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Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
Author(s): John D. Graham (Author)
- Publisher: Indiana University Press
- Publication Date: March 30, 2010
- Language: English
- Print length: 440 pages
- ISBN-10: 0253354366
- ISBN-13: 9780253354365
Book Description
Military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq consumed so much attention during his presidency that few people appreciated that George W. Bush was also an activist on the home front. Despite limited public support, and while confronting a deeply divided Congress, Bush engineered and implemented reforms of public policy on a wide range of issues: taxes, education, health care, energy, environment, and regulatory reform. In Bush on the Home Front, former Bush White House official and academic John D. Graham analyzes Bush’s successes in these areas and setbacks in other areas such as Social Security and immigration reform. Graham provides valuable insights into how future presidents can shape U.S. domestic policy while facing continuing partisan polarization.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“[A] worthwhile project written in an accessible style… readers… will come away from this work with a better knowledge of the realities of policymaking in twenty-first-century Washington.” ―Political Science Quarterly, Spring, 2011
“Chronicles a number of important policy issues addressed during the Bush presidency.” ―Veronica V. Stidvent, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin
“An important contribution to scholarship on the Bush administration and on presidential policy-making strategies more generally.” ―Gary Jacobson, University of California, San Diego
“In this magnificent book, John D. Graham shows that George W. Bush was a domestic policy activist from start to finish―pertinacious, astute, and surprisingly successful. With a thin electoral mandate, faced with great political polarization and a consuming foreign crisis, Bush 43 nonetheless advanced his domestic agenda to an impressive degree. Bush on the Home Front scores the wins, losses, and muddles―and lays out a penetrating analysis of legislative and administrative strategies that every future president will want to study. John Graham has admirably combined insider insight and scholarly detachment; right out of the box, he has set a very high standard for histories of a complex and contentious period in American politics.” ―Christopher DeMuth, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
“For anyone interested in the legislative process and how presidential action can overcome or exacerbate partisanship, this book is a must-read.” ―Lee H. Hamilton, Former U.S. Representative (D-IN), 1965-1999
“Informative, thoroughly researched, clear both in structure and presentation, and provocative…. Will likely serve as a source document for other views of the Bush presidency…. A significant addition to the public policy literature on the Bush presidency.” ―Donald R. Arbuckle, University of Texas at Dallas
Review
A former administrator in George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget and the current dean of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Graham was a Bush policy insider and knows a great deal about the administration’s domestic policy successes and failures. He discusses a variety of domestic initiatives, arguing that Bush was a more effective president in domestic policy than is believed. He claims his book ‘has supplied a wealth of evidence that Bush was also a bold and activist president on traditional domestic issues. In light of the partisan divide in the Congress and Bush’s limited political standing throughout most of his presidency, it is remarkable how ambitious he was and how much of his domestic agenda was enacted and implemented, whether by legislative or executive actions, and yet these accomplishments, by and large, have not been recognized.’ This view may be a bit overstated, yet Graham makes a compelling case that Bush was more active and more successful in the domestic arena than most people believe. Thorough, well documented… this book is a valuable contribution to understanding a controversial, consequential president. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. — ChoiceM. A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount University, October 2010
About the Author
John D. Graham is Dean of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs. From 2001 to 2006 he served as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, White House Office of Management and Budget.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Bush on the Home Front
Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
By John D. Graham
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2010 John D. Graham
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-35436-5
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments, vii,
1 Ambiguous Mandate, Polarized Congress, 1,
2 Lower Taxes, More Spending, 27,
3 The Social Security Debacle, 54,
4 Making Sure Kids Learn, 63,
5 Drug Coverage for Seniors, 93,
6 Producing More Energy, 115,
7 Consuming Less Energy, 163,
8 Cleaner Air, Warmer Climate, 194,
9 Illegal Immigration: Punishment or Amnesty?, 221,
10 Tort and Regulatory Reform, 251,
11 Meltdown and Bailouts, 272,
12 Taking Stock, with Lessons for Future Presidents, 292,
Notes, 333,
Index, 403,
CHAPTER 1
Ambiguous Mandate, Polarized Congress
As George W. Bush’s last year in office came to a conclusion, critics declared that our forty-third president was a failure. There are certainly many difficulties to be cited: the prolonged military occupation of Iraq, the messy aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the burgeoning federal debt, rising fuel prices, a proliferation of home foreclosures, the painful recession that began in 2008, and concerns about health care and income inequality.
Polls indicate that Bush left office as one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history. In 2008 his Gallup Poll approval rating reached a sixty-year low: 28 percent. The previous record low was set by Harry Truman in the midst of the Korean War. Ironically, Bush also holds the record for the highest approval rating in history: 90 percent in the days after the attacks of September 11, 2001. But for most of his presidency Bush struggled to achieve a 50 percent approval rating. Anti-Bush sentiment, coupled with a war-weary public and the scandals in Congress, contributed to the Democratic takeover of the House and Senate in November 2006. Given the public’s mood, the Republican presidential candidates in 2008 all sought to emulate Ronald Reagan more than George W. Bush. Obama’s clear win at the polls in 2008 may have resulted in part from Bush’s unpopularity and McCain’s inability to separate himself from Bush’s image.
Bush’s national security policies are certainly the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism, both in the United States and around the world. As much as I agree that Bush’s activist foreign policy merits meticulous scrutiny, I am struck by how many citizens, opinion leaders, and scholars have little knowledge of Bush’s domestic policies or hold misperceptions about them.
The imbalance in the scholarly literature is perhaps most striking. While the “war on terror” literature is huge and growing, there are few assessments of what Bush accomplished, and did not accomplish, on the domestic front. It is curious that some authors seek to explain why Bush had little or no domestic success, without even taking the time to examine his actual domestic record.
Some critics argue that Bush and his domestic aides were so preoccupied with the war in Iraq that there was little sustained attention to domestic policy. Others assert that the Bush White House was unwilling to invest scarce political capital on the domestic front, since his priorities were elsewhere. As evidence for this view, critics point to a comparative study which found that Bush made a smaller number of detailed legislative proposals to Congress on domestic issues than any recent president.
Others allege that Bush was uninterested in domestic policy or that his domestic policy advisers in the White House were weak, ill-informed, or uni
