The Financial Crisis Will Have a Lasting Impact on Bush’s Legacy
He is one of the most controversial figures in American life. And, as he approaches the end of his presidency, George W. Bush has finally joined the raging national debate about his legacy. In recent interviews and public statements, Bush has been more contemplative and revealing than ever as he assesses his eight years in office, attempts to lift his public image out of the trough, and shapes perceptions of his era. In this series, U.S. News reviews the Bush presidency from the beginning in 2001—with a special focus on five of his most fateful decisions, including going to war in Iraq and, more recently, approving a huge bailout of the financial industry.
The financial meltdown. One of his biggest legacy issues, and certainly the most urgent one, is the faltering economy, and Bush has been scrambling to spread the blame. "You know, I'm the president during this period of time," he told ABC News. "But I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived [as] president."
Bush also says he acted aggressively when the meltdown started in September. "When you have the secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the Fed say, 'If we don't act boldly, we could be in a depression greater than the Great Depression,' that's an uh-oh moment," Bush notes.
Bush's instinct at first was to allow the financial giants of Wall Street to collapse and, says one confidant, "not use Main Street's money to bail out Wall Street firms." But, amid the warnings of imminent catastrophe, he decided to ignore his gut instinct, for once, and trust his key advisers, especially Treasury's Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Bush ended up delegating the government's response to them. The result was a massive bailout of the financial industry. Bush admits privately that it's far from clear how effective these steps will be. But he felt he had no choice but to pour massive federal resources into the financial system in a high-stakes gamble with the taxpayers' money.
- Read more about President Bush's legacy.
- Read more about Bush and the war in Iraq.
- Read more about Bush and the "war on terror."
- Read more about Bush and Hurricane Katrina.
- Read more about Cheney--Bush's Right-Hand Man.
- View a photo gallery of Bush's presidency.
- Read more by Kenneth T. Walsh.
Reader Comments
What's Wrong With W. -- George W. Bush's Financial Troubles.
By: Jordan C. Fan, Prophet Of Environment
To be fair, George W. Bush may well be one of the better presidents in recent U. S. history. He is much better than everyone from FDR onward to Clinton and certainly a million times better than Obama who will be the worse president in U. S. history and also the worse leader our world has or will ever have. If I said from FDR on, it means all U. S. president we are familar with.
The reason for W's greatness is that he allows the price of oil and other natural resources to go up which will provide a fair opportunity for those oil and natural resource national to develop economically into other areas.
Those other areas for nations who have received money on their oil reserve can be on industrial development, infrastructure, education, environmental protection, etc.. Higher oil prices will help the Environment because there will be less consumption, less waste and less development and expansion into the wilderness.
When an oil & other natural resource producing nation is in great need of money to run its country, it has no choice but to lower its oil and natural resource prices to compete for cash income. I guess the best way to stabilize oil price and make it higher is for OPEC and other oil producing countries to have alternative income. With alternateive income from other sources than oil, then they don't have to depend entirely on oil for money to run their countries. Therefore, they don't have to lower oil prices to compete for sale.
May be that is the reason why the United States were trying hard to put other countries into poverty and insatbility in the past, especially those with huge natural resources. George W. Bush or maybe his father may well be the only U. S. president(s) who have been doing something good for those natural resource producing nations.
G. W. Bush's first mistake was to hire all Blacks for his foreign relation departments. To start his administration, Bush used Colin Powell as Secretary of State and Condi Rice as Foreign Policy Advisor. After firing Powell, Bush still insisted on using a Black woman - Rice as Secretary of State. Together, Powell and Rice have initiated numerous foreign policies which made the U. S. failed on all fronts. Quite obviously, they are all spying for Democrats especially when Powell is currently endorsing Obama. Since the Secretary of State also control U. S. embassies aboard, they can make it much easier for Africans to immigrate to the U. S. whereby increasing the population of voters who will vote against the Republican Party. Bush were to too greedy in thinking Iraqi oil can bring them great fortune. Saddam Hussein had problems making money from his oil reserve during peace time. How can Bush get profit from oil during a war? Even before Bush took office, the United States was already in a recession. The U. S. government was simply presenting fictitious economic figures to recover up their financial troubles.
Energy will cost us all
When the oil companies start to lamment that it will take one barrel of black gold to produce one barrel of black goo (psst...it full of sand and water now), then it does not matter how much real gold is "in dem dar hills," because the wells will shutdown. Even when the price of oil goes back to (ba-zillions) we will find the comsumption rate going to those who in the end are able to take it (for the tanks), not consume it. Poor President Bush, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he did get his moment in our history books,didn't he?
Bush bashers?...wake up
Any educated person must realize that a President truely has limited control over our form of Government. Add in 911, Katrina and the overall spineless waffleing of Congress and public opinion and I think ole George has done pretty well. A view I believe history will eventually show.
As to our current financial mess....Every fine american who drives a 8mpg "land tank", bought a house for twice what they could afford and spent every dime they made "day-trading" instead of dropping it in the bank, YOU are all to blame for our mess. The biggest thing that bothers me is that no one will admit that this economy is in a long coming "correction" that free enterprise demands after a LONG wave of growth and GREED.
One other little detail 'bout ole George...we (the US), have not suffered another attack. Everybody seems to forget that little fact. Well done George!
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