlation between the tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the recession, given their occurrence in the same time frame, it is difficult to demonstrate that the first two items caused the third, whose more immediate cause was housing and weaknesses in the finance and labor market. This is further demonstrated by the fact that movement out of the recession started without much change to the first two factors). Seems thematic amongst current history textbooks and articles (bias and faulty logic/argumentation).(7 votes)
what does subsizied cost of prescription drugs mean?(6 votes)
Subsidizing means the government paying part of the cost.(8 votes)
Was 9/11 one of those events(5 votes)
Yes, it happened at the end of the first year George W Bush was president.(6 votes)
housing price collapse is Bush’s fault?(1 vote)
Not really all of it, interestingly some of it was Bill Clinton. The reason for this was that he with the support of the Republicans in Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which was put into affect during the Great Depression to prevent that kind of disaster from happening again. The basics of it was to prevent banks from gambling in the stock market with your money. Unfortunately, as I said before, it was repealed by Bill Clinton and that lead to the Great Recession. Many people do not realize it, but the world economic system almost collapsed during that time. To get out of it President Bush and the others in Congress decided to print some $700,000,000,000 on the spot to get us out. This has caused other problems and we are still recovering from it. Part of the problems it has caused is that interest rates are very low, and inflation is very high.(4 votes)
- Why do people place such an emphasis on voting in presidential elections when the electorial college can just decided for us(2 votes)
- Because the number of votes in each state affects what the Electoral College does. When you cast your ballot in a presidential election, what you're actually doing is voting for your candidate to win the electors in your state.
It's winner-take-all in most states, so whichever candidate wins the popular vote in your state wins all of that state's electors. Each state has a certain number of electors based on population. If you live in California, for instance, the majority of people may vote for Candidate X. Then, Candidate X would pick up all 55 of California's electoral votes. In order to win the presidency, a candidate needs to win over the majority of electoral votes.
This is why sometimes a candidate can win the popular vote but lose the presidency. A candidate can win the majority of votes across the country, but not quite reach the number of electoral votes they need to win. It's a really weird system, but that doesn't mean your vote doesn't count. It does.(1 vote)
What happened after 9/11 occurred?(1 vote)
The United States, along with its allies, declared a "Global War on Terror", with the main fronts of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The war has been going on for 20+ years. Recently, however, the US has withdrawn forces from the front in Afghanistan, and the Taliban has quickly overrun the country. The Taliban currently are executing Americans (or anyone with a American Passport) as we withdraw forces. This is history in the making.(2 votes)
How did the economic collapse of 2008 happen, and how did it affect the rest of the world?(3 votes)- The collapse happened due to tax cut. As taxes rised housing and land ownership became alot less expensive because of clintons actions which his effect caused the economic collapse.(0 votes)
- Where could I find more information on the USA Patriot Act?
Thank you in advance.(1 vote)- Places like wikipedia could be good, but I'm sure you could also potentially find it on a US government website as well.(1 vote)
- What was worse; The great recession? or The Great Depression?(0 votes)
The Great Depression was significantly worse in that it was a deeper economic crisis and it forced more people out of work. It also made many people homeless and veterans were treated especially poorly. However, the Great Recession was the worst fiscal crisis since the Depression because it forced many into unemployment, caused many to foreclose their homes, and many businesses went under. But that was caused more by the collapse of big firms like the Lehman Brothers and poor housing and mortgage policy than the Great Depression, which was associated with an ailing stock market after an unbelievable bull market period.(4 votes)
- Why did George bush want to be president?(0 votes)
I think you could ask that question for just about every president from John Adams to Joe Biden, George Washington excluded (he didn't want the job). It's complicated, and we may never fully know.(1 vote)