One American family has attacked the same country twice because of U.S. oil industry interests.

• G.H.W.Bush invaded Iraq in 1990 - "Operation Desert Storm"
• G.W.Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 - "Iraqi Freedom"

The first invasion was to help protect Saudi Arabia following an attack on Kuwait by Iraq.  President G.H.W. Bush halted the action by American forces before completing the job.  This left the problematic Iraqi leader in power.  It proved to be an "unfinished war" that would haunted the Bush family for years.
 
When G.H.W.Bush's son, G.W.Bush, became president, his number one goal was to avenge his father's failure.
 
This led to the notion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).  There was no evidence - just internally generated and repeatedly circulated rumors among the G.W.Bush administration and the intelligence community.
 
Like his father, G.W.Bush attacked Iraq under the cover of night.  After just a few months, he prematurely "declared victory" (May 2, 2003, aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln). 
 
In the Bush years that followed, almost 5,000 Americans were killed, along with 150,000 Iraqi's, mostly civilians (including thousands of women and children).  Many times more were wounded.
 
Ref. CNN Special

President G.W.Bush championed two sets of partisan tax cuts (2001 and 2003). 

2001 Bush Tax Cuts	Yes	No
House Republicans	211	0
House Democrats	28	153
House Independents	1	1
Senate Republicans	45	2
Senate Democrats	12	31
Senate Independents	1	0
2003 Bush Tax Cuts	Yes	No
House Republicans	224	1
House Democrats	7	198
House Independents	0	1
Senate Republicans	48	3
Senate Democrats	2	46
Senate Independents	0	1
It passed the Senate only because the Republican Vice President broke the tie.

Neither tax cut bill passed with broad consensus.  Indeed, the 2003 tax cuts had no consensus at all - a virtually complete partisan vote. 
 
Both tax cuts were "temporary" and would automatically expire at the end of 2010. 

This was done for purely political reasons - and using some procedural accounting tricks.

Both sets of Bush tax cuts were "unfunded" and, along with the cost of the Bush Wars, drove the National Debt to record levels.

• Over 40% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is now used to pay interest on that debt.
   
• This is clearly not sustainable.

  If 40% of your paycheck was going for interest, you would know you were in trouble.

The tax cuts also precipitated careless spending practices:

• On the part of the government (Fed., state, local)
• On the part of Corporate America
• On the part of the American citizens

This was a major contributor to the collapse of the over-extended, borrowed economy in 2008.  

By 2008, as G.W.Bush was in the home stretch of his presidency, the U.S. economy imploded from all the damage it had sustained. 

G.W.Bush and his cronies had succeeded in putting the United States on a path from a large budget surplus (that was working to reduce the accumulated national debt), to the greatest deficit on record.

The post-2008 economy will not recover quickly nor soon.  It will take a long, long time. 

• Corporate America is hoarding large cash reserves.

  When corporations do spend their cash, they tend to spend it for acquisitions in order to create the appearance of growth for their stockholders, e.g., Caterpillar's $6.7 billion dollar cash acquisition of one of its competitors in late 2010. 
  cf. 372,

• Corporations have no serious interest in creating new American jobs.  They can make more money in other ways.
   
• While consumers understand they need to save rather than continue spending on credit, many of them have lost jobs, been forced to take lower-paying jobs, etc. - such that they do not have any money to save.  Even those do have a little bit of money, do not have an incentive to save as the interest they can get is practically nothing and less than inflation.  They have lost so much due to the stock market collapse, that investing is not attractive to them either.
   
• Whatever the government does, it will not produce any significant new jobs. 
  cf. 358,

G.H.W.Bush rightly called the "trickle-down economics" of the Reagan-era supply-side advocates "voodoo economics."  However, the associates of G.W.Bush drove "supply-side economics"  at even higher speeds. 
 
Under the policies and leadership of G.W.Bush:

• Between 2000 and 2010^* more than 5 million American jobs disappeared.
   
• 42,000 American factories were closed.
  1. Jobs outsourced overseas
  2. Corporate downsizing
  3. Mergers and acquisition
   
• 90,000 additional factories are at risk of being closed.
   
• Meanwhile, of course, corporate profits soared, along with executive salaries and compensation packages, to record heights.

*	The momentum of jobs losses and factory closures continued after control of the country transferred from G.W.Bush to the "Party-of-No" senate minority leader M.McConnell.

 
cf. 282, 283, 249, 372, 466, 358,

G.H.W.Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the United State Supreme Court.

While most people were focused on Thomas being black, they failed to notice that his wife was white, wealthy, and a radical right-winged activist. 
cf. 179, 226, 228, 229,

G.W.Bush appointed John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Roberts led the disasterous 2010 ruling giving "unlimited" power at election time to Corporations.  It guarantees to perpetuate the corporate take-over-America march.

American has long stood on its values.  We have prided ourselves as world "leaders by example."  We have the the world champions of human rights. 

Then, along came the little Napoleon president, who authorized torture in the form of "waterboarding."

In his book about his presidency, and his book tours, G.W.Bush flagrantly talks about it with pride.
cf. 411,