George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) was the 43rd President of the United States of America. He is a Republican. During Bush's presidency, Dick Cheney was his Vice President. Bush is from Midland, Texas. He has a ranch in Crawford, Texas, which is near Waco.^[1] He is the son of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush. Before he was President, Bush was Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He is married to Laura, and they have twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara.

Early years

Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He went to school at Yale University from 1964 to 1968. He lived in Midland, Texas on a ranch but not for a long time. He joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968 (part of the United States National Guard) during the Vietnam War, but did not fight in Vietnam. He left the Texas Air National Guard in 1973. In 1978, Bush tried to get elected to Congress in West Texas, but lost. After that, he ran some oil companies and the Texas Rangers baseball team. He helped his father get elected president. In 1994, he was elected to be Governor of Texas.

2000 Presidential Election

Bush ran against then-Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 United States presidential election. More than 100 million people voted on November 7, 2000. But the election was very close. When they began counting the votes, it became clear that whoever got the most votes in the state of Florida would win the election. But there were many issues with the ballots in Florida. Gore sued to get Florida to count the votes again. For more than a month no one knew who won the election. The Supreme Court made a decision to stop recounting votes.^[2] Gore decided to accept his loss and Bush was declared the winner. Because of the many issues with the law in this election, people still argue about whether the courts made the right decision.

Bush's First Term

While he was President, George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law. It gave more money to American schools. It also made students take more tests to measure their progress.

He added Part D to Medicare, which gives older people free medicine if they can not afford it.

He also signed very large tax cuts (many of them were for the middle and lower class) during his presidency. These tax cuts and the government spending more money made it so that the government spent more money than it took in, and it had to borrow money.

Bush did not approve of abortion. In 2004, he signed the Unborn Victims Of Violence Act which made it so that if a pregnant woman is murdered, its murderer is also charged for killing the fetus that the woman was carrying.

His first foreign policy test came when an American spy plane crashed in China. Bush peacefully negotiated the release of the plane crew.

Eight months after Bush became president, the World Trade Center was attacked. This happened on Sept 11, 2001. Because of this, President Bush declared a War on Terror.

Bush tried to do many things to stop another terrorist attack from happening.

He ordered an invasion of Afghanistan. He did this because the leaders of Afghanistan were helping Osama bin Laden, the person who was responsible for attacking America on 9/11.

He made the Department Of Homeland Security, a government department which tries to prevent terrorist attacks from happening. It also responds to emergencies such as floods or diseases.

He signed the Patriot Act (which allowed the government to listen to people's phone calls so it can track down terrorists which try to communicate with each other). Many people were against it because it took away freedom from people and many people were for it because it was for the safety of the country. This started the debate of whether or not it was worth it to give up some freedom for safety.

President Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein (the leader of Iraq) had weapons of mass destruction. After Saddam refused to cooperate with the United Nations, Bush decided to invade Iraq. Although the United Kingdom supported the invasion, many other countries did not. People called Bush's idea of invading a country (before it can do any harm) the Bush Doctrine.

Saddam Hussein was removed from power, and Iraq turned into a democracy.

2004 Presidential Election

In the 2004 presidential election, Bush won again. His opponent was Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, a Democrat.

Bush's Second Term

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina (the most destructive hurricane in American history) happened. It caused over 1800 deaths and caused billions of dollars of destruction. George W. Bush was strongly criticized for taking too long to respond, but he did sign several acts into law which would help Hurricane Katrina victims.

In the Iraq War, no weapons of mass destruction were found, and the Bush Administration was criticized for being wrong about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Bush added more American troops to Iraq (which was called "the surge") to speed up the war. The surge was successful, and in result, Iraq had less violence.

Although the economy was doing very well during much of his presidency, in early 2008, the economy was slowing down. Bush signed a bill into law which would gave $600 to every American citizen, hoping that people would go out and spend the money so that it would prevent a recession (a bad economy) from happening.

Later in 2008, stock market crashed and the country fell into its worst recession since the Great Depression. Bush helped create a 700 billion dollar bailout, which would give money to corporations (large businesses) to prevent them from being bankrupt and to try to prevent the recession from getting worse.

Bush's approval ratings were at an all-time low during the end of the time he was President. Bush said that the current opinion polls do not matter and that history would be the judge of his presidency.

Bush publicly supported Republican candidate John McCain during the 2008 presidential election, but Barack Obama won the election.

During the last few days he was President, Bush gave his farewell address. He said that his achievements were having two dictatorships (Afghanistan and Iraq) turned into democracies (where people can vote for their leaders), and said that in the seven years after September 11th, 2001, the United States never faced another terrorist attack.

On January 20th, 2009, Barack Obama replaced Bush as President.

After The Presidency

After his presidency, Bush stayed away from the spotlight and did not want much attention. He said that he was not going to criticize President Obama. He began to build his presidential library.

After over a year and a half of silence, in November of 2010, Bush appeared on several television interviews and released a book called Decision Points. The book focuses on fourteen big decisions he made, including quitting drinking, running for president, invading Iraq, and his response to the financial meltdown in 2008.

References

Other websites

• Official Biography at the White House
• [1]