February 20, 2004

The Resume of George W Bush
Posted by Jon Henke

Back in November of 2003, I spent a great deal of time fisking the "Resume of of George W Bush" email that had been going around. It turned out to be quite a popular piece and I still see people passing the post around discussion groups now and then. Another excellent rebuttal of the "Resume" can be found here. The author seems to have taken a slightly different tack, and it fills in some holes. Likewise, my own essay fills some of the holes in his essay, so they are complementary, rather than competitive.

At any rate, it's worth bringing it over to this blog. I'll post it in the extended entry. If you are confronted with that particular email, just send them a link to this post.

There's been a piece circulating recently, purporting to show just how unqualified Bush is for President, by describing his "real resume". Obviously, some of it is correct, but most of it is just wildly inaccurate. Unfortunately, too many people take it at face value.

I will make no attempt to give a comprehensive rebuttal, for now, because I simply don't know every answer and don't have time to research all of them. I do know enough to deal with many, and you are welcome to fill in the blanks. If you know more, I will post it.....

RESUME
George W. Bush The White House, USA
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

LAW ENFORCEMENT: I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.

As Bush said, in 1996, ""I do not have a perfect record as a youth". He did drive drunk, at a time when he admittedly had a drinking problem. This is accurate.
MILITARY: I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I
refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.
Bush never went AWOL. The military never levelled such a charge against him. The charge is that he missed a few days of duty in Alabama. There is only a commanding officer who says he doesn't recall him serving to support the AWOL charge. George Magazine investigated and found "Two documents obtained by Georgemag.com indicate that Bush did make up the time he missed during the summer and autumn of 1972. One is an April 23, 1973 order for Bush to report to annual active duty training the following month; the other is an Air National Guard statement of days served by Bush that is torn and undated but contains entries that correspond to the first. Taken together, they appear to establish that Bush reported for duty on nine occasions between November 29, 1972-when he could have been in Alabama-and May 24, 1973."

Regarding the drug test....his commanding officer said ""You take that exam because you are flying, and he was not flying. The paperwork uses the phrase 'suspended from flying,' but he had no intention of flying at that time."

Did he join the Texas National Guard to avoid doing duty in Vietnam? It's hard to see why he would have done so, considering the fact that, at the time he joined, the Texas National Guard was seeing combat in Vietnam.
Bill Hobbs has the definitive refutation of this meme.

COLLEGE: I graduated from Yale University. I was a cheerleader.
Yale University, by the way, is an Ivy League school. Bush majored in history, there and got a bachelors degree, with a C average. Bush also got a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard. (another Ivy League school)

He was a cheerleader, as well as participating in a variety of intramural sports, such as football, rugby, baseball and basketball.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.
Accurate. He lost a 1978 run for Congress. This is pretty normal for his family, according to the Washington Post"...Jeb's (1994) defeat, by the way, was in keeping with the Bush family tradition: losing their first bid for office. Grandpa Prescott Bush lost a 1950 Senate race in Connecticut before winning two years later. George Herbert Walker Bush was beaten by Sen. Ralph Yarborough (D-Texas) in 1964 before winning two terms in the House (and then lost another Senate race, this time to Lloyd Bentsen, in 1970). And George W. Bush, as noted in the previous question, was defeated in a 1978 congressional contest in West Texas, 16 years before he beat Ann Richards.
I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
Bush had the misfortune of entering the oil business during the early-80s when oil prices were taking a beating. "Results were never spectacular, and the bust of 1986 finished his run in the oil business." Bush said..."At the time, Bush Exploration had seventeen employees and few choices. But before I left...I made sure every one of Bush Exploration's employees had a new job."

"Finding oil" is the job of geologists. Bush's company didn't find much, but they did find some. Bush's job, however, was buying and selling land with oil rights. He did very well with that, which allowed him to sell his small company to Harken.

Bush was essentially exhonerated of any malfeasance with respect to his stock sale. The head of the SEC's enforcement division, William McLucas, said "there was no case there."

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
The "sweetheart" deal is, unfortunately, common practice in cities anxious to keep baseball teams happy by providing financial incentives. Moreover, the deal was passed by a 2-1 margin, when put to a public vote, and was signed into law by Ann Richards, hardly a Bush "crony".

While that sort of government activity is terrible, it's worth remembering that Bush was simply one owner of many, and the unfortunate activity was done by a popular vote and a Democratic Governor.

With the help of my father and our right-wing friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected Governor of Texas.
Enron has contributed to both political Parties, including Democrats in Texas. Presumably, one would be hard-pressed to find a candidate who would not be supported by their own father.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR:

I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union.

During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.

Not so. According to the Cato Institute....
This, not to put too fine a point on it, is a lie. If we do what the Environmental Protection Agency does to determine whether a metropolitan area is in compliance with federal air quality standards--that is, tally up the number of violations at the designated "worst case" air quality monitor for each city--Houston violated federal ozone (smog) standards 11 times in 1995 (Bush's first year in office), 15 times in 1996, 12 times in 1997, 10 times in 1998, 18 times in 1999 and 14 times so far this year. L.A. violated federal smog standards 65 times in 1995, 62 times in 1996, 30 times in 1997, 57 times in 1998, 35 times in 1999 and 17 times so far this year. EPA then averages the number of violations over a three-year period to determine whether an area is in or out of compliance. By that official yardstick, over the most recent three-year window, L.A. averaged 36 violations--33 more than the law allows--while Houston averaged 14. Data to the contrary naming Houston as No. 1 in smog is simply cooked and its methodologies deemed inappropriate and misleading by the EPA.

Despite this moderate trend upward in Houston's noncompliance, pollution has not worsened in Houston under Bush. EPA data clearly shows that the emission of pollutants that contribute to smog have been trending downward in Texas since Bush became governor. Smog concentrations haven't changed much recently, however, because the summers in Houston have been getting hotter, while it's been cooler in L.A.


And what about the allegation that Texas is the "most polluted state in the union"? Again, according to the Cato Institute...
"First, the petrochemical industry was in Texas long before Bush assumed the governorship; it didn't follow him there. Second, those emissions--even according to the EPA--are well below the threshold of human health concern. Third, nobody's breaking the law. Fourth, those plants have to be somewhere--otherwise, there would be no gasoline, no home heating oil, no diesel fuel--and whatever state those plants call home would sit at the top of any "toxic pollution" list. And finally, toxic emissions from major industrial sources in Texas have dropped a whopping 40% over the past decade."

I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
Bush promised to cut taxes and did so, when he was elected. The economy boomed in Texas during the 90s, which was a nice switch from the usual counter-cyclical Texas story of previous decades. The Texas Unemployment Rate was actually lower than that of the US for much of Bush's term.

Normally, he restrained the growth of government, but his 1999 budget increased spending (pdf) by 10%, much of that going directly to education. He left office with 6 straight budget surpluses.

I set the record for the most executions by any Governor in American history.
Governors do not order executions. No, really. Not even in Texas.
You can look it up and everything.
With the help of my brother, the Governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.
At last check, the popular vote was not the deciding factor in Presidential elections. According to the Constitution, States appoint Electors who vote for President. We may agree or disagree with the system, but it the Constitutional standard for Presidential elections.

In addition, according to an independent recount of the Florida votes, Bush would have won whether the Supreme Court intervened or not. Gore, however, would have had no chance of winning, had the Florida Supreme Court not intervened.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:

I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.

Accurate, although I don't have the impression they think highly of it. So be it.

Both invasions and occupations were supported by a strong majority of Congress.

I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
The surplus most certainly did not "spent". It was almost entirely a "phantom", resting on false assumptions from the Congressional Budget Office. Their breakdown was as follows....(in billions)
* Total revisions due to
- Economic changes...125
- Technical changes....177
- Legislation.................75
(Total Change from January 2001 to August 2002 -376)

Only 75 billion of the change from surplus to deficit was legislation. The rest was inaccurate assumptions from the CBO.

I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
This is only true if you do not adjust for inflation or the size of GDP. No economist would fail to do either.
Donald Luskin has a good response to this...."It's only true -- if you can call it that -- if you don't adjust for inflation, and if you don't adjust for the size of the overall economy. According to OMB statistics, at only 2.8% of gross domestic product, current deficits are lower than they've been in 20 of the last 30 years. Even if we think in terms of the dollar value of deficits, adjusting them for inflation puts them lower now than in 7 of the last 21 years."
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
The unsaid half of that story was actually said in the MSNBC piece....
"...as Americans struggled with the debt they took on in the 1990s."
....
"The latest bankruptcy record reflects the continuing hangover from the binge consumer spending and consumption of the late 1990s," Gerdano said in a statement accompanying the figures. "Consumers, aided by historic low interest rates, helped make the last recession a shallow one, but at the cost of adding to already high household debt burdens."
So, left unsaid in the "Bush Resume" is the fact that the high rate of bankruptcies is largely due to the "irrational exuberance" of the 90s. Odd that was left out, isn't it?
I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market.
Again, Luskin responds.....
"This may be technically true, but the way it is presented makes it essentially a lie. Point drops in the market are not comparable across periods of time, because the level of the market changes so much (so the importance of a point is always changing). The Dow Jones Industrial Average can easily move 100 points in a single day now -- but when Franklin D. Roosevelt first took office in 1933, the level of the whole darn thing was only 60.9! What counts are percentage moves.

Yes, the Dow fell 26.0% in George W. Bush's first two years, and that's not good. But it's not the worst (the worst was the first two years of Richard Nixon's second term -- partially shared with Gerald Ford -- in which the Dow fell 29.6%). And Bush's numbers aren't much different than the 22.1% loss in the first two years of FDR's second term."

So, again, a complete lack of context.
I am the first president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
I'm not familiar with Presidential history sufficiently to rebut this, so I will assume it is true for lack of specific reason to disbelieve it.

I hardly think the youthful misdemeanors matter, but so be it.

UPDATE: CD Harris writes

Just a little perspective you might be interested in: While he
was never, of course, convicted of a crime, Andrew Jackson (President
1829-1837) entered office having killed a man in a duel (Charles
Dickinson; May 30, 1806). *Prior* to engaging in this duel, he had been
a member of the House, a US Senator, and member of the Tennessee State
Supreme Court. He got into another in 1813 but no-one was killed.

A DUI at 26 kinda pales by comparison, eh?

Why, yes it does.
I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one year period.
Long vacations are the norm for modern Presidents, because there is less and less difference between the work that can be achieved in the White House and out of the White House. "George Bush Sr. took all or part of 543 vacation days at Camp David and in Kennebunkport. Ronald Reagan spent 335 days at or en route to his Santa Barbara, California, ranch during his eight years in office." In short, the President is always "at work", no matter what his location.
After taking-off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S.history.
First, Bush did not "take off the month of August". Presidential vacations are always working vacations. Presidents take vacation time in August, because Congress is not in session in August. One fails to see the connection between that and 9/11.

9/11 was planned since 1996, so there were quite a lot of vacations during that period. And not all of them were taken by Bush.

I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a WMD.
We are currently funding a feasability study to examine the transition of our out-dated nuclear weaponry to a more relevant modern inventory. The "bunker buster" would allow for precise unerground destruction with minimal collateral damage.

Those who oppose nuclear weaponry in the first place may continue to oppose this, but it's hard to argue that it would be worse than our current nuclear arsenal, which would inflict much more widespread collateral damage, if it had to be used.

In my State Of The Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq, then blamed the lies on our British friends.
The British still stand by Bush's statement, with Blair saying "Insofar as our intelligence services are concerned, they stand by that." Other, more recent, stories corroborate that possibility.
I set the record for most campaign fundraising trips by a U.S. president.
Breaking the record set by Bill Clinton. Which broke the record set by.....you get the idea. Presidents set new fundraising records, as time goes on, because the demands become greater.
In my first year in office over 2-million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
Not according to the BLS Household survey, which indicates that "total employment is now at the highest level in U.S. history. Surpassing the high set in January 2001 just before the recession, total employment is now at 138,014,000 jobs."

The job losses are largely attributable to increases in productivity and Sept 11th. In fact, almost 1 million jobs were lost in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. And, as I have cited previously, our current unemployment situation is very good, indeed, relative to previous post-recession periods.

I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
See previous discussion, re: bankruptcies.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any president in U.S. history.
I will not contest this, as I do not know the history or context.
I set the record for least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
I'm underwhelmed. Bush is a poor public speaker, so it follows that he would be less likely to expose his weakness to ridicule.
I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
The California crisis was entirely a product of horrible law-making in California, followed by the inactivity of the Governor of California, Gray Davis. The legislature and Governor Wilson passed a series of half-measures which amounted to protectionism, rather than de-regulation. In short, the state wanted to limit supply, and subsidize demand. And that's not just my perception. That is what Gray Davis indicated.

The Administration position was, essentially, that it was not the role of the Government to step in and fill the holes created by California own contracts. California law needed changing, not their contractors. And Davis refused to close the loopholes and get rid of price controls, until it was too late.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.
Again, no adjustment for inflation.
I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families -- in war time.
Veterans administration spending has gone up every year of the Bush administration. According to the Army Times "A military pay raise of at least 3.7 percent for all ranks is the centerpiece of the benefits portion of the long-awaited 2004 defense authorization bill". The "benefit cut" outrage was a sham, wherein critics didn't mention that the Pentagon was not actually cutting benefits...just shifting them around from one area to another.
As the Washington Times reported...."The Pentagon's personnel chief, David Chu, yesterday told reporters that the outrage was misguided and that overall compensation for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan remains stable by giving them other forms of pay raises."
I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people) shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
By strange coincidence, that's almost exactly the number of Iraqi's who think the war was worthwhile. It's less than the number of Iraqi's who think they will be better off in 5 years, without Saddam Hussein. I wonder how they would feel, knowing that so many people marched to demand that they remain under Saddam Hussein?
I've broken more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
The author does not list any, so it's hard to refute him. The ABM treaty, for example, contained a 6 month "out" clause, which we excercised. Legally.
We never obligated ourselves to the Kyoto Treaty, and Congress was not about to sign it, so Bush did not "break" that treaty.
I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
Ok. Whatever. I'm sure the next administration will be filled with nothing but minimum wage earners, right? I fail to see the relevance of this, or the relation between "wealth" and the oil tanker named after Condaleeza Rice.
I am the first president in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, preemptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.
The United States engaged in "unprovoked" military excursions to Haiti, Kosovo and Panama, among other places with absolutely no permission from the UN. In addition, we attacked Iraq in 1998 with less evidence than we had in 2003, although we sent missiles instead of marines. Further, Iraq had compromised its own sovereignty by signing a conditional cease-fire agreement.
I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.
Homeland Security is the "largest" because it oversees assorted other departments.
Oh, and there's the whole 9/11 thing. Maybe you remember it? It was in all the papers.
Anyway, most people thought it was time we protected ourselves against that sort of thing.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
You mean, the one containing Libya, Syria, Cuba, China and Sudan?

Fact is, the Human Rights Commission has turned into a "bully bloc" of egregious violators protecting each other and punishing their enemies. Bush had nothing to do with it, except so far as nations like Cuba and Syria don't like Presidents like Bush.
I'd wear that like a badge of honor.

I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
The US is not alone, either..."neither China nor India has signed the treaty, and Russia has not ratified it." No suprise, either, as that is the sort of place where people like Saddam Hussein get no notice, while the US gets sued out of pique. Turning over legal sovereignty to a group made up of the same sort of nations that make up the Human Rights Commission is hardly a plan for success.
I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. "prisoners of war" (detainees) and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
False. See this post for a run down on the legal status and rights of the detainees.
I am the first president in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
I'll concede that I didn't even know of the existence of this group.
I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
Breaking the record set by Clinton, which broke the record set by a previous President, which broke the record...etc, ad nauseam.
My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. history. My political party used the Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
Enron, as noted above, supported candidates on both sides of the aisle. Being friends with Ken Lay is not objectionable, nor was accepting donations from Enron.
I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history.
Investigations against Enron are moving forward. Investigations against Ken Lay and many CEOs are more problematic because of the incredible complex nature of the accounting fraud involved. Prosecutors won't simply put them on trial, unless they are sure they have their ducks in a row.
We garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later I made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
Losing sympathy was the largest diplomatic failure in world history? Gosh, I'd have thought it was, you know, the tiff that started WW1, or something.

Do tell.....what did we plan to do with that sympathy? Was there some sort of bank account in which it would have gathered interest and paid for our funeral after we'd ignored the threat for a bit longer?

And could the US possibly be the most hated, because of government controlled media propaganda like this? The United States wasn't "loved" even in the halcyon days of the Clinton administrations "please love us" foreign policy. Perhaps one should consider that our national interests are not secured by winning some sort of international popularity contest. In fact, that sort of thing can get you killed.

I am first president in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
These are, of course, the same Europeans who see Israel as the biggest threat to world peace, now.

I am not impressed.

I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
Not familiar enough with this topic to comment.
I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to justice.

True. It's a shame, too, because we'd all like to see them dead. Odd, though, that this author thinks that's a bad thing, considering the fact that he's been railing against the US taking action against them at all.

While we'd be better of with them dead, the fact is that both of them have been reduced to hiding under rocks. This is hardly what one could call "failure".

I am having John Ashcroft look into the scandal of illegally revealing the name of a CIA agent by a high administration official (an outrageous conflict of interest)
And yet, normal protocal, undertaken at the behest of Congress.
I am stealing from the Social Security trust fund at tremendous peril to future generations.
...every administration/Congress spends the Social Security Fund. The real peril lies not in the interest those expenses incur, but in the enormous additional liability we incur with huge bills like the Medicare/Drug bill and expansions into socialised medicine.
I am expanding the US Federal debt at an extraordinary rate, also at tremendous peril to future generations.
The Federal debt is expanding largely because of economic conditions completely outside the control of the President. Our liabilities, as a percentage of GDP, are well below those of other large industrialized nations.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

All records of my tenure as Governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed, and unavailable for public view.

Sealed, you say? So are Howard Deans. Governors records are frequently sealed.
All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Fortunately, we have the SEC summary of the incident, which said..."It appears that Bush did not engage in illegal insider trading because it does not appear that he possessed material nonpublic information or that he acted with" wrongful intent "when he sold the Harken stock." In addition, the Associated Press reported..."New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, who reviewed the SEC investigative documents at AP's request, said the agency made a sound judgment legally and ethically to close the insider trading probe without interviewing Bush. "We're dealing with investigators here who are not political appointees," he said. Gillers said the evidence contained in the SEC documents was "fairly persuasive against proceeding" against Bush.
All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-president, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
Accurate. I don't have enough information to comment on this.
Please consider my experience when voting in 2004
Frankly, I'd rather consider Bush's real resume, instead of a series of unserious allegations and misrepresentations. I only wish his opponents had the intellectual honesty to campaign against the reality, rather than the cartoon against which they would prefer to compete for President.

Post-script: This essay is missing information. Holes remain.
If you have something of value to add, let me know. If appropriate, I'll work it in.

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Special Report
President Bush made many claims in his State of the Union address. Experts from the Center for American Progress examine his speech to find out the truth.
Web Exclusive: 1.22.04

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What the president said about Afghanistan: "As of this month, that country has a new constitution, guaranteeing free elections and full participation by women. Businesses are opening, health care centers are being established, and the boys and girls of Afghanistan are back in school. With help from the new Afghan Army, our coalition is leading aggressive raids against surviving members of the Taliban and al-Qaida. The men and women of Afghanistan are building a nation that is free, and proud, and fighting terror and America is honored to be their friend."

The facts: A November 2003 report issued by a U.N. delegation , including U.S. ambassador John Negroponte, said that Afghanistan starkly contrasts with the President's optimistic assessment. The U.N. delegation reported that "insecurity caused by terrorist activities, factional fights and drug-related crime remain the major concern of Afghans today." Throughout the nation "individuals and communities suffer from abuses of their basic rights by local commanders and factional leaders." The problems are exacerbated in many areas of the country "by terrorist attacks from suspected members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda."

What the president said about Weapons of Mass Destruction: "We are seeking all the facts. Already the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations. Had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day."

The facts: In nearly 10 months, " not a single item has been found in Iraq from a long and classified intelligence list of weapons of mass destruction." David Kay reported that we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook steps to build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material." He also said there has not been evidence of "mobile biological production efforts" and that "Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled chemical weapons program after 1991."

What the president said about U.S. troops: "And the men and women of the American military -- they have taken the hardest duty…Many of our troops are listening tonight. And I want you and your families to know: America is proud of you…When you and your friends see a man or woman in uniform, say "thank you."

The facts: The Administration has repeatedly tried to reduce basic services to men and women in uniform. It has tried to separation pay for the troops and fought efforts by Congress to allow military retirees to collect their full disability pay. Also, critical items, such as effective body armor, humvees, and helicopter anti-missile systems have been in short supply. The Administration also has launched an assault on military families, consistently trying to limit the benefits that military families and veterans receive from the government, announcing an intent to close commissaries, and considering closing schools.

What the president said about international credibility: "For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible, and no one can now doubt the word of America."

The facts: American claims are very much in doubt, and the President is largely responsible. Last year, the President said that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The White House later admitted the claim was inaccurate. In fact, it was removed from a previous speech months earlier by the CIA because of concerns about its accuracy. The primary basis for the claim was a badly forged document.

What the president said about the economy: "Because you acted to stimulate our economy with tax relief, this economy is strong."

The facts: According to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, without the tax cuts, "the economy would have still have had 6 percent real growth." Meanwhile, a new poll shows that more than 4 in 5 Americans said their tax burden had not been eased by Bush's tax cuts. And while the President says the economy is strong, wages are stagnating.

What the president said about on jobs and wages: "Jobs are on the rise."

The facts: While the unemployment rate dropped in December, it only did so because the economy was so bleak that 255,000 of the jobless simply stopped looking for work. Additionally, the jobs that are being created are lower-paying. As the Economic Policy Institute notes, over the past two years, "expanding industries paid $14.65 per hour, while contracting industries paid $16.92." Just last month, a U.S. Conference of Mayors report showed new jobs created during the 2004-05 period are forecast to pay an average of $35,855, much lower than the $43,629 average pay of jobs lost between 2001-03.

What the president said about worker protections: "Our agenda for jobs and growth must help small business owners and employees with relief from needless Federal regulation."

The facts: This agenda refers to the President's efforts to curb overtime pay , reduce workplace ergonomics protections, and starve the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of its funding.

What the president said about job training: "I propose increasing our support for America's fine community colleges, so they can train workers for the industries that are creating the most new jobs."

The facts: Over the last three years, Bush has proposed almost $1 billion in cuts to job training, including a $300 million (25%) cut to vocational education and community colleges and the total elimination of the $225 million Youth Opportunities Grants program. Congress obliged the President, eliminating the youth grants, and freezing the funding for federal job training and vocational education.

What the president said about social security: "Younger workers should have the opportunity to build a nest egg by saving part of their Social Security taxes in a personal retirement account."

The facts: Under the Administration's current plan, "workers aged 35 today who retire at age 65 and do not choose the private accounts would have their Social Security benefits reduced 17%" from what they are promised now. Further, for someone born today, "benefits would be 41% lower compared to what current law" promises. Social Security privatization "is risky and involves trading some of today's inflation protected, lifetime guaranteed benefits for an account subject to market risk and not guaranteed to last a lifetime or keep pace with inflation."

What the president said about taxes: "The tax relief you passed is working."

The facts: The tax cuts are not meeting his own stated goals. In April 2003, the White House Counsel of Economic Advisors pledged that the President's "jobs and growth" package would create 1,836,000 new jobs by the end of 2003 as part of its pledge to create 5.5 million new jobs by 2004. But the economy added just 221,000 jobs, meaning the White House has fallen 1,615,000 jobs short of its mark. On top of that, recent growth in GDP is largely unrelated to tax cuts. According to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, without the tax cuts growth last quarter would still be around 6%. Meanwhile, "fewer than one in five Americans said their tax burden had been eased by Mr. Bush, who has made tax cuts the centerpiece of his economic program."

What the president said about small business and taxes: "Unless you act, small businesses will pay higher taxes."

The facts: Most small business owners felt little effect from Bush's 2003 tax cut. 82% of tax filers with small business income received less than $2000 in cuts. 55% got less than $500, 25% got no tax cut at all. Why is this the case? Less than 5% of those with small business income fall into the top two income brackets.

What the president said about jobs and tax cuts: "For the sake of job growth, the tax cuts you passed should be permanent."

The facts: Since President Bush's first tax cut in March of 2001, the economy has shed more than 2 million jobs. He will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to end his term with a net job loss record. Additionally, the White House Counsel of Economic Advisors pledged that the President's "jobs and growth" package would create 1,836,000 new jobs by the end of 2003 as part of its pledge to create 5.5 million new jobs by 2004. But the economy added 221,000 jobs since the last tax cut went into effect, meaning the White House has fallen 1,615,000 jobs short of their mark.

What the president said about spending: "We should limit the burden of government on this economy by acting as good stewards of taxpayer dollars."

The facts: The administration has been lavishing taxpayer dollars on Halliburton, a company which "may have overcharged the government $61 million on a contract to supply fuel for Iraq," and would have been "overpaid $67 million in another contract to operate U.S. military mess halls if auditors hadn't questioned the arrangement." The company has received $2.26 billion in no-bid contracts from the Federal Government for reconstruction in Iraq. But after these revelations surfaced, the White House stripped out a provision from an Iraq spending bill that would have subjected the company and other price gougers to criminal penalties.

What the president said about the deficit: "We can cut the deficit in half over the next five years."

The facts: The President's proposal to cut the deficit in half deliberately "omits a number of likely costs" such as the continued cost of Iraq and its own defense spending plans. All told, he is proposing roughly $3 trillion in new tax cuts and spending, including $1 trillion to make his tax cuts permanent, $1 trillion to privatize Social Security, $50 billion more for war in Iraq, $1.5 billion to promote marriage, and a Mars proposal that could cost $500 billion. The result is that the deficit is predicted to be "in the range of $500 billion in 2009" - not even near half of what it currently is.

What the president said about the uninsured: "I ask you to give lower-income Americans a refundable tax credit that would allow millions to buy their own basic health insurance."

The facts: The new tax breaks rely on savings, so "the very people who lack the decent health insurance are short of adequate earnings from which to take out savings." Thus, "most of the tax breaks will go to people who don't really need them, while those who rely on genuine help will come up short." And while the President is proposing $3 trillion in new tax cuts and spending, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson still insists that health care for all Americans by 2010 is not realistic."

What the president said about health care costs: "We must work together to help control those costs and extend the benefits of modern medicine throughout our country."

The facts: The President's health care plan provides additional government subsidies to private health insurers that charge unconscionable prices to those who are sick, or refuse to cover them at any price; allows private health insurers to avoid state regulation and have even greater latitude to discriminate against the sick; and guarantees an extra $400 billion of taxpayer money to the pharmaceutical industry while prohibiting the government from negotiating fair prescription drug prices.

What the president said about drug discount cards: "Under the law you passed, seniors can choose to receive a drug discount card, saving them 10 to 25 percent off the retail price of most prescription drugs."

The facts: Drug discount cards do not guarantee seniors a price discount. "Sponsors of drug discount cards will be allowed to change their prices - and the list of covered drugs - on a weekly basis." The administration stated, "we have chosen not to establish minimum threshold levels for price concessions."

What the president said about health care savings account: "Millions of Americans will be able to save money tax-free for their medical expenses, in a health savings account."

The facts: The creation of "Health Care Savings Accounts" provides an " incentive to shift more costs to workers, who may be asked to 'match' their employer's contribution to a HSA with its high deductibles and high co-payments." Workers "in the higher tax brackets would secure large deductions for deposits into HSAs." As a result, they will "weaken traditional employer-based insurance" and "place older and sicker workers at risk." Experts believe premiums for comprehensive employer-based health insurance could "more than double."

What the president said about reimportation: "Any attempt to limit the choices of our seniors, or to take away their prescription drug coverage under Medicare, will meet my veto."

The facts: The Medicare legislation bows to the interests of pharmaceutical companies and prohibits Medicare from using group purchasing power to negotiate the lowest prices for seniors. At the same time, the FDA refuses to allow seniors the right to reimport cheaper medication from Canada, claiming safety concerns. Critics accuse the agency of "overstating the health hazards of foreign drugs to help the drug industry defeat legislation legalizing the purchase, or 'reimportation,' of U.S.-made drugs from Canada."

What the president said about No Child Left Behind: "I refuse to give up on any child and the No Child Left Behind Act is opening the door of opportunity to all of America's children."

The facts: President Bush has repeatedly proposed budgets that drastically underfund his own No Child Left Behind Bill. While he recently announced his support for $2 billion in funding for disadvantaged and disabled children," this increase comes after he eliminated $1.6 billion in education programs for the poor. All told, Bush has proposed an education budget that leaves a $6.2 billion shortfall for Title I - the main program for disadvantaged students. At the same time, his budget has proposed to cut $400 million (40%) out of after-school programs, resulting in 485,000 children being thrown off these programs. He also proposed to freeze teacher training grants, meaning a loss of opportunity for 30,000 teachers.

What the president said about Pell Grants: "I propose larger Pell Grants for students who prepare for college with demanding courses in high school."

The facts: Using a new formula developed by the Department of Education to calculate eligibility for the Pell Grant " will eliminate 84,000 students from the Pell program - and will reduce Pell awards to another 1.5 million students." The President's last budget proposed cutting the maximum Pell Grant from $4050 to $4000. Today, "the average Pell grant...has gone from covering 77% of the cost of a four-year public college in 1980 to 40%."

What the president said about civil liberties: "Key provisions of the PATRIOT Act are set to expire next year. The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule. Our law enforcement needs this vital legislation to protect our citizens, you need to renew the PATRIOT Act."

The facts: First and foremost, the Justice Department has not presented any evidence that the PATRIOT Act has lead to the successful prosecution of a single terrorist crime. Additionally, before Congress could responsibly extend the PATRIOT Act, it would have to know how it's been used. But Ashcroft himself - despite on multiple, explicit, bi-partisan requests from Congress - refuses to make straight-forward, unambiguous disclosures about the bill's use. Finally, the Justice Department's own Inspector General has already found 34 credible complaints of civil liberties violations connected with the Patriot Act. A federal advisory panel headed by Jim Gilmore (the Gilmore Commission), former Republican Party chairman and Governor of Virginia, issued a report early this morning that sharply criticized the Administration's anti-terror policies. The Gilmore Commission cautioned that "important civil liberties issues must be considered when evaluating measures for combating terrorism."

What the president said about drug treatment: "In my budget, I have proposed new funding to continue our aggressive, community-based strategy to reduce demand for illegal drugs [including] an additional 23 million dollars for schools that want to use drug testing as a tool to save children's lives."

The facts: In his FY04 budget, the President proposed cutting funding for the Safe and Drug Free Schools program by 25 million dollars.

The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute based in Washington, D.C.

Posted by: bopst at February 21, 2004 12:24 PM

Don't defend him. It's past that point. Wake up and elect a president, ANY president. Please. This is an important period in world history and the current administration is like a bull in a China shop, let alone the current President Bush. Please, for the sake of our children. I am very sincere. Please.

Posted by: Suzanne at March 25, 2004 01:20 PM

I agree with Suzanne, this entire administration has to go. I'm an independent but it doesn't take a left winger to see the mess this country's in. First off, our country is very little safer today than it was pre-9/11. Our borders are like swiss cheese and our ports are a huge liability. Bush has proposed funding cuts for just that as well as funding for our first responders (police, fire, EMS). He supports Rumsfelds assertion's that we still need to reduce the overall number of military personnel we have while at the same time pissing off everbody possible that we could ever have to use troops against. Hell, I can go on and on about the idiocy that has been Bush for the past three and a half years. Anyone that refuses to admit America is in deep shit just has their head too far up that ideological Republican elephant's ass. It's like Bush was picked on as a child for being goofy and kinda slow. Now that daddy got him a real job he wants to push all the buttons. I don't want to be around when he presses the wrong one and takes us all down.

Posted by: Jason at March 28, 2004 04:21 AM

Thank you!! I was going to try and answer this tripe myself but thought I'd look to see if anyone else had put in the time and energy.

ANY president? Really? I hear Saddam Hussein is looking for a country. Really, anyone will do?

This IS a vitally important time. We need a man who isn't afraid to stand up to those who threaten our freedom. I lived in Europe during part of Ronald Reagan's second term - they hated us there. We were not POPULAR, but we were respected. We need someone who knows the difference.

I continue to support the President.

Posted by: Christine at August 23, 2004 01:55 PM

I'm not sure what to think yet, I'm still trying to sort out all of the spin; so I appreciated this critique. I just have two points I thought could have been better here:

"At last check, the popular vote was not the deciding factor in Presidential elections. According to the Constitution, States appoint Electors who vote for President. We may agree or disagree with the system, but it the Constitutional standard for Presidential elections. "

In Mathematics, if we say that "f" is a "function of g", as in f(g)=z, and also that "g" is a "function of x", as in g(x)=y, then it is true that "f" is primarily "a function of x", as in f(g(x))=z

State Electors to the Electoral College are chosen on a winner take all basis (except for two states currently), based upon the popular vote in that state. And this is the vote which was in question in Florida. I'm not saying I know which way it "should" have gone or not, but it's a real non-starter to suggest that the popular vote was irrelevant? It is so nationally, but NOT at the state level, which is perfectly clear I'm sure.

second:

"Not according to the BLS Household survey, which indicates that "total employment is now at the highest level in U.S. history. Surpassing the high set in January 2001 just before the recession, total employment is now at 138,014,000 jobs."

In many other places the author points how how the numbers and data in reference has been "spun" by not looking at adjustments for inflation and the like. This is the same, and I think it weakens this argument to try and have it both ways. The result in this example is that it is now unclear without some more research?

If the current population of the US is the "largest in history" is it any wonder at all that the current level of "total employment" is also the "largest in history"? Of course not. So this response fails to debunk the claim, and seems to make the same error of many other claims the author was addressing, it "spins" it's own numbers.

I'd be interested in some more objective information on this one myself?

Otherwise I liked the critique, but I think I'm not so sure I like how this administration has been run. I'm not sure if I can support it? I am still looking for objective criteria though.

thanks,
James

Posted by: James at September 7, 2004 01:34 PM