Abortion & Traditional Values
Banned Partial Birth Abortion — by far the most significant roll-back of abortion on demand since Roe v. Wade.
Reversed Clinton's move to strike Reagan's anti-abortion Mexico Policy.
By Executive Order (EO), reversed Clinton's policy of not requiring parental consent for abortions under the Medical Privacy Act.
By EO, prohibited federal funds for international family planning groups that provide abortions and related services.
Upheld the ban on abortions at military hospitals.
Made $33 million available for abstinence education programs in 2004.
Supports the Defense of Marriage Act — and a Constitutional amendment saying marriage is between one man and one woman.
Requires states to conduct criminal background checks on prospective foster and adoptive parents.
Requires districts to let students transfer out of dangerous schools.
Requires schools to have a zero-tolerance policy for classroom disruption (reintroducing discipline into classrooms).
Signed the Teacher Protection Act, which protects teachers from lawsuits related to student discipline.
Expanded the role of faith-based and community organizations in after-school programs.
Budget, Taxes & Economy
Signed two income tax cuts, one of which was the largest dollar-value tax cut in world history.
Supports permanent elimination of the death tax.
Turned around an inherited economy that was in recession, and deeply shocked as a result of the 9/11 attacks.
Is seeking legislation to amend the Constitution to give the president line-item veto authority.
In process of permanently eliminating IRS marriage penalty.
Increased small business incentives to expand and to hire new people.
Initiated discussion on privatizing Social Security and individual investment accounts.
Killed Clinton's "ergonomic" rules that OSHA was about to implement; rules would have shut down every home business in America.
Passed tough new laws to hold corporate criminals to account as a result of corporate scandals.
Reduced taxes on dividends and capital gains.
Signed trade promotion authority.
Reduced and is working to ultimately eliminate the estate tax for family farms and ranches.
Fight Europe's ban on importing biotech crops from the United States.
Exempt food from unilateral trade sanctions and embargoes.
Provided $20 million to states to help people with disabilities work from home.
Created a fund to encourage technologies that help the disabled.
Increased the annual contribution limit on Education IRA's from $500 to $2,000 per child.
Make permanent the $5,000 adoption tax credit and provide $1 billion over five years to increase the credit to $10,000.
Grant a complete tax exemption for prepaid or college tuition savings plans.
Reduced H1B visas from a high of 195,000 per year to 66,000 per year.
Character & Conduct as President
Changed the tone in the White House, restoring HONOR and DIGNITY to the presidency.
Has reintroduced the mention of God and faith into public discourse.
Handled himself with enormous courage, dignity, grace, determination, and leadership in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 hijackings and anthrax attacks. He almost single-handedly held this country together during those searing days:
Just three days after the attacks, in his address at the National Cathedral, the President reassured the nation when he said: "War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing."
On Friday, September 14, 2001, President Bush visited Ground Zero. Standing on a crushed and burned fire engine atop the smoldering pile at Ground Zero, he put his arm around a retired firefighter who had volunteered to help, and began speaking to the crowd. Rescue workers shouted that they could not hear him. Someone handed him a small American flag and bullhorn. The President spontaneously shouted: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." The crowd roared with cheers and chants of "USA! USA! USA!" Then he raised that American flag and rallied a nation:
Education & Employment Training
Signed the No Child Left Behind Act, delivering the most dramatic education reforms in a generation (challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations). The very liberal California Teachers union is currently running radio ads against the accountability provisions of this Act.
Announced "Jobs for the 21st Century," a comprehensive plan to better prepare workers for jobs in the new millennium by strengthening post-secondary education and job training, and by improving high school education.
Is working to provide vouchers to low-income students in persistently failing schools to help with costs of attending private schools. (Blocked in the Senate.)
Requires annual reading and math tests in grades three through eight.
Requires states to participate in the National Assessment of Education Progress, or an equivalent program, to establish a national benchmark for academic performance.
Requires school-by-school accountability report cards.
Established a $2.4 billion fund to help states implement teacher accountability systems.
Increased funding for the Troops-to-Teachers program, which recruits former military personnel to to become teachers.
Environment & Energy
Killed the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.
Submitted a comprehensive Energy Plan (awaits Congressional action). The plan works to develop cleaner technology, produce more natural gas here at home, make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy, improve national grid, etc.
Established a $10 million grant program to promote private conservation initiatives.
Significantly eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered crops.
Changed parts of the Forestry Management Act to allow necessary cleanup of the national forests in order to reduce fire danger.
Part of national forests cleanup: Restricted judicial challenges (based on the Endangered Species Act and other challenges), and removed the need for an Environmental Impact Statement before removing fuels/logging to reduce fire danger.
Killed Clinton's CO2 rules that were choking off all of the electricity surplus to California.
Provided matching grants for state programs that help private landowners protect rare species.
Defense & Foreign Policy
Successfully executed two wars in the aftermath of 9/11/01: Afghanistan and Iraq. 50 million people who had lived under tyrannical regimes now live in freedom.
Saddam Hussein is now in prison. His two murderous sons are dead. All but a handful of the regime's senior members were killed or captured.
Leader by leader and member by member, al Qaida is being hunted down in dozens of countries around the world. Of the senior al Qaida leaders, operational managers, and key facilitators the U.S. Government has been tracking, nearly two-thirds have been taken into custody or killed. The detentions or deaths of senior al Qaida leaders, including Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9/11, and Muhammad Atef, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command until his death in late 2001, have been important in the War on Terror.
Disarmed Libya of its chemical, nuclear and biological WMD's without bribes or bloodshed.
