With the opening of the George W. Bush Library, there’s been a lot of talk recently about how history will view his time in office. Some think he won’t be seen in such a negative light as he was when he left office in January of 2009. At that time, I wrote in this space that he was the worst president in American history. Let’s examine the Bush record, and see if I might be persuaded to change my mind.
The two big raps against George W. Bush are (a) he invaded a country for no apparent reason, and (b) he “paid” for it with a tax cut. This combination of forces, of course, led to (c) the greatest economic downturn in 80 years.
When Lyndon Johnson dramatically increased American involvement in Vietnam, the reasoning was that we were keeping the world free from the spread of Communism. Never mind that Communism was spreading elsewhere – we attacked North Vietnam. While Johnson had a stellar domestic record, his presidency failed because of the war – plain and simple.
Had G.W. Bush paid a little more attention in history class, he might not have repeated the Vietnam mistake in Iraq. But he did. This time the rationale wasn’t to prevent the spread of Communism – it was because Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction. Had Bush given the UN inspectors the necessary time to search for these weapons, he would have learned that they did not exist. At one time, Iraq may have been stockpiling said weapons, but not in 2003. Still, that was our impetus for attacking Iraq.
Some have complained that we attacked Iraq even though they had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. That is true, but I don’t recall Bush ever making that connection. The connection was made simply from the idiotic timing of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. In reality, the Bush administration must have known WMDs did not exist in Iraq, but that certainly sounded like a valid reason to do so. (Again, never mind that we did not attack countries which actually did harbor WMDs, such as North Korea, Iran or Syria.)
I suppose we’ll never know the real reason behind the Iraq War. Many people assume we wanted Iraq’s supply of oil, and that’s certainly believable. I think it probably has more to do with Dick Cheney’s company, Halliburton, which was given a lucrative no-bid contract to “re-build” Iraq after our military destroyed it. Either way (oil or Halliburton), Commanders in Chief are to use our military only when absolutely necessary. Bush’s war failed to meet this criterion.
Now, why did Bush cut taxes? When Ronald Reagan cut taxes in 1981, his goals were to (1) lower interest rates, and to (2) rein in inflation. His tax cut accomplished both these goals, and was primarily responsible for Reagan’s pristine place in American history. While interest rates and inflation were higher than they had ever been upon Reagan’s ascension to the presidency, G.W. Bush faced neither of these problems. Interest rates were lower than they had been in decades and inflation was almost non-existent. He cut taxes more as an ideological belief than to solve problems. Reagan was a problem-solver. Bush was an idealist. Apparently, so is Mike Pence, but that’s another column for another day.
While Bush’s tax cut by itself wasn’t a bad idea, the tax cut destroyed the economy because he coupled it with his war of choice against Iraq. For the first time in U.S. history, taxes were lowered during a time of war. Every other American war was paid for with tax increases. Americans accepted higher wartime taxes as part of our mutual sacrifice. Since Bush didn’t have public sentiment behind the Iraq War, and since he had been “elected” in part because he promised to cut taxes, he kept his 2001 tax cuts in place throughout the Iraq War. Coupled with a major deregulation of the banking industry, this
tax-cut/make-war combination resulted in the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression (which ironically resulted, in part, from lax banking regulations).
So how does G.W. Bush stack up against some of our worst presidents? Let’s see, James Buchanan’s presidency was a failure because his inaction merely prolonged the inevitable Civil War. Herbert Hoover’s inaction prolonged the Great Depression. But Bush created his own mess. He did take action. It was just the wrong action! If there were two U.S. presidency elections which, had the outcomes been different, would have dramatically altered history for the better, I would choose Al Gore over George W. Bush in 2000 – which probably was the actual result, but again, that’s another column for another day. The other is George McGovern over Richard Nixon in 1972. Compared to George W. Bush, Richard Nixon was an absolute genius and was responsible for some wonderful legislation during his tenure. But he also happened to be a crook.
So yes, I still have George W. Bush at the bottom of my list. I still admire the office he held, but I have no respect for the man.