George W. Bush

**George Walker Bush** (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician, businessman, and artist who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he had previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. Born into the Bush family, his father, George H. W. Bush, served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993.

Bush is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush. As such he is the second son of a former United States president to himself become the American president, with the first being John Quincy Adams. He flew warplanes in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guard. After graduating from Yale College in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. Bush married Laura Welch in 1977 and unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating incumbent Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. As governor, Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform, increased education funding, set higher standards for schools, and reformed the criminal justice system. Bush also helped make Texas the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the U.S. Bush was elected president in 2000 when he defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore after a narrow and contested win that involved a Supreme Court decision to stop a recount in Florida. He became the fourth person to be elected president without a popular vote victory.

Upon taking office, Bush 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. In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, Bush created the Department of Homeland Security and launched a "War on Terror" that began with the war in Afghanistan in 2001. He also signed into law the controversial Patriot Act in order to authorize surveillance of suspected terrorists. In 2003, Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, with the administration arguing that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed an active weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, and that the Iraqi government posed a threat to the U.S. Some administration officials falsely claimed that Hussein had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. No stockpiles of WMDs or an active WMD program were ever found in Iraq. Bush also signed into law the Medicare Modernization Act, which created Medicare Part D, and funding for the AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR.

In the 2004 presidential race, Bush defeated Democratic Senator John Kerry in a close election. 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. Bush received criticism from across the political spectrum for his handling of Hurricane Katrina, and the midterm dismissal of U.S. attorneys. Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. In December 2007, the U.S. entered the Great Recession, prompting the Bush administration to obtain congressional approval for multiple economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to buy toxic assets from financial institutions. Bush was among the most popular, as well as unpopular, U.S. presidents in history; he received the highest recorded approval ratings in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but one of the lowest such ratings during the 2008 financial crisis. Bush finished his second term in office in 2009 and returned to Texas. In 2010, he published his memoir, *Decision Points*. His presidential library opened in 2013. His presidency has been rated as below-average in historical rankings of U.S. presidents, although his public favorability ratings have improved since leaving office.

## Contents

* 1Early life and career
	+ 1.1Education
	+ 1.2Family and personal life
	+ 1.3Military career
	+ 1.4Business career
	+ 1.5Early political involvement
* 2Governor of Texas (1995–2000)
* 3Presidential campaigns
	+ 3.12000 presidential candidacy
	+ 3.22004 presidential candidacy
* 4President (2001–2009)
	+ 4.1Domestic policy
	+ 4.2Foreign policy
	+ 4.3Assassination attempt
	+ 4.4Other issues
	+ 4.5Judicial appointments
	+ 4.6Cultural and political image
* 5Post-presidency (2009–present)
	+ 5.1Residence
	+ 5.2Publications and appearances
	+ 5.3Collaborations
	+ 5.4Art
* 6Honors
* 7In popular culture
* 8Legacy
	+ 8.1Reception
* 9Bibliography
* 10See also
* 11References
* 12Further reading
	+ 12.1Academic
	+ 12.2Reflections on the Bush presidency
	+ 12.3Primary sources
* 13External links

## Early life and career

a series about
George W. Bush
 * Political positions
* Electoral history

* Early life
* Career
* Family
* Public image

Governor of Texas
* Governorship

President of the United States
* Presidency
	+ Timeline

Policies
* Domestic
* Economic
* Foreign
	+ Bush Doctrine
	+ International trips
* Space
* Legislation and programs
* Pardons

Appointments
* Cabinet
* Judicial

First term
* 1st inauguration
* September 11 attacks
* War on Terror
* War in Afghanistan
* Invasion of Iraq
* Email controversy
* Timeline
	+ '01
	+ '02
	+ '03
	+ '04

Second term
* 2nd inauguration
* War in Iraq
* 2007 Iraq surge
* Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy
* Economic Stimulus Act
* Timeline
	+ '05
	+ '06
	+ '07
	+ '08–'09

show
Presidential campaigns

Post-presidency
* Presidential Library
* Bibliography
	+ *Decision Points*
	+ *41: A Portrait of My Father*
	+ *Portraits of Courage*
* Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
* One America Appeal

 * v
* t
* e

Main article: Early life of George W. Bush
George W. Bush with his parents, Barbara and George H. W. Bush, c. 1947

Bush's childhood home in Midland, Texas

George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, at Grace-New Haven Hospital (now Yale New Haven Hospital) in New Haven, Connecticut, while his father was a student at Yale. He was the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, with four siblings, John, 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 some German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Welsh, Irish, French, and Scottish roots.

### Education

Bush in Phillips Academy's 1964 yearbook
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 prep school in Piney Point Village, Texas in the Houston area.

Bush attended high school at 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 GPA during his first three years at Yale was 77, and he had a similar average under a nonnumeric rating system in his final year.

After his application to the University of Texas School of Law was rejected, Bush entered Harvard Business School in the fall of 1973. He graduated in 1975 with an MBA degree. He is the only U.S. president to have earned an MBA.

### Family and personal life

See also: Bush family
George and Laura Bush with their daughters Jenna and Barbara, 1990
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 November 5 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.

#### Alcohol abuse

Prior to getting married, Bush struggled with multiple episodes of alcohol abuse. In one instance 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 cited for DUI, fined $150 (equivalent to $674 in 2019), and got his Maine driver's license briefly suspended. Bush said his wife has had a stabilizing effect on his life, and he attributes her influence to his 1986 decision to give up alcohol. 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."

#### Hobbies

Bush has been an avid reader throughout his adult life, preferring biographies and histories. He read 14 Lincoln biographies, and during the last three years of his presidency, read 186 books. 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. After leaving the White House, Bush took up oil painting.

### Military career

Main article: George W. Bush military service controversy

See also: Killian documents controversy and Killian documents authenticity issues
Lt. George W. Bush in the Texas Air National Guard, 1968
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 the 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 United States 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.

He remains the most recent President to serve in the United States Military.

### Business career

Main article: Professional life of George W. Bush
Bush greeting President Ronald Reagan in 1988
In 1977, Bush established Arbusto Energy, a small oil exploration company, although it did not begin operations until the following year. 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 HKN, Inc., with Bush becoming a member of HKN's board of directors. Questions of possible insider trading involving HKN arose, but a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 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 in the Texas Rangers baseball franchise for $89 million and invested $500,000 himself to start. He then served as 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 $15 million from his initial $800,000 investment.

### Early political involvement

George W. Bush with his father outside the White House, April 29, 1992
In 1978, Bush ran for the 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 with 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 served as 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.

## Governor of Texas (1995–2000)

Main article: Governorship of George W. Bush

Bush declared his candidacy for the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election at the same time his brother Jeb sought the governorship of 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.
Governor Bush (right) with father, former president George H. W. Bush, and wife, Laura, in 1997
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 against Richards' 45.9 percent.
Results of the 1994 gubernatorial election in Texas
Bush used a budget surplus to push through Texas's largest tax-cut, $2 billion. He extended government funding for organizations providing education of the dangers of alcohol and drug use and abuse, and helping to reduce domestic violence. Critics 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), 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 69 percent of the vote. He became the first governor in Texas history to be elected to two consecutive four-year terms. In his second term, Bush promoted faith-based organizations and enjoyed high approval ratings. 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

Main articles: 2000 Republican Party presidential primaries, 2000 United States presidential election, and George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaign

#### Primary

George W. Bush in Concord, New Hampshire, signing to be a presidential candidate
Incumbent Democratic president Bill Clinton was in his second and final term, and the field for nomination in both parties was wide open. Bush was the Governor of Texas in June 1999 when he announced his candidacy for president, joining John McCain, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, Orrin Hatch, Elizabeth Dole, Dan Quayle, Pat Buchanan, Lamar Alexander, John Kasich, and Bob Smith.

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 McCain.

Bush won the Iowa caucuses, and although he was heavily favored to win the New Hampshire primary, he trailed McCain by 19 percent and lost that primary. Despite this, Bush regained momentum 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

2000 electoral vote results
On July 25, 2000, Bush surprised some observers when he selected Dick Cheney—a former White House Chief of Staff, Congressman and Secretary of Defense—to 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 an American presidential election with fewer popular votes than another candidate since Benjamin Harrison in 1888.

### 2004 presidential candidacy

Main articles: 2004 United States presidential election and George W. Bush 2004 presidential campaign
George W. Bush speaks at a campaign rally in 2004
2004 electoral vote results

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 his opponent's 48.3 percent). Bush's father George H.W. Bush was the previous president who won an absolute majority of the popular vote; he accomplished that feat in the 1988 election. Additionally, it was the first time since Herbert Hoover's election in 1928 that a Republican president was elected alongside re-elected Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress.

## President (2001–2009)

Main article: Presidency of George W. Bush

For a chronological guide to this subject, see Timeline of the George W. Bush presidency.
President Bush addressing the media at the Pentagon, September 17, 2001
Bush had originally outlined an ambitious domestic agenda, but his priorities were significantly altered following the September 11 attacks. Wars were waged 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

Main article: Domestic policy of the George W. Bush administration

#### Economic policy

Main article: Economic policy of the George W. Bush administration

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

His administration increased federal government spending from $1.789 trillion to $2.983 trillion (60 percent), while revenues increased from $2.025 trillion to $2.524 trillion (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.
President Bush signing a $1.35 trillion tax cut into law, June 7, 2001
The surplus in fiscal year 2000 was $237 billion—the third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever. In 2001, Bush's budget estimated that there would be a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next ten years. Facing congressional opposition, Bush held townhall style meetings across the U.S. in order to increase public support for his plan for a $1.35 trillion 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.
Deficit and debt increases 2001–2009. Gross debt has increased over $500 billion each year since FY2003.
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 has 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 national debt had risen to $11.3 trillion, an increase of over 100 percent from 2000 when the debt was only $5.6 trillion. 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.

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 $170 billion 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 in 2003, and after two years, the regulations passed the House but died in the Senate. Many Republican senators, as well as influential members of the Bush Administration, feared that the agency created by these regulations would merely be mimicking the private sector's risky practices. In September 2008, the crisis became much more serious beginning with the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a federal bailout of American International Group for $85 billion.

Many economists and world governments determined that the situation had become the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Additional regulation over the housing market would have been beneficial, according to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Bush, meanwhile, proposed a financial rescue plan to buy back a large portion of the U.S. mortgage market. Vince Reinhardt, a former Federal Reserve economist now at the American Enterprise Institute, said "it would have helped for the Bush administration to empower the folks at Treasury and the Federal Reserve and the comptroller of the currency and the FDIC to look at these issues more closely", and additionally, that it would have helped "for Congress to have held hearings".

#### Education and public health

National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza - Implementation Plan. Document by the Home Land Security Council of the United States
Bush undertook many educational agendas, such as increasing the funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in his first years of office and creating education programs to strengthen the grounding in science and mathematics for American high school students. Funding for the NIH was cut in 2006, the first such cut in 36 years, due to rising inflation.
President Bush signing the No Child Left Behind Act into law, January 8, 2002
One of the administration's early major initiatives was the No Child Left Behind Act, which aimed to measure and close the gap between rich and poor student performance, provide options to parents with students in low-performing schools, and target more federal funding to low-income schools. This landmark education initiative passed with broad bipartisan support, including that of Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. It was signed into law by Bush in early 2002. Many contend that the initiative has been successful, as cited by the fact that students in the U.S. have performed significantly better on state reading and math tests since Bush signed "No Child Left Behind" into law. Critics argue that it is underfunded and that NCLBA's focus on "high-stakes testing" and quantitative outcomes is counterproductive.

In 2005, he announced a *National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza* to prepare the United States for a flu pandemic, which culminated in an implementation plan published by the Homeland Security Council in 2006.

After being re-elected, Bush signed into law a Medicare drug benefit program that, according to Jan Crawford, resulted in "the greatest expansion in America's welfare state in forty years" – the bill's costs approached $7 trillion. In 2007, Bush opposed and vetoed State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) legislation, which was added by the Democrats onto a war funding bill and passed by Congress. The SCHIP legislation would have significantly expanded federally funded health care benefits and plans to children of some low-income families from about six million to ten million children. It was to be funded by an increase in the cigarette tax. Bush viewed the legislation as a move toward socialized health care, and asserted that the program could benefit families making as much as $83,000 per year who did not need the help.

On May 21, 2008, Bush signed into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The bill aimed to protect Americans against health insurance and employment discrimination based on a person's genetic information. The issue had been debated for 13 years before it finally became law. The measure is designed to protect citizens without hindering genetic research.

#### Social services and Social Security

Following Republican efforts to pass the Medicare Act of 2003, Bush signed the bill, which included major changes to the Medicare program by providing beneficiaries with some assistance in paying for prescription drugs, while relying on private insurance for the delivery of benefits. The retired persons lobby group AARP worked with the Bush Administration on the program and gave their endorsement. Bush said the law, estimated to cost $400 billion over the first ten years, would give the el