Accomplishments of President George W. Bush

These days, I hear a lot of people asking the question "What has George W. Bush accomplished in his presidency?" Usually this arrives with a rhetorical, "Name for me one thing?" to which I will respond with a short list of significant notables on our President. But before I start, understand that this banter comes from the camps of presidential hopefuls that all come from our US Congress,... the very same congress that not long ago was accused by the general public of being the "do-nothing Congress" (interesting, isn't it?)

This is in no way a complete list, but for the record:

With regard to children/education-

• Defended teachers by defending them from frivolous lawsuits (Teacher Protection Act)
• Opened previously restricted funding to private effective organizations that provide after-school programs.
• Required states to perform criminal background checks on prospective foster /adoptive parents.
• Created report-cards for school (No Child Left Behind Act) which will likely be a first historical move toward better the public school systems and outcomes.
• Provided funding for teacher-accountability programs to state programs ($2.4 billion)
• Created financial protection (non-taxable) to college tuition savings plans.

With regard to the economy-

• Signed the top two largest income tax cuts in US history.
• Increased small business incentives to expand through job creation.
• Participated in setting into motion laws to hold corporate criminals to account for their actions.
• Reduced taxes on dividends and capital gains (affecting anyone with a retirement plan.)
• Exempting food from trade and embargo sanctions (in other words, we still help feed countries that are creating problems in the world)
• Federal provision for states that are setting into motion plans to help persons with disabilities work from home ($20 million)
• Increase and solidify financial benefits to those who are approved to adopt children, through tax credits ($5,000 per child and $1 billion over 5 years to increase that to $10,000 per child)

With regard to the environment-

• In the same vein as helping to fund effective private after school programs, he set into motion a pilot program to fund private conservation programs (initially $10 million)
• Submitted a comprehensive Energy Plan to congress to develop cleaner fuel technologies, immediately converting to more natural gas in the short run (something many communities are experiencing already) and reducing our dependence on oil.
• provided matching grant program to inspire private land owners to become conservationists (inspiring people toward change, rather than just pouring money into a program that simply spends more money on state owned land resources)

With regard to national safety/ protection and terrorism-

• Took on al Qaida in Afghanistan successfully unseating their oppressive leadership and bring to justice known terrorists that were causing trouble around the world and in the US since the presidency of Bill Clinton.
• Unseated and delivered justice to Saddam Hussein (again, while people want to get hot and bothered about "WMD"s not found in Iraq, understand that this was one item of more than a dozen political and safety related reasons to go into Iraq, including but not limited to multiple attempts by Saddam Hussein to assassinate former US Presidents- in my opinion, that is reason ALONE to unseat the man!)
• Finally disarmed Libya (remember the movie Back to the Future, "The Libyans?... Run for it Marty!!!!") and without any bloodshed.
• Coordinated tracking and hunting down of known terrorists, recovering from the changes to our national intelligence previously dismantled (in my opinion and the opinion of a number of known books by former CIA staff) by President Bill Clinton.
• Killed the previous treaty with the Soviet union that kept the US from building a previous planned Anti-Ballistic Missile defense system, and simultaneously signed and set into motion the largest nuclear arms reduction in world history with Russia.
• Increased benefits to people serving our nation in the armed forces (three times provided raises)
• Started to withdraw troops from Bosnia, and announced the withdraw of troops from Germany and Korean DMZ (of course, one doesn't hear about this or the fact that Bill Clinton did not accomplish this)
• Earmarked about 20% of the defense budget (we unquestionably need defense) for next-generation weaponry (which keep more US citizens further from harm)

With regard to international diplomacy-

• Challenged the UN to live up to their responsibility and not become another defunct League of Nations (challenging their current state of relevance)
• Withdrew the US from UN-based plans for world rules on gun control (defending our US Constitutional right to bare arms)
• Brought together one of the largest organized efforts in world history to share intelligence across nations to effectively battle against unconventional warmongering terrorists (note that we have not experienced the kind of national attacks in part caused by decisions and dis-investments left behind by the Bill Clinton era, while effectively and specifically foiling a number of terrorist plans throughout the world over the past years since "September 11")

With regard to national federal government reform-

• Initiated a review of federal agencies with a goal of eliminating federal government bloat.
• Initiated outsourcing some of those same jobs to private sector companies with plans to review the effectiveness of those entities to increase efficiency.
• After "9/11" consolidated over 20 overlapping agencies left by previous administrations to both refine processes, increase safety, and reduce cost.
• Set into motion a national intelligence review that requires all intelligence sectors to review and flatten management, streamlining communication, in the form of an aggressive 5 year plan.
• Converted federal contracts(that looked more like grants of money) into performance-based contracts with measurable performance goals that would be reviewed for effectiveness.

With regard to health-

• Made scholarship funds for the national Health Service Corps tax-free (some more folks would personally be more philanthropic, rather than simply spending more tax money!)
• Strengthened the National health Service Corps such that it could put more needed physicians in the most critical areas in the US.
• Signed Medicare reform that: moves it toward more effective and responsible privatization over the next 10 years, changes prescription drug benefits such that it focused on being able to get prevention-based drugs into the hands of people over simply paying for their surgeries and not eliminating those surgeries (more options rather than just reactions), new tax-free health saving plan (a first in US history) for citizens

With regard to "community"-

President George W. Bush set into motion something called the "Responsibility Era" which focus on personal responsibility and civic volunteerism, in contrast to programs that focus on unaccountable federal philanthropy through taxation and an general attitude of entitlement.

Of this he said, "In a compassionate society, people respect one another and take responsibility for the decisions they make in life. My hope is to change the culture from one that has said, if it feels good, do it; if you've got a problem, blame somebody else — to one in which every single American understands that he or she is responsible for the decisions that you make; you're responsible for loving your children with all your heart and all your soul; you're responsible for being involved with the quality of the education of your children; you're responsible for making sure the community in which you live is safe; you're responsible for loving your neighbor, just like you would like to be loved yourself."

These can be viewed in the following programs:

• The (1)White House Office and the (2)Centers for the Faith-Based and Community Initiative - connecting seven federal agencies to beneficial local community-based activities that correspond with the services those agencies provide.
• The USA Freedom Corps (a first) a clearing-house for volunteering opportunities for US citizens.
• Issued an Executive Order that compassionately moved people with disabilities from "institutions" to community-based facilities wherever and whenever possible.
• Increased funding for low-interest loans to help people with disabilities get access to empowering devices.
• Revised "Department of Housing and Urban Development"s Section 8 rent subsidies so that people with disabilities could purchase homes and use up to a years worth of vouchers to finance down payments on homes they want to purchase (rather than simply rent forever without a hope of owning!)
• Committed US funds to provide AIDS medication to millions suffering in Africa.

This president embodied the very nature of the phrase "compassionate conservative" in a manner that encourages people toward being responsible and community focused without an attitude of entitlement, not empowering their dependence upon a federal government but rather empowered to participate in solving problems in an accountable manner.

There are so many first that we are already taking for granted here and have forgotten that he set into motion in US history. While not everyone will get excited about what he has specifically stood for, nobody can state that he hasn't accomplished anything during his presidency.

The question is, will the next president work toward strengthening this progress, having paid attention to these "changes" in our US reality. Or will they disassemble the momentum, trading these effective new-born changes in for federal programmes that are simply financed by higher taxes and are traditionally far less accountable (this thought based on the fact that most tax-based programming that lost funding when it was outsourced by George W Bush using performance contracts simply complained first and foremost about privatization and performance analysis rather than simply repositioning itself for more effective performance)?

Well, I hope you found this interesting and I hope you consider this review to be enlightening when you hear banter about future presidential "change."