George W. Bush

How we placed it

Judgment calls

Positions summarize typical stances from primary sources and reference works. Where an axis is genuinely contested, the reasoning is below.

Ownership

Sought partial privatization of Social Security through personal accounts; scored toward private.

Markets

Cut taxes and favored markets, but his administration authorized the $700 billion TARP rescue in 2008; scored toward markets.

Welfare

Cut income taxes in 2001 and 2003 while adding the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the largest Medicare expansion since 1965; scored moderately toward self-reliance.

Authority

Governed through elections and Congress, but claimed broad executive powers in wartime, some of which the Supreme Court struck down; scored slightly toward strong leadership.

Security

Created the Department of Homeland Security, held detainees at Guantanamo without habeas corpus and authorized warrantless NSA surveillance and harsh interrogation methods.

Structure

Set national school standards through No Child Left Behind; scored toward central.

Morality

Called for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman and limited federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Religion

Created faith-based initiatives by executive order, which critics said blurred the separation of church and state.

Technology

Restricted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to existing lines and vetoed bills to lift the limit; scored toward caution.

Culture

Proposed a temporary worker program and an earned path to citizenship alongside more border enforcement, while stressing assimilation and English; scored slightly toward openness.

Trade

Expanded US free trade agreements from three to seventeen, though he imposed temporary steel safeguard tariffs in 2002; scored toward free trade.

Foreign policy

Set out a doctrine of preventive war and unilateral action, and invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.