George H. W. Bush

Served as President from 1989-1993
Era: The Conservative Resurgence
American Identity and Culture
During George Bush’s presidency there were much advancement in the American culture. For example, in 1992 Hollywood became the leading film market in the entire world. There was also a new great film known as Schindler’s List. This award-winning film won many Golden Globes and Academy Awards for being the Best Motion Picture – Drama and also the Best Screenplay along with the Best Director. The director of this movie and also the author of the original story was Steven Spielberg. Along with advancements in culture, there were also new scientific advancements such as the Internet. The internet expanded and became the World Wide Web that we all know today in 1993. The United States also lost to Japan in making automobiles as Japan took over the world’s auto-making capabilities. This shaped the United States as we have come to now use lots of Japanese cars such as Suzuki, Honda and others.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
After Ronal Reagan, the United States was left in large deficits. In 1990 the federal government deficit was at $220 billion. Bush focused most of his presidency on trying to curb the deficit and believed that America had to fix the problem or else it could not be a world leader. Bush ended up raising tax revenues even though in his campaign to become president, he campaigned that he would have no new taxes. Because of this, Republicans defeated his new proposals that would have cuts and would have taxed people, reducing the deficit by over $500 billion in the next five years. In the end, Bush put higher taxes and put more spending. He increased the marginal tax rate and stopped giving exemptions to people who were high-income.
Environment
During the presidency of George H. W. Bush there were many restrictions in the environmental policy. The first thing that he did was appoint William Reilly to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. He also appointed many other people that were very strong environmentalists to high positions in the EPA. Bush also created the Council on Competitiveness to negotiate with the EPA. In one negotiation, they had rulings that redefined the wetlands and also brought the budget in dealing with toxic chemicals that were in landfills. Along with this they also brought many relief efforts in trying to help the environment.
Politics and Citizenship
It was during 1989 that there was the end of Communism as we saw the Soviet Union crumble slowly. During the same year, the Berlin Wall that separated West and East Berlin also crumbled as the Soviet Union finally agreed to end the Berlin Wall that was there. The leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev, also ceased his rampage on democracy and ended his reign of communism, meaning he also stopped supporting other countries that were communistic or were under communistic influence such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. After this ending of the communism, Bush later tried to end the arms race as he made both the Soviet Union and the United States try to limit production of more nuclear warheads and dismantle many nuclear weapons. This was known as START I and START II.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. This act was very pro-civil rights legislation. This bill established a strong prohibition of discrimination that is based on anything near disabilities. This strongly went for the civil rights activists in America as it had now stopped discrimination towards Americans with disabilities. There were also other new bills worked with the federal government into trying to increase the federal spending for civil rights in education, childcare and also in technology. This Immigration Act was also signed in the same year, 1990 which increased the legal immigration of immigrants into the United States by over 40%.
War and Diplomacy
During 1990, Saddam Hussein led an invasion as they invaded Kuwait near Iraq for its oil. Because of this invasion, George Bush began his rampage in Iraq as he began to rally it in Iraq and in the United States. This began the Gulf War in Kuwait. Iraq began violently attack Kuwait and they refused to leave. This led to the military decision to bomb them as we dropped more than 4,000 bombs in the area by aircraft. We began to push towards Kuwait City as we tried to push towards it we gained more and more casualties which was unneeded though many critics. People though we should have stopped, and there are others who believed we should have kept on going, but if we had done this we would have to occupy Baghdad and in the end, rule over Iraq as well. Along with the Gulf War, Bush also faced the Somali Civil War. The United Nations had to create the UNOSOM I in 1992 to aid the humanitarians in Somalia. Bush approved aid to the area because the project by the United Nations failed.