I liked Ronald Reagan for helping end the Cold War and for the longest economic boom which he enhanced by cutting taxes and lowering both interest rates and inflation.
I liked Bill Clinton for balancing the budget and his foreign policy.
Is it fair to blame Bush Senior for the deficits under Reagan when those deficits were a necessity? I can't blame Bush for a recession but Clinton did a good job after him. So was Bush a good president?
Well to be fair, my memory forgot a few things that were most likely good. So he wasn't all bad. But I think this elevation to Saint Bush is a little overdone.
He began an effort to persuade the Democratic controlled Congress to act on the budget; with Republicans believing that the best way was to cut government spending, and Democrats convinced that the only way would be to raise taxes, Bush faced problems when it came to consensus building.[
During his eight-year tenure as Vice President, Bush headed task forces on deregulation and the war on drugs.By 1992, interest and inflation rates were the lowest in years, but by midyear the unemployment rate reached 7.8%, the highest since 1984. In September 1992, the Census Bureau reported that 14.2% of all Americans lived in poverty.During his presidency, Bush signed a number of major bills into law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; this was one of the most pro-civil rights bills in decades. He was also the only president to successfully veto a civil rights act, having vetoed the job-discrimination protection Civil Rights Act of 1990.[119] Bush feared racial quotas would be imposed, but later approved the watered-down Civil Rights Act of 1991.[120]He worked to increase federal spending for education, childcare, and advanced technology research. He also signed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act which provides monetary compensation of people who had contracted cancer and a number of other specified diseases as a direct result of their exposure to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing undertaken by the United States during the Cold War, or their exposure to high levels of radon while doing uranium mining. In dealing with the environment, Bush reauthorized the Clean Air Act, requiring cleaner burning fuels. He quarreled with Congress over an eventually signed bill to aid police in capturing criminals, and signed into law a measure to improve the nation's highway system.[29] Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990,[121] which led to a 40 percent increase in legal immigration to the United States.[122]
Bush became a life member of the National Rifle Association early in 1988 and had campaigned as a "pro-gun" candidate with the NRA's endorsement.[123] In March 1989, he placed a temporary ban on the import of certain semiautomatic rifles.[124] This action cost him endorsement from the NRA in 1992. Bush publicly resigned his life membership in the organization after receiving a form letter from the NRA depicting agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as "jack-booted thugs." He called the NRA letter a "vicious slander on good people."
George H. W. Bush - Wikipedia
