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During his first term, George W. Bush sought and obtained Congressional approval for tax cuts: the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. These acts decreased all tax rates, reduced the capital gains tax, increased the child tax credit and eliminated the so-called "marriage penalty", and are set to expire in 2011.

Despite leaving with an ongoing recession, Karl Rove, former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President Bush, noted that "the economy performed strongly for the most part of Bush's Presidency" and that "included nearly six years of uninterrupted growth and the strongest economy of any developed country." Rove also noted that Bush brought "spending restraint" to Washington. Economists have noted that Bush raised the National Debt by the largest percentage and real dollar value of any U.S. President in history. Also, according to Karl Rove, "unemployment rates and inflation were at record lows under Bush". The US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Bush leaving office with unemployment at a 15 year record high.

Spending

President Bush expanded federal spending by 70 percent, more than twice the increase under President Bill Clinton.

Regulation

Economic regulation expanded rapidly during the Bush administration. President Bush is quoted as the biggest regulator since President Richard Nixon. Bush administration increased the number of new pages in the Federal Registry, a proxy for economic regulation, from 64,438 new pages in 2001 to 78,090 in new pages in 2007, a record amount of regulation. Economically significant regulations, defined as regulations which cost more than $100 million a year, increased by 70%.

Spending on regulation increased by 62% from $26.4 billion to $42.7 billion. Whereas President Clinton cut the federal government's regulatory staff, President Bush expanded it by 91,196 workers between 2001 and 2007.

Tax policy

Initial passage

Facing opposition in Congress for an initially proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut (over ten years) , Bush held town hall-style public meetings across the nation in 2001 to increase public support for it. Bush and some of his economic advisers argued that unspent government funds should be returned to taxpayers. With reports of the threat of recession, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said tax cuts could work but must be offset with spending cuts. Bush argued that such a tax cut would stimulate the economy and create jobs. In the end, five Senate Democrats crossed party lines to join Republicans in approving a $1.35 trillion tax cut program — one of the largest in U.S. history.

2003 cuts and later

Economists, including the Treasury Secretary at the time Paul O'Neill and 450 economists, including ten Nobel prize laureates, who contacted Bush in 2003, opposed the 2003 tax cuts on the grounds that they would fail as a growth stimulus, increase inequality and worsen the budget outlook considerably (see Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts) . Some argued the effects of the tax cuts have been as promised as revenues actually increased, the recession of 2000 ended, and the economy flourished. Critics indicate that the tax revenues would have been considerably higher if the tax cuts had not been made.Income tax revenues in dollar terms did not regain their FY 2000 peak until 2006.The Congressional Budget Office(CBO) has estimated that extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (which are scheduled to expire in 2010) would cost the U.S. Treasury nearly $1.8 trillion in the following decade, dramatically increasing federal deficits.

See Income inequality: Tax cuts

Unemployment

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 4.2% in January 2001, peaking at 6.3% in June 2003 and reaching a trough of 4.4% in March 2007. After an economic slowdown, the rate rose again to 6.1% in August 2008 and up to 7.2% in December 2008. From December 2007 when the recession started to December 2008, an additional 3.6 million people became unemployed. And, in January 2009, his last month in office, the nation lost 655,000 jobs, raising the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent, the highest level in more than 15 years.

Income and poverty

During President Bush's terms, Income disparity grew. Median household income has more than kept up with inflation since Bush took control of fiscal policy during the 2001 near-recession, growing 1.6% higher in constant 2007 dollars to $50,233 in 2007 from $49,454 in 2001, while poverty rose from 11.7% in 2001 to 12.5% in 2007.

Economic growth

Bush inherited a faltering economy from Clinton, the economy having grown only at a 1.1% annualized rate over the previous three quarters from March 31 of the first year of Bush presidency (see Early 2000s recession). Bush had his tax cut plan approved by Congress in June, proposed early as a response to the economic decline and, despite the aftermath of the 2001 9/11 attacks.

While the economy has grown under the Bush administration, growth was below average in comparison to the average for business cycles between 1949 and 2000. Overall real GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 2.5%. Between 2001 and 2005, GDP growth was clocked at 2.8%, 0.6% below the average of 3.4%, while GDI (Gross Domestic Income) growth was 36% below average. The number of jobs created grew by only 6.5%, 28.5% below the average growth rate of 9.1%. The growth in average salaries was less than half as usual; 1.2% versus 2.7%, respectively. While growth in consumer spending was 72% faster than growth in income, it too has “failed to keep pace with the... average of previous cycles.” Only investment residential real-estate soared, growing 26% faster than average.

Despite growth levels considerably below previous levels, a March 2006 report by the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee showed that the U.S. economy outperformed its peer group of large developed economies from 2001 to 2005. (The other economies are Canada, the European Union, and Japan.) The U.S. led in real GDP growth, investment, industrial production, employment, labor productivity, and price stability.

President Bush tried to calm turmoil in financial markets on March 17, 2008, by saying that his administration is "on top of the situation" in dealing with the slumping Economy of the United States. Bush and Congress had responded to signs of a slowing economy with the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 on February 13.

End of term economic crisis and recession

The last year of Bush's second term was dominated by an economic recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) marked December 2007, the month with the highest payroll employment numbers, as the high point of American economic production with output declining from then on to the present. GDP declined by an annualized -0.5% in the third quarter and -3.8% in the fourth quarter of 2008. The two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth met the "rule of thumb" definition of a recession, confirming the NBER's declaration of a recession.

Bush responded to the early signs of economic problems with lump-sum tax rebates and other stimulative measures in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. In March 2008, Bear Stearns, a major US investment bank heavily invested in subprime mortgage derivatives, began to go under. Rumors of low cash reserves drug Bear's stock price down while lenders to Bear began to withdraw their cash. The Federal Reserve funneled an emergency loan to Bear through JP Morgan Chase. (As an investment bank, Bear could not borrow from the Fed but JP Morgan Chase, a commercial bank, could). The Fed ended up brokering an agreement for the sale of Bear to JP Morgan Chase that took place at the end of March. In July, IndyMac went under and had to be placed in conservatorship. In the middle of the summer it seemed like recession might be avoided even though high gas prices threatened consumers and credit problems threatened investment markets, but the economy entered crisis in the fall. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also put under conservatorship in early September. A few days later, Lehman Brothers began to falter. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who in July had publicly expressed concern that continuous bailouts would lead to moral hazard, decided to let Lehman fail. The fallout from Lehman's failure snowballed into market-wide panic. AIG, an insurance company, had sold credit default swaps insuring against Lehman's failure under the assumption that such a failure was extremely unlikely. Without enough cash to pay out its Lehman-related debts, AIG went under and was nationalized. Credit markets locked up and catastrophe seemed all too likely. Paulson proposed providing liquidity to financial markets by having the government buy up debt related to bad mortgages with a Troubled Asset Relief Program. Congressional Democrats advocated an alternative policy of investing in financial companies directly. Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which authorized both policies.

Throughout the crisis, Bush seemed to differ to Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. He kept a low public profile on the issue with his most significant role being a public television address where he announced that a bailout was necessary otherwise the United States "could experience a long and painful recession."

Income inequality

Many economists are critical of the Bush administration's policies and argue that the economy is only benefiting the wealthy, increasing inequality between the top 1% and the rest of society. Economists Aviva Aron-Dine and Richard Sherman point to recent data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), showing that "the average after-tax income of the richest one percent of households rose from $722,000 in 2003 to $868,000 in 2004, after adjusting for inflation, a one-year increase of nearly $146,000, or 20 percent. This increase was the largest increase in 15 years, measured both in percentage terms and in real dollars." At the same time, the share of overall tax liabilities of the top 1% increased from 22.9% to 25.3% , as the result of a tax system which became more progressive since 2000. According to economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, who reviewed income tax returns for all income groups since 1917, found that in 2005, the top 1% received its largest share of gross income since 1928. Economist John Weeks asserts that increased income inequality in the U.S., one of only four high-income OECD countries to experience a significant increase in inequality, is largely the result of a less progressive taxation structure, the weakening strength of labor unions, which has resulted in "a growing imbalance in the economic and political power of capital and labor." However, claims of a "less progressive taxation structure" are refuted by the fact that "high-income households pay a modestly larger share of total federal income taxes," which is the generally-accepted measure of progressivity.

While the vast majority of economists believe that inequality has increased sharply since the late 1970s and during the tenure of George W. Bush, conservative and libertarian economists have attempted to refute claims of increasing inequality by pointing to flaws in the data gather of Thomas and Piketty. Economist Stephen Rose asserts that Piketty and Saez use an older method to adjusting for inflation, exclude government transfers, and they do not address demographic changes. Rose does, however, conclude that while inequality did increase, the increase has been exaggerated. Libertarian economist Alan Reynolds, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, makes similar assertions as Rose Gary Burtless, senior fellow at the centrist Brookings Institution, however, stated that Reynolds did not provide sufficient evidence to dismiss the findings of Saez, which are further supported by the CBO. According to him, "many of criticisms are misguided or unfair given the goals of the Pikkety-Saez project... The CBO handles almost all the problems Reynolds mentions, and its calculations show a sizeable rise in both pre-tax and after-tax inequality since the late 1980s." Overall the vast majority of economists disagree with Reynolds, believing that income inequality has grown and government redistribution is required to lessen the current extent of inequality, which they view as excessive.

Tax cuts

Between 2001 and 2003, the Bush administration instituted a federal tax cut for all taxpayers. Among other changes, the lowest income tax rate was lowered from 15% to 10%, the 27% rate went to 25%, the 30% rate went to 28%, the 35% rate went to 33%, and the top marginal tax rate went from 39.6% to 35%. In addition, the child tax credit went from $500 to $1000, and the "marriage penalty" was reduced. Since the cuts were implemented as part of the annual congressional budget resolution, which protected the bill from filibusters, numerous amendments, and more than 20 hours of debate, it had to include a sunset clause. Unless congress passes legislation making the tax cuts permanent, they will expire in 2011.

Some policy analysts and non-profit groups such as OMBWatch, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the Tax Policy Center have attributed some of the rise in income inequality to the Bush administration's tax policy. In February 2007, President Bush addressed the rise of inequality for the first time, saying "The reason is clear: We have an economy that increasingly rewards education and skills because of that education". However, prominent social scientists, such as economist Paul Krugman and political scientist Larry Bartels, have pointed out that education fails to explain the rising gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99%, which has been the site of most increases in inequality. They point out that if education were to blame, a larger group would be pulling ahead of the rest of the population, and that wages of highly educated earners have fallen far behind those of the very rich. Furthermore, they point out that the U.S. is unique among developed countries in seeing such a sharp rise in inequality, while the composition of its economy and labor force is not - if education were to blame, one would expect the same trend across all post-industrial nations. Bartels has asserted that the skill base explanation is partially used as it is more "comforting" to blame impersonal forces, rather than policies.

The tax cuts have been largely opposed by American economists, including the Bush administration's own Economic Advisement Council. In 2003, 450 economists, including ten Nobel Prize laureate, signed the Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts, sent to President Bush stating that "these tax cuts will worsen the long-term budget outlook... will reduce the capacity of the government to finance Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as investments in schools, health, infrastructure, and basic research... generate further inequalities in after-tax income." The Bush administration has claimed, based on the concept of the Laffer Curve, that the tax cuts actually paid for the themselves by generating enough extra revenue from additional economic growth to offset the lower taxation rates. In contrast to the claims made by Bush, Cheney, and Republican presidential primary candidates such as Rudy Giuliani, there is a broad consensus among even conservative economists (including current and former top economists of the Bush Administration such as Greg Mankiw) that the tax cuts have had a substantial net negative impact on revenues (i.e., revenues would have been substantially higher if the tax cuts had not taken place), even taking into account any stimulative effect the tax cuts may have had and any resulting revenue feedback effects. When asked whether the Bush tax cuts had generated more revenue, Laffer stated that he did not know. However, he did say that the tax cuts were "what was right," because after the September 11 attacks and threats of recession, Bush "needed to stimulate the economy and spend for defense."

The Congressional Budget Office found that lower income groups pay no federal income taxes at all, middle income groups received large tax cuts, and while the richest 20% received large tax cuts, they paid higher share of income taxes after the cuts (67.1% in 2004, up from 66.1% in 2000). Libertarians and conservatives have claimed that tax cuts have benefitted all taxpayers. Economists Peter Orszag and William Gale described the Bush tax cuts as reverse government redistribution of wealth, " the burden of taxation away from upper-income, capital-owning households and toward the wage-earning households of the lower and middle classes." Between 2003 and 2004, following the 2003 tax cuts, the share of after-tax income going to the top 1% rose from 12.2% in 2003 to 14.0% in 2004. (This followed the period from 2000 to 2002, where after-tax incomes declined the most for the top 1%.) At the same time, the share of overall tax liabilities of the top 1% increased from 22.9% to 25.3% , as the result of a tax system which became more progressive since 2000.

Federal budget deficit and national debt

The cumulative debt of the United States in the past seven completed fiscal years was approximately $4.08 trillion, or about 40.8% of the total national debt at the time of that completion of approximately $10.0 trillion.

The total surplus in FY 2001 was $128 billion. A combination of tax cuts and spending initiatives has added almost $1.7 trillion—through budget deficits—to the national debt since then (October 1, 2001 through September 30, 2007). It should be noted that yearly debt accumulation often exceeds the yearly budget deficit, because, for example, paying the interest on the debt is not planned in the budget to be paid off or because Social Security receipts run a surplus (see Fiscal policy of the United States). The total budget deficit for FY 2007 was $162 billion.

From the end of Fiscal Year 2001 (ending Oct. 1, 2001) to the fourth quarter of 2007, the economy has produced $6.5 trillion (in constant 2000 dollars) over and above third quarter 2001 GDP levels of $9.87 trillion per year. In the same period the federal government accumulated $3.0 trillion in gross debt (in constant 2000 dollars) or a debt load of 46.5¢ per dollar of the increased production (for comparison purposes in expressing the size of the debt; that is, new debt didn't exceed new production, but growing economies of growing populations are dependent for their vitality to certain consumption levels, so the increased production isn't necessarily immediately usable in its entirety to pay for the debt).

Most debt was accumulated as a result of tax cuts and increased national security spending. According to economists Richard Kogan and Matt Fiedler, "the largest costs — $1.2 trillion over six years — resulted from the tax cuts enacted since the start of 2001. Increased spending for defense, international affairs, and homeland security — primarily for prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — also was quite costly, amounting to almost $800 billion to date. Together, tax cuts and the spending increases for these security programs account for 84 percent of the increases in debt racked up by Congress and the President over this period." Lawrence Kudlow, however, noted "The U.S. has spent roughly $750 billion for the five-year war. Sure, that’s a lot of money. But the total cost works out to 1 percent of the $63 trillion GDP over that time period. It’s miniscule." He also reported that "during the five years of the Iraq war,. . .household net worth has increased by $20 trillion", indicating that tax cuts, while increasing the deficit in the short term, has produced a larger tax base from which to draw in the future.

Trade policy

The Bush administration generally pursued free trade policies. Bush used the authority he gained from the Trade Act of 2002 to push through bilateral trade agreements with several countries. Bush also sought to expand multilateral trade agreements through the World Trade Organization, but negotiations were stalled in the Doha Development Round for most of Bush's presidency. Developing countries blamed the US and the EU for stagnated negotiations since both maintain protectionist policies in agriculture. While generally favoring free trade, Bush has also occasionally has supported protectionist measures, notably the 2002 United States steel tariff early in his term.

George W. Bush successfully gained ratification of the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). Supporters of DR-CAFTA claim it has been a success, but detractors still oppose the agreement for a variety of reasons including its impact on the environment.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

In 2003, the Bush Administration attempted to create an agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill never made progress in Congress, facing sharp opposition by Democrats.. The Bush economic policy regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac changed sharply during the economic downturn of 2008, culminating in the federal takeover of the two largest lenders in the mortgage market. Further economic challenges have resulted in the Bush administration attempting an economic intervention, through a requested $700 billion bailout package for Wall Street investment houses.

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v t e George W. Bush
43rd President of the United States (2001–2009) 46th Governor of Texas (1995–2000)
Presidency (timeline)	Transition 1st inauguration 2nd inauguration Timeline 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 January 2009 Domestic policy Legislation and programs Economic policy Foreign policy International trips Bush Doctrine Russia summits Slovenia Slovakia War in Afghanistan Status of Forces Agreement Patriot Act No Child Left Behind Act Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act USA Freedom Corps Department of Homeland Security Space policy Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty "War on Terror" President's Council on Service and Civic Participation award Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy Email controversy Judicial appointments Supreme Court candidates John Roberts Harriet Miers Samuel Alito controversies Cabinet Pardons Impeachment efforts Executive orders Presidential proclamations State funeral of Ronald Reagan State funeral of Gerald Ford Obama transition
Life and legacy	Childhood home Early life and career Presidential library Presidential portrait Military service controversy Killian documents controversy authenticity issues Professional life Governorship of Texas Prairie Chapel Ranch Walker's Point Estate Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
Speeches	Joint session of Congress (Feb 2001) Remarks at the Islamic Center of Washington (2001) Joint session of Congress (September 11 attacks) (2001) Mission Accomplished (2003) State of the Union addresses 2002 ("Axis of evil") 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Elections	U.S. House 1978 Gubernatorial 1994 1998 Presidential 2000 campaign primaries running mate selection convention debates election Bush v. Gore 2004 campaign primaries convention debates election
Public image	Bushisms Nicknames As the subject of books and films Fictionalized portrayals Miss Me Yet? "Yo, Blair"
Books	A Charge to Keep (1999) Decision Points (2010) 41: A Portrait of My Father (2014) Portraits of Courage (2017) Out of Many, One (2021)
Popular culture	Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004 documentary) W. (2008 film)
Family	Laura Bush (wife) Barbara Pierce Bush (daughter) Jenna Bush Hager (daughter) George H. W. Bush (father presidency) Barbara Bush (mother) Robin Bush (sister) Jeb Bush (brother) Neil Bush (brother) Marvin Bush (brother) Dorothy Bush Koch (sister) Barney (dog) Miss Beazley (dog) India (cat) Spot Fetcher (dog)
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• Presidency of George W. Bush
• Public economics
• United States federal policy