Monday, January 12, 2009

George W Bush Achievements that will stand the test of time

Much has been written of George W Bush's alleged failures. Perhaps it is time to look at some of his achievements.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is a United States federal law that was originally proposed by President George W Bush on January 23, 2001. Congress based its legislation on the Presidents proposals. It was the most sweeping reform of federal education policy in a generation. The legislation, which closely followed the President's agenda to improve America's public schools, passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan majorities and signed into law on January 8, 2002.

After the September 11 attacks Bush beefed up security. The US removed the Taliban from power and shut down the terrorist training camps and liberated more than 25 million Afghans. The Bush administration has kept the US free of terrorist attacks since 9/11. This is no mean achievement.

The Bush administration introduced major initiatives to tackle aids and malaria.

The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in human history. When the President launched this initiative in 2003, approximately 50,000 people in all of sub-Saharan Africa were receiving anti-retroviral treatment.
Ahead of schedule, the United States has fulfilled the President's commitment to support treatment for two million people. As of September 30, 2008, PEPFAR supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for more than 2.1 million men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDS around the world, including more than 2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.
As of September 30, 2008, nearly 9.7 million people affected by HIV/AIDS in PEPFAR's focus countries had received compassionate care, including nearly 4 million orphans and vulnerable children. Globally, the United States is supporting care for more than 10.1 million people, including more than 4 million orphans and vulnerable children.
Nearly 240,000 babies have been born HIV-free due to the support of the American people for programs to prevent mothers from passing the virus on to their children.
In July, President Bush signed into law H.R. 5501, the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act. This legislation will expand access to lifesaving antiretroviral drugs, prevent millions of new HIV infections, and provide compassionate care to millions of people affected by HIV/AIDS. Under this legislation, the next phase of the American people's generous commitment to those suffering from HIV/AIDS will support:
Treatment for at least 3 million people;
Prevention of 12 million new infections; and
Care for 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and vulnerable children.
Faith-based and community organizations are important partners in the implementation of PEPFAR, the President's Malaria Initiative, and other U.S.-funded efforts. President Bush's Faith-based and Community Initiative empowers these organizations so that they can help create an effective, multi-sectoral response to need. Faith-based and community organizations are uniquely positioned to promote HIV/AIDS stigma-reduction and prevention messages and provide counseling and testing, home care, clinical services, and antiretroviral treatment, particularly in some of the hardest-to-reach communities. Last year, 87 percent of PEPFAR partners were indigenous organizations, and nearly a quarter were faith-based. More details here
Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit: George W. Bush signed legislation that entitled 41.7 million disabled and elderly beneficiaries of Medicare to new coverage of prescription drugs.

President Bush took a strong pro-life stance. He signed the ban on partial-birth abortions. President Bush also signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. This ensures that unborn children who survive botched abortions receive proper medical care instead of being left to die or purposefully killed after birth. He has nominated pro-life judges. Bush refused to sign FOCA.

5 comments:

rainywalker said...

Time will write in stone the achievements of George W, Bush, not todays media. "The bad that men do live after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.WS"
rainy

Anonymous said...

I couldn't have said it better than Rainywalker.

Danish Aziz said...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4228722/George-Bushs-20-worst-moments.html

Danish Aziz said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/08/george-bush-usa

Anonymous said...

You know, having spent the past several years as a private tutor my opinion is that No Child Left Behind is ridiculous. What this legislation did was to force teachers to spend their time teaching to exams. This would not be such a horrible thing were this kind of teaching done as an across the board supplement by additional educators. But this was not the case. Teachers dropped much of their regular curriculum in key grades and focussed a lot more on teaching students how to pass exams. So, they spent a lot of time learning how to use Lifelines from Who Wants to be a Millionaire... first limiting four or five choices to two and then dissecting the wording or root of questions.

So, I stayed very busy working for more affluent families teaching their young students the fundamentals of algebra, geometry, biology, chemistry, english, reading and composition. Then, we worked on building college resumes by developing plans for community service, entering essay writing contests, applying critical thinking etc. These things were things that should have been occuring in the school and available to all students instead of just the ones who could afford it.

The ironic part is that I made my services available on a sliding scale basis and even offered to work with impoverished students for no charge. Those students would not come to me for many reasons but chief among them was they did not see the value of it.