The final report card for George
W. Bush won’t be in the mail for another few years. (Nixon’s is still being revised — and,
for that matter, Lincoln’s.)
But with just a few weeks to go before the 43rd president moves back
to Texas, it’s not too early to measure the impact of his policies across
American life.
Bush campaigned on a promise of smaller
government, a pledge he kept only in part. He stripped staff members and
resources from areas like environmental, health and corporate regulatory
enforcement. But the extended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worst
financial crisis in decades swelled the national debt to its highest level in
absolute terms, and its highest since the 1950s relative to GDP.
We looked for numbers that
meaningfully reflected the outcome of Bush’s specific goals, quirks and
oversights as they played out in the span of eight years.
Our numbers are by no means
comprehensive, and we invite
readers to contribute their own by e-mail or by adding a comment to this message board. (Please include your sources.) We will
update the list, with credit to readers, as new figures come in.
