http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/13/zelizer.george.w.bush/?hpt=T2Why George W. Bush must be smiling
By Julian E. Zelizer, Special to CNN
Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- Somewhere in Texas, former President George W. Bush must be smiling. When President Obama and the Republican leadership reached a deal on extending all of the Bush tax cuts, including a generous exemption for estate taxes, the current president ratified a key policy from the former administration. While Obama ran as the candidate who would fight to overturn Bush's record, a huge number of his policies remain in place.
This says a lot about President Bush. One of the key measures that we have to evaluate the success of a president is not simply how many of his proposals pass through Congress but also how many of his policies outlast his time in office. Many of Franklin D. Roosevelt's programs, including Social Security and the Wagner Act, survive into our time. Though Harry Truman ended his term with his approval ratings in the tank, most of his key national security programs would define America's Cold War policies through the fall of the Soviet Union decades later. Lyndon Johnson pushed a host of policies such as Medicare and federal aid to education that survived the conservative revolution. Thus far, President Bush has been doing well on that score.
Most of his counterterrorism policies have survived. Although Obama has begun to draw down the troops in Iraq, he has acknowledged that a substantial number will remain in place, and he has expanded the war in Afghanistan. Until the disastrous Gulf Oil spill, the administration supported expanded offshore drilling and did little to fix the regulatory bodies responsible for monitoring these operations.
Congress is deliberating an extension of President Bush's biggest domestic policy of across-the-board tax reductions. President Bush pushed through Congress a massive tax cut in 2001, and another in 2003, both of which severely undercut the fiscal strength of the Treasury. The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 provided relief for middle- and upper-income Americas with much of the benefits going toward wealthier citizens. The tax cuts reduced rates on income, dividends and capital gains. They also slashed the estate tax. Even though the nation was at war, Republican Rep. Tom DeLay said, "nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes" -- a far cry from the themes of sacrifice that shaped World War I and World War II. As the historian James Patterson wrote, "Well before George W. Bush left office in 2009, he had succeeded in securing major cuts in federal taxes that contributed over time to mounting deficits and rising income inequality. This dramatic turn in fiscal policy was the most significant domestic legacy of his presidency."...
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