10
George H.W. Bush Policy Chronology
Issues Raised in the Kunhardt American Presidency book:
Invasion of Panama
Gulf War
Cold War End Game Diplomacy
No New Taxes Pledge
Staff who might need links/descriptions:
William Bennett, Federal Drug Czar
James Baker, Secretary of State
Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser
James Lilley, U.S. Ambassador to China
Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice
Edward Kennedy, Democratic Senator from MA
Bill Clinton, President
Ross Perot, Presidential candidate, 1992 and 1992
Pat Buchanan, Candidate for the Republican Party’s Presidential nomination, 1992.
1989
January 20 George H.W. Bush inaugurated as the 41st President. (GB’s inaugural address available at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/, via the links “Research” and then “Public Papers.”)
February 6 President Bush, at a White House press conference, introduced his bail-out plan for troubled Savings and Loan banks. Because of bad loans, poor management, and sometimes outright criminal activity, over 350 S&L banks had failed by 1989 – and some observers believed that it would cost over $50 billion to recover the losses. During 1989, the number of failed banks continued to grow. President Bush’s complex plan provided for a sale of government bonds to finance the bail-out, and gave the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) regulatory oversight over S&Ls. (GB’s press conference announcing the plan available at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/, via the links “Research” and then “Public Papers.”)
March 14 The Bush administration, at the urging of federal czar William Bennett, announced a temporary ban on the importation of semi-automatic rifles, a reversal of President Bush’s earlier statements that no restriction on these firearms would be enacted. The new rule applied to about 80% of such weapons. On April 5, the rule was amended to add another 24 semi-automatic weapons to the list. Public concern about rising crime rates and the failing war on drugs forced the President to act.
April 17 President Bush, in a speech in Hamtramck, Michigan, offered a program of special assistance for Poland, whose communist government had agreed to negotiations with the opposition party Solidarity that produced a plan for free elections. The Bush administration’s aid plan included lower tariffs, loans from the IMF and World Bank, and steps that would expedite business relations between Polish and American companies. (See GB’s speech, “Remarks to Citizens in Hamtramck, Michigan, April 17, 1989, at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/, via the links “Research” and then “Public Papers.”)
June 3 The Chinese government ordered its military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to suppress a burgeoning pro-democracy movement that had encamped in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China. Estimates on the number of demonstrators killed vary between 700 and 2,700. (Source: Mann, 309, ftnt, 41.)
President Bush, vacationing at his home in Kennebunkport, issued a formal statement regretting the Chinese government’s actions. (Source: Mann, 195.) (See the White House Statement at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/, via the links “Research” and then “Public Papers.”)
June 5 In the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacres, President Bush announced a number of condemnatory actions, including the suspension of the sale of American weapons to China. The decision to pursue this policy was made after consulting with Secretary of State James Baker, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, and the U.S. Ambassador to China, James Lilley.(Source: Mann, 197) (See GB’s comments at the Press Conference, June 4, at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/, via the links “Research” and then “Public Papers.”) (Also useful here is the National Security Archives’s briefing book on the Tiananmen crisis, which includes some of the diplomatic traffic between the American Embassy in China and the State Department, especially documents 12 through 29. It is available at: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/index.html.)
August 9 President Bush signed into law the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989, which arranged for the bail-out of Savings and Loans Banks. This law differed from President Bush’s February 6 proposal by financing the bail-out from the Treasury Department, and not a bond sale. It offered $166 billion worth of aid to troubled savings and loans institutions and created a new government body, the Resolution Trust Company, to oversee the merger or liquidation of troubled banks. (See GB’s comments at bill-signing ceremony, August 9, at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/, via the links “Research” and then “Public Papers.”)
November 17 President Bush signed the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1989, which raised the minimum wage from $3.35 an hour to $3.80 an hour on April 1, 1990 – and to $4.25 an hour on April 1, 1991. The law also established a “training wage” of $3.35 an hour for 16-19 year olds in their first three months of employment. The law represented a significant victory for Bush over congressional Democrats, who in the Spring of 1989 passed a bill that raised the minimum wage to $4.55 – which President Bush vetoed on June 13. (For GB’s veto message of June 13 and his comments at the November 17 signature ceremony, see http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/, via the links “Research” and then “Public Papers.”)
November 21 President Bush signed a new anti-drug law that provided over 3 billion dollars for expanded anti-drug programs, including treatment facilities, federal prison expansion, education, and law enforcement.
December 2-3 President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev hold their first meeting of Bush's presidency in the harbor of Valetta, Malta to discuss relations between the two superpowers, and specifically military, economic, and political issues.
December 20 President George Bush ordered American armed forces to invade Panama and capture Manuel Antonio Noriega, that country’s military dictator who had been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges. Noriega surrendered on January 3, 1990, and was flown to the United States to stand trial. On April 9, 1992, Noriega was convicted on drug charges and sent to prison.
1990
June 1 At a summit meeting in Washington, DC, President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev met to discuss trade issues, arms reduction, and the future of Germany. Although few concrete agreements resulted, the summit was a success because of the warm personal relations that appeared to develop between Bush and Gorbachev.
June 26 President Bush, in a written statement released to the press, reneged on his pledge from the 1988 presidential campaign of “no new taxes” by stating that in order to solve the "deficit problem," "tax revenue increases" may be necessary in the Federal budget for the 1991 fiscal year. (A copy of the statement is available via the Bush Library at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ )
July 26 President Bush signed legislation to protect the rights of disabled Americans. The Americans with Disabilities Act affected over 43 million Americans, and forbade discrimination in employment, public accommodations, and transportation.
August 2 Iraq invaded Kuwait and took control of that nation in a number of hours. President Bush "strongly" condemned Iraq's actions, setting the stage for an American response.
October 22 President Bush vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1990, a measure sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA). Bush stated in his veto message, “[D]espite the use of the term “civil rights'' in the title…the bill actually employs a maze of highly legalistic language to introduce the destructive force of quotas into our Nation's employment system.” (The entire veto message is available via the Bush Library at: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/.)
November 5 President Bush signed a budget law intended to reduce the federal budget by almost $500 billion over the next five years. The law included $140 billion dollars in new taxes – which broke Bush’s campaign promise of “no new taxes.”
November 6 In congressional elections, the Democrats gained one seat in the Senate for a 56-44 advantage. In the House of Representatives, they gained eight seats, for a 267-167 advantage.
November 8 President Bush increased the number of American troops in Saudi Arabia to 400,000.
November 15 President Bush signed the Clean Air Act of 1990, which tightened air pollution standards, with the goals of reducing urban smog, cutting acid rain pollution by one-half, and eliminating industrial emissions of toxic chemicals by the end of the century. It was the first law since 1977 that tightened air pollution standards.
November 19 The United States, the Soviet Union and twenty other European nations, signed the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) in Paris. The CFE reduced conventional land armies in Europe and limited the American troop presence in Central Europe to no more than 195,000.
November 29 President Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, which allowed for the admission of 700,000 aliens each year. Of these 465,000 were to be relatives of American citizens or permanent resident aliens. 140,000 places were reserved for skilled workers.
1991
January 15 The Persian Gulf War began with a massive, American-led, air attack on Iraq. The operation is titled “Desert Storm.”
February 24 Ground troops, including a large contingent of American soldiers, began operations in Operation Desert Storm.
February 27 Having liberated Kuwait, coalition troops advanced rapidly into Iraqi territory, encountering no resistance. President George Bush, deciding that the war’s objectives had been met, called off the ground offensive.
July 10 President Bush lifted the American sanctions against the Republic of South Africa, saying that the movement to end apartheid was now “irreversible.” (For Bush’s comments at a press conference, go to http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu.)
July 29 - August 1 President Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Moscow to sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty (START-I) that calls for both nations to make significant reductions in the number of nuclear warheads in their respective arsenals.
October 15 Clarence Thomas, President Bush’s choice to succeed the retiring Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court, narrowly won confirmation in the Senate, by a 4-vote margin. The Thomas nomination, and his subsequent confirmation hearings, became some of the most contentious in American history after a former employee accused the nominee of sexual misconduct.
November 14 President Bush signed a law that extended unemployment benefits. Costing $5 billion, the law paid additional benefits to those who had used up the standard 26 weeks of benefits.
November 21 President Bush signed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which made it easier for employees to sue employers on grounds of discrimination. The Act, however, also exempted employers from charges of discrimination if they could demonstrate that racial disparities in the workplace resulted from a “business necessity.” (For Bush’s comments upon signing the CRA of 1991, see http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu.)
December 18 President Bush signed a transportation bill providing $151 billion for highways and mass transit systems, to be spent over the coming six years. At the signing ceremony for the bill, Bush asserted that the bill would improve the nation’s faltering economy, saying, “it is summed up by three words: jobs, jobs, jobs. And that's the priority.” (For the text of Bush’s comments, see http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu.)
1992
January 10 The Labor Department announced that unemployment rose to 7.1 percent in December, its highest mark in over five years. One observer commented, “What it tells you is that the economy is stagnant…There’s no sense of improvement.” (The Department of Labor has a very useful collection of labor statistics available at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?lf.)
February 1 At the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin met to discuss American-Soviet relations. In a joint declaration, they announced that “the relationship will be characterized by friendship and partnership.”
February 18 President Bush won the New Hampshire primary, but faced a strong challenge from conservative media personality Patrick Buchanan, who garnered thirty-four percent of the vote. The conservative wing of the Republican Party supported Buchanan, revealing a division in the party that Bush would have to overcome before the 1992 election.
April 1 President Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl announced an aid plan of $24 billion to help the development of democracy and a free market economy in Russia. The US share was nearly $4.5 billion.
May 23 The United States signed agreements with Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan that ensured these nations’ participation in the nuclear arms reduction treaties singed by the U.S.S.R. before its collapse in late 1991.
June 12 Speaking at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, President Bush announced that the United States would not sign a treaty designed to protect rare and endangered animals and plants, saying that it would retard the development of technology and the protection of ideas.
June 16 President Bush and President Yeltsin, the latter on his first state visit to Washington, D.C., announced an agreement by which the United States and Russia would reduce their nuclear warheads to between 3,000 and 3,500 by the year 2003.
June 22 President Bush signed a supplemental appropriations act that provided aid to inner cities, specifically Los Angeles, which was trying to recover from the riots of April, 1992.
July 3 President Bush signed a law that extended coverage for the unemployed for another 26 weeks, after their initial 26 weeks of benefits had expired. The Labor Department had announced on July 2 that the June unemployment rate had reached 7.8%, its highest level since 1984. Bush, in part, signed the law to improve his political position entering the late summer and fall presidential campaign.
August 19-20 The Republican Party nominated President George Bush for a second term as President. The party also re-nominated Vice-President Dan Quayle, but not before Bush had considered replacing him. (For a transcript of Bush’s speech accepting the nomination, see http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu.)
November 3 Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, a Democrat, elected President after defeating President Bush and Ross Perot, an independent from Texas. Clinton won 43% of the vote and 370 Electoral College votes, to Bush’s 38% and 168, and to Perot’s 19% and 0.
December 9 American troops led an invasion of Somalia as part of the UN-sponsored Operation Restore Hope. Somalia had been wracked starvation, drought, and violence, and the humanitarian mission’s first goal was to ensure the distribution of food and medical aid and supplies to suffering Somalis. President Bush toured Somalia at the end of December.
1993
January 20 Bill Clinton inaugurated as the forty-second President of the United States.
President Bush and his wife Barbara flew home to Houston, Texas.
Sources:
Carruth, Gorton. The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates. Tenth Edition. 1997.
Greene, John Robert. The Presidency of George Bush. 2000.
Levy, Peter. Encyclopedia of the Reagan-Bush Years. 1996.
Mann, James. About Face. 1998.