Background on Dubya

George Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States, holding office from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas for the years 1995 to 2000. Born on July 6, 1946 in New Haven in Connecticut, George Bush is the eldest son of George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara. After graduating in 1968 from Yale University and in 1975 from the Harvard Business School, Bush found employment in the oil industry. He later on married his wife Laura Welch in 1977.

He ran for office in the House of Representatives and fortunately won shortly thereafter. He was a presidential candidate under the Republican banner, winning the elections in 2000 to defeat Al Gore. After becoming president of one of the most powerful countries in the world, George Bush returned to Texas and because a public speaker.

He has also written a book called Decision Points about his life.

Bush’s Impact on America

George Bush spent nearly a decade in office so it can only be expected that he made quite an impact on the country. So how has George Bush affected business in the country? Consider the following points:

During the Bush administration, there was a 70% increase in federal government spending from $1,789 billion to $2,983 billion by $1,194 billion but revenues only went up from 2000 to 2008 by $499 billion from $2,025 billion to $2,524 billion. Individual tax income revenues grew by 14% while corporate taxes yielded a 50% increase and customs and duties at $40%. With cyclical adjustments, spending went up by 65% while revenues grew by just around half at 35%.

In connection to the previous statement, no administration has spent more than their predecessor like George Bush did since Lyndon Johnson, the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969. The compendium that came out of his presidency showed that the spending that George Bush did definitely had an effect on business and the economy in general of the country.

In a message delivered to members of Congress in February 28, 2001, George Bush had estimated that the country will enjoy $5.6 trillion in surplus over the next decade. Facing opposition from Congress, Bush held town-hall type of public meetings around the country in the same year to boost public support for the tax cut program he is planning. Even changes on the American Fire Department ID card reflects changes in federal budgeting.

The tax cut program was one of the biggest in US history and was estimated to create $1.35 trillion worth of cuts, affecting companies worldwide, including those in Europe and Asia. Luckily, companies that are well-established and of good quality took the least hit from these impacts.

George Bush had the people’s welfare in mind when he said that whatever the government was not spending should be returned to the taxpayers, insisting that the surplus is the money of the people. Apart from simply giving back to the people, Bush had argued that the tax cuts will help business and economy in the country by creating jobs. The Treasury Secretary at that time, Paul O’Neill, was opposed to some tax cuts because they would lead to budget deficits and take away the purpose of Social Security. Signs of improvement in the economy was seen a couple of years later although there was still no level of job growth.

Bush and the U.S. Debt

Under the Bush government, the real GDP just grew at an annual average of 2.5%, a rate considerably below what was considered to be average for business cycles for the years 1949 to 2000. This means business was down. However, industrial averages according to Dow Jones were at 10, 587 when Bush entered office, peaking at more than 14,000 in 2007. This number went down to 7,949 when Bush stepped down, deemed to be one of the lowest in his presidency. Unemployment rates rose from 2001 to 2003 but eventually dropped in 2007. Median household income was at $1,175 between the years 2000 and 2007 while there was also growing poverty from 2000 to 2006. This forced people to find jobs and even create jobs from scratch, leading to various entrepreneurial ventures like learning to become a ticket broker to supplement your standard income, and other similar jobs like that.

National debt had also risen by 2008 because of foreign and domestic spending, reaching $11.3 trillion. This amount was more than 100% more of what the debt amount was in 2000 at $5.6 trillion. Most of the debt that had the national economy slumping was due to the tax cuts that George Bush had implemented before, as well as national security spending due to various threats to the United States which impacted small businesses nationwide. Bush’s effect on internet business and the economy looks bad. But it must be noted that it is difficult to really pinpoint the source of the problem because perceptions are heavily affected by partisanship.

The Latter Years

Come 2007, the United States entered what is considered to be the longest period of recession after the Second World War, characterized by a subprime mortgage crisis, housing market corrections, soaring oil prices, suffering small business, and the devaluing dollar. By February of 2008, more than 60,000 jobs were lost so an economic stimulus package amounting to $170 billion was put in place to remedy the situation for the country’s business and economy. The worst was yet to come in the next months as the government had to spend $85 billion to bail out the American International Group. The Lehman Brothers also collapsed in the same year.

By the time November 2008 rolled in, more than 500,000 jobs had been lost, marking the biggest job loss ever recorded in the United States in the last 34 years. By the end of the year, 2.6 million jobs had been lost by the United States due to the recession that was fueled by policies implemented by the Bush administration. This kind of turmoil is probably the biggest effect that George Bush had on the business and economy of the United States. Many economists around the world were in agreement that the situation was the worst kind of financial crisis that the world has seen since the Great Depression, some say due to the large number of bad credit loan offers that were being handed out. Additional regulations for the housing market would have helped but Bush instead came up with a financial rescue plan that aimed to buy back large portions of the mortgage market. There were various suggestions as to how the United States could pull through but there was focus on empowering the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to take action while other committees were set up to assess the situation more thoroughly.