THE BUDGET
Bush inherited a federal budget that had just posted a record $236 billion surplus, but the U.S. government's fiscal picture deteriorated sharply. The deficit for the 2008 budget year registered a record $455 billion, and the 2009 deficit is sure to be far worse. The flood of red ink has almost doubled the national debt during Bush's tenure. The gross debt was $5.8 trillion in 2001, but now registers $10.7 trillion. Debt interest payments cost $451 billion in 2008. The deficit has been fueled by ever-increasing spending, including a wartime defense budget that has doubled since 2001 -- from $290 billion to $594 billion in 2008. Overall, the budget went from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3 trillion in 2008. Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cut bills have reduced taxes on income, investments and large estates. The child tax credit was doubled to $1,000 per child, and the so-called marriage penalty was eased.
CONGRESS
For the first four years, his popularity and role as a wartime president translated into notable successes in Congress. In his second term, Bush's effort to privatize some aspects of Social Security and advance immigration legislation went nowhere.
THE ECONOMY
Bush has endured economic travails the likes of which no president since Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt has seen. Despite massive federal assistance, some big names on Wall Street collapsed or were taken over. U.S. households have seen trillions of dollars in savings evaporate while the economy has lost nearly 2 million jobs.
ENVIRONMENT
Bush stopped further consideration of the Kyoto Protocol and successfully fought attempts in Congress to impose mandatory caps on carbon dioxide, the leading pollutant linked to climate change. But his efforts to streamline clean air regulations fizzled.
WAR AND JUSTICE
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney pledged during the 2000 campaign that "help is on the way" for a military they said was overused by the Clinton administration. Then came 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And now the military is more stretched and stressed than most could have imagined. Afghanistan was hardly on the U.S. radar when Bush took office; today it is a nation-building project -- the kind of mission Bush said during the campaign wasn't for the military.
Bush's administration pushed executive authority to its limits -- and the Constitution's -- in dealing with terrorism suspects. Terrorists have not struck in the United States since 2001. But Bush's promise to get Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" remains unfulfilled.
HEALTH CARE
The largest expansion of Medicare took place under Bush's watch with the addition of a prescription drug benefit that eased the financial burden of millions of senior citizens and the disabled. At the same time, the ranks of the uninsured grew from 38.4 million in 2000 to 45.7 million in 2007.
EDUCATION
One year after taking office, Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, which aimed to close the achievement gap between white and minority children and ensure that every student could read and do math on grade level by 2014. The law passed with wide support but has grown unpopular. The administration insists it is working: Fourth- and eighth-grade test scores have improved, and the percentage of black and Hispanic kids reading and doing math on grade level has grown. Critics say that's not necessarily because of the law.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
