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= = = The Very Best of Travis Tritt = = =

The Very Best of Travis Tritt is the title of a compilation album released in 2007 by American country music singer Travis Tritt. It features 19 hits from his first several studio albums, as well as his rendition of the Eagles hit "Take It Easy", which he recorded in 1993 for "". The album itself reached #21 on the "Billboard" Top Country Albums charts.

"The Very Best of Travis Tritt" received four-and-a-half stars from Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic. Birchmeier's review states that "it's difficult to envision a better-compiled Warner Brothers-era single-disc collection of Tritt's music." Jolene Downs of About.com gave the album five stars and says that the album "showcases Tritt's incredible talents not only as a songwriter but as a very versatile vocalist."

"The Very Best of Travis Tritt" peaked at number 21 on the U.S. "Billboard" Top Country Albums chart and number 124 on the "Billboard" 200. As of April 2015, "The Very Best of Travis Tritt" has sold 506,100 copies in the United States.

= = = Michael Weiner (professor) = = =

Michael Weiner (born 17 June 1949) is a professor of East Asian History and International Studies and is the director of International Studies at Soka University of America (SUA). Previously, he was professor and chair of Asian Studies at San Diego State University. He received his B.A. from Sophia University in Tokyo, and his Ph.D. from University of Sheffield, England.

Michael Weiner taught at University of Sheffield from 1984 to 2000. He was a lecturer from 1984 to 1988, a senior lecturer from 1989 to 1994, and a reader from 1995 to 2000. He assumed the position of Professor and Chair of Asian Studies at San Diego State University from 2000 to 2005. He became Professor of East Asian History and International Studies as well as Director of International Studies at SUA in 2005.

Weiner's research interests include Eugenics and Social Policy in Modern Japan, Global Migration, and Minority Rights in Japan among others. Following is a list of his publications:

= = = James "Honest Dick" Tate = = =

James William "Honest Dick" Tate (January 2, 1831 – unknown) was the Kentucky State Treasurer. He was nicknamed "Honest Dick" because of his good reputation and rapport with his colleagues. The nickname turned ironic, however, when Tate absconded with nearly a quarter of a million dollars from the state's treasury in 1888. He was never found.

Tate's thievery was frequently cited during Kentucky's fourth constitutional convention as a reason to impose term limits on Kentucky's elected officials. The one-term limit remained in force on most of Kentucky's officials until the state's constitution was amended in 1992 to allow the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, State Treasurer and other state officeholders to serve two consecutive terms.

James William Tate was born the only child of Nancy (Taylor) Tate and her second husband, Colonel Thomas L. Tate in Franklin County, Kentucky. His father was descended from a Virginia family of Scots-Irish ancestry. His father was a farmer and a veteran of the War of 1812, and his paternal grandfather was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War. His maternal grandfather was Reverend John Taylor, a pioneer Baptist minister in Kentucky.

Tate received his education in Franklin and Woodford counties and finished his schooling in 1848. Later that year, at age 17, Tate began work as a clerk at the Frankfort post office. On June 3, 1856, he married Lucy Hawkins. On June 28, 1858, the couple had their first child, a son named Howard, who died at the age of three. The couple also had a daughter, Edmonia.

Tate's political career began with an appointment by Governor Lazarus W. Powell to the position of Assistant Secretary of State for the state of Kentucky in 1854. A model Democrat, he resigned the post when Know-Nothing Governor Charles S. Morehead was elected in 1855. Four years later, he was appointed to the post again under Democratic Governor Beriah Magoffin, and supported the Breckinridge wing of Kentucky's Democratic party during the American Civil War. Though Magoffin resigned in 1862 due to disagreements with the General Assembly, Tate continued to serve under Magoffin's hand-picked successor, James F. Robinson, resigning again at the end of Robinson's term in 1863. From 1865–7, Tate served as Assistant Clerk to the Kentucky House of Representatives. At the end of his service in the house, Tate successfully ran for state treasurer, a post to which he would be re-elected every two years for the next two decades.

In 1878, Tate was mentioned in the "Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky". The biographer gushed that in 1867, Tate had "materially contributed, by his personal popularity, to the great success of the Democratic party" adding:

Biennially, since that time, without opposition in his own party, he has been successively re-elected by popular majorities, perhaps exceeding those obtained by any other candidate for office in the State. From these evidences of popularity, it would seem that his lease on the office might be regarded as a fixed fact.

In the gubernatorial race of 1887, Republican challenger William O. Bradley made an issue of the need to examine the treasury. Though Bradley ultimately lost the race, the idea of auditing the treasurer's records took root, and the General Assembly began calling for a commission to undertake the audit in the 1887–8 session. Tate claimed to need time to get his books in order; this effectively delayed the establishment of the commission, but it was ultimately formed.

In the first quarter of 1888, Tate began a pattern of behavior that would have aroused considerable suspicion in a man of lesser repute. He began depositing only checks in the state's bank account, instead of cash, as was usual. In a short period of time, he paid a number of personal debts. On March 14, 1888, Henry Murray, one of Tate's clerks, noticed him filling two tobacco sacks with gold and silver coins later determined to be worth about $100,000. He departed for Louisville, leaving a note saying he would return in two days. Again, due to the nature of his job and his perceived record of trustworthiness, nobody found his actions questionable. After a week passed with no word from Tate, it became clear what had happened. Records would later show that, after a few days in Louisville, Tate boarded a train for Cincinnati, and then vanished, leaving his wife and daughter behind.

During the investigation that followed, the state's ledger, which was almost indecipherable, was found to show Tate giving some state officials loans that were many times left unpaid and advances on their salaries, including an advance of several thousand dollars to Governor Preston H. Leslie in 1872. Tate had apparently used some of the state's money to make personal investments in mines and real estate. Governor Simon B. Buckner announced that between his atrocious bookkeeping, his embezzlement and his outright theft, Tate had misappropriated $247,128.50 (nearly $7,000,000 in 2017) from the state's treasury.

Impeachment hearings followed in the House of Representatives, and the Senate removed Tate from office, convicting him on four counts. A criminal indictment followed. An 1895 case marked "Not to be officially reported" freed those implicated in the scandal from any obligation to repay the state. "Tateism" became synonymous with political corruption in the state, and Tate's crime was frequently cited at the state's fourth constitutional convention in 1891. The resulting constitution expanded the one-term limit that had applied to the governor since 1800 to all statewide elected officials. The legislature and voters adopted a two-term limit for such officials in 1992.

Despite the General Assembly's offer of $5,000 for information leading to Tate's arrest, he was never found. Though his family at first claimed they had heard nothing from Tate and presumed he may have committed suicide, his daughter eventually admitted that she had received at least four letters from her father between April and December 1888. The letters were postmarked from British Columbia (Canada), Japan, China, and San Francisco. Another witness claimed to have seen a letter to one of Tate's friends written in 1890 and postmarked from Brazil. That was the last known communication from "Honest Dick" Tate. An article in "The New York Times", citing "friends who should know", claimed that Tate was believed to have died in China in 1890.

= = = Rakesh Jain = = =

Rakesh K. Jain is the Andrew Werk Cook Professor of Tumor Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Harvard Medical School and Director of the E.L. Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

He has mentored more than 200 graduate and postdoctoral students from over a dozen different disciplines. Jain's research findings are summarized in more than 600 publications, which have been cited more than 70,000 times (as of December, 2015). He was among the top 1% cited researchers in Clinical Medicine in 2014-15. He serves or has served on advisory panels to government, industry and academia, and is a member of editorial advisory boards of 22 journals, including Nature Reviews Cancer and Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology. He has received more than 75 awards from engineering and medical professional societies/institutions, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as all three branches of the US National Academies – the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2014, he was chosen as one of 50 Oncology Luminaries on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. In 2015, Jain received honorary doctorates from Duke University, KU Leuven, Belgium and IIT-Kanpur, India. In 2013, he was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Jain received his bachelor's degree in 1972 from IIT Kanpur, and his MS and PhD degrees in 1974 and 1976 from the University of Delaware, all in chemical engineering. He served as assistant professor of chemical engineering at Columbia University (1976 to 1978), and as assistant (1978–79), associate (1979–83) and full professor (1983-1991) of chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He spent his 1983-84 sabbatical year as a Guggenheim Fellow in the departments of chemical engineering at MIT, bioengineering at UCSD and radiation oncology at Stanford, and his 1990-91 sabbatical as a Humboldt Senior Scientist-Awardee at the Institute of Pathophysiology of University of Mainz, and the Institute of Experimental Surgery of University of Munich. In 1991, Jain became the Andrew Werk Cook Professor of Radiation Oncology (Tumor Biology) at Harvard Medical School, and Director of Edwin L. Steele Laboratories of Tumor Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Jain is regarded as a pioneer in the area of tumor microenvironment and widely recognized for his seminal discoveries in tumor biology, drug delivery, in vivo imaging, bioengineering, and bench-to-bedside translation. These include uncovering the barriers to the delivery and efficacy of molecular and nano-medicines in tumors, developing new strategies to overcome these barriers, and then translating these strategies from bench to bedside. He is most celebrated for proposing a new principle – normalization of vasculature – for treatment of malignant and non-malignant diseases characterized by abnormal vessels that afflict more than 500 million people worldwide. This concept has fundamentally changed the thinking of scientists and clinicians about how antiangiogenic agents work, and how to combine them optimally with other therapies to improve the treatment outcome in patients.

= = = Andy McKee = = =

Andy McKee (born April 4, 1979 in Topeka, Kansas) is an American fingerstyle guitar player who has released five albums and been the subject of YouTube videos, garnering over 100 million views.

McKee played his first guitar, an Aria nylon string bought by his father, at age 13. Initially underwhelmed by his guitar lessons, McKee began teaching himself how to play guitar. He began learning shred guitar music, including songs by Metallica, Eric Johnson, and Joe Satriani. McKee's electric guitar-playing cousin inspired him to continue learning, taking him out for his 16th birthday to see a guitarist named Preston Reed perform live at a clinic. McKee later bought an instructional videotape from Reed and began to learn many of his acoustic guitar techniques from it. Later that year, with his mother's permission, he obtained his GED in order to quit attending high school and play more guitar. He began to be influenced by guitarists such as Michael Hedges, Billy McLaughlin, Pat Kirtley, and from "Passion Session" by Don Ross, as he continued studying the instrument on his own.

In 2001, McKee independently released his first album, "Nocturne". That same year, he was placed third at the National Fingerstyle Guitar Competition in Winfield, Kansas. In 2003, McKee toured in Taiwan with Jacques Stotzem, Isato Nakagawa, and Masaaki Kishibe, and earned first place in the "Miscellaneous Acoustic Instrument contest" of the "New Jersey State Fiddling and Picking Championships" with a Ron Spillers harp guitar he purchased from Stephen Bennett in 2002. The instrument can be heard in a number of his songs on later albums, such as "Into The Ocean" and "Gates of Gnomeria". Only 1,000 copies of "Nocturne" were ever produced and the album is now out of circulation.

McKee released his second album, "Dreamcatcher", in 2004. The album includes his cover of Toto's "Africa" and "Theme from Schindler's List," as well as a harp guitar tribute to Michael Hedges entitled "The Friend I Never Met." McKee used the title track to win the opportunity to perform with bassist Michael Manring, with whom he has since toured. He placed second in the "Fingerstyle Guitar Competition" of the "Canadian Guitar Festival" that year. The album was later re-released by McKee's label in response to the popularity he garnered on YouTube.

McKee's third CD, "Art of Motion", was released on Candyrat Records in November 2005. Most of McKee's YouTube performances appear on the album, along with a handful of tracks carried over from "Dreamcatcher". During the early stages of McKee's success on YouTube in late 2006 and early 2007, "Art of Motion" was the only album of his carried by Candyrat Records, and saw the most mainstream exposure as a result.

After his popularity due to his performances on YouTube and touring throughout much of 2007, McKee returned to the studio to record his fourth CD, "The Gates of Gnomeria". The album contains six new songs, four songs which had been previously release on McKee's "Nocturne" album, as well as two cover songs. McKee spent the majority of 2008 on tour throughout the world, performing with other Candyrat artists and promoting both "Gates of Gnomeria" and his collaborative album with Don Ross, "The Thing That Came From Somewhere". He released a split DVD that same year with labelmate Antoine Dufour, each artist contributing eight songs to the disc; two of McKee's from "Gates of Gnomeria".

In between touring, and helping promote his duo guitar record with Don Ross, McKee recorded an EP of 2 re-recordings of songs from his Dreamcatcher album, and a cover song by Japanese guitarist Masaaki Kishibe. The album was released digitally only, along with videos available on iTunes that include his performance of his two compositions.

McKee announced in May 2009 that he was intending to finish touring in the second half of the year and concentrate on recording his upcoming album. He stated in July 2009 that it will most likely be titled "Joyland", the title track of the album which originally went under the name "Music For A Vacant Amusement Park." The song was inspired by an amusement park in Topeka, Kansas named Boyle's Joyland that was open from 1951 to 1988. The album was completed in November 2009 and was released in iTunes on March 23, 2010, and in stores on March 30, 2010 on Razor & Tie. According to McKee, "On this album I've branched out a bit and included some instrumentation on a couple of songs. There's also a new harpguitar tune and a couple of covers such as "Layover" by Michael Hedges and Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

The album also features a DVD full of 75 minutes worth of additional video material, including a documentary called "" and four new performance music videos directed by Jeremy Osbern.

Self-described as "just this guy from Topeka, Kansas, who kind of blew up on the Internet about a week before Christmas", McKee became one of Candyrat Records' best-selling artists after their video of "Drifting" was promoted by users at Digg. For a time, three of McKee's videos were concurrently the three most watched on YouTube. In the wake of this exposure, he appeared by invitation on Woodsongs as well as "Last Call with Carson Daly". He also contributed to Josh Groban's 2007 Grammy-nominated Christmas album, "Noël", playing guitar on the song "Little Drummer Boy". Groban's album went on to become the best-selling CD of 2007 in the U.S., hitting #1 on the U.S. "Billboard" 200.

In 2010, McKee contributed to Lee Ritenour's CD "6 String Theory" that also features guitarists like Steve Lukather, Slash, Neal Schon, Tal Wilkenfeld, and Mike Stern.

In 2012, McKee played alongside Prince on his Welcome 2 Australia tour. He played with Prince's band during the concert on Purple Rain, Sometimes It Snows in April, Mountains, Dance Electric, and Love, Thy Will Be Done. He also kicked off the Melbourne concert with Ebon Coast, Drifting, and The Friend I Never met.

McKee has used the following equipment:

McKee's influences include: Eric Johnson, Dream Theater, Michael Hedges, Preston Reed, Billy McLaughlin, Tommy Emmanuel, Björk, Steve Lukather, Metallica, Joe Satriani, Iron Maiden, Pantera, Vince DiCola, Toto, Peter Gabriel, Imogen Heap, King Crimson, Primus, Pat Metheny, and Don Ross.

McKee began listening to metal, such as Dream Theater, at an early age. He described on Woodsongs how he was a "metal freak" during childhood, even performing a Metallica song in his high school talent show. It was not until he saw Preston Reed that his influences began to shift towards acoustic songwriters such as Don Ross and Michael Hedges. Both walks of music continue to influence him, though he has stuck with acoustic music in his professional life.

An integral part of McKee's style of guitar playing is the use of alternate and open tunings, often combined with a regular and/or a banjo capo.

= = = Hanriot H.230 = = =

Hanriot H.230 was a French twin-engined advanced trainer. The construction of the aircraft was initiated in 1936 by Hanriot's chief designer Montlaur. The aircraft was produced by the nationalized factory SNCAC.

The prototype H.230.01, made its first flight in June 1937. The aircraft resembled its predecessor, the H.220 fighter-bomber, but had a lightened and simplified structure.

The H.230.01 was powered by two Salmson 6Af engines and its configuration included a short crew canopy faired into the upper decking of the rear fuselage and a conventional strut-braced tail unit, and the fixed main landing gear units incorporated spatted wheel fairings. During further tests it was decided to introduce considerable dihedral at the wingtips to improve stability, but the H.231.01 which followed in May 1938 had dihedral increased over the whole wing span, and the unusual wingtip arrangement of the modified H.230 was eliminated. Twin fins and rudders were introduced and the power was increased with new Salmson 6Af-02 engines. The Hanriot H.232.01 had a single fin and rudder and was equipped with twin Renault 6Q-02/03, (left and right hand propeller rotation), engines plus retractable landing gear. The H.232.02, which made its maiden flight in August 1938, introduced a redesigned cockpit. The aircraft was tested between October 1938 and May 1939. The type was then given a twin fin and rudder tail assembly and was flown in this new configuration in December 1939, then redesignated H.232/2.01.

The French Air Ministry made an initial order of 40 H.232.2's. This order was though soon was extended to 57. The French Air Force started to receive their H-232.2's in February, 1940, and received a total of 35 before the defeat against the Germans in June 1940. The Germans captured 22 aircraft of this type, and since they did not have any use of them, Finland placed an order for three aircraft from the Germans. One was destroyed in an accident during the ferry flight to Finland, the other two saw service as advanced trainers in the Finnish Air Force and were written off on January 2, 1950. During the Winter War the French had planned to send 25 aircraft of this type to Finland. The German aircraft were scrapped in 1942.

= = = Economic policy of the George W. Bush administration = = =

The economic policy of the George W. Bush administration was characterized by significant income tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, the implementation of Medicare Part D in 2003, increased military spending for two wars, a housing bubble that contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2008, and the Great Recession that followed. Economic performance during the period was adversely affected by two recessions, in 2001 and 2007–2009.

President Bush was in office from January 2001 to January 2009, a complex and challenging economic and budgetary time. In addition to two recessions (2001 and the Great Recession of 2007–2009), the U.S. faced a housing bubble and bust, two wars, and the rise of Asian competitors, mainly China, which entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001.

During his first term (2001–2005), President Bush sought and obtained Congressional approval for the Bush tax cuts, which mainly comprised the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA). These acts decreased many income tax rates, reduced the capital gains tax, increased the child tax credit and eliminated the so-called "marriage penalty", and were set to expire in 2010, while increasing federal deficits by an estimated 1.5% to 2.0% GDP each year. Among the many stated rationales for the large income tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 was the 2001 recession, which followed the bursting of the Dot-com bubble in late 2000 and early 2001. Further, some influential conservatives such as Alan Greenspan believed that the nearly $5 trillion in budget surpluses forecast by the CBO for the 2002-2011 period should be given back to taxpayers rather than used to pay down the national debt.

The U.S. responded the September 11, 2001 attacks with the invasion of Afghanistan shortly thereafter. The invasion of Iraq followed in 2003. Military expenditures approximately doubled in nominal dollars to pay for these wars, rising from around $300 billion in 2001 to $600 billion in 2008.

While President Bush generally continued the deregulatory approach of his predecessor President Clinton, an important exception was the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, which followed high-profile corporate scandals at Enron, World Com, and Tyco International, among others. It required auditors to be more independent of the firms they audit, corporations to rigorously test their financial reporting controls, and top executives to attest to the accuracy of corporate financial statements, among many other measures.

Regarding entitlement programs, President Bush signed Medicare Part D into law in 2003, significantly expanding that program, although without new sources of tax revenue. However, an attempt to privatize the Social Security program was unsuccessful in his second term.

His second term (2005–2009) was characterized by the housing bubble peak and bust, followed by the worsening subprime mortgage crisis and Great Recession. Responses to the crisis included the $700 billion TARP program to bail out damaged financial institutions, loans to help bail out the auto industry crisis, and bank debt guarantees. The vast majority of these funds were later recovered, as banks and auto companies paid back the government.

Economic performance overall suffered as a result of the 2001 and 2007–2009 recessions. Real GDP growth averaged 1.8% from Q1 2001 to Q4 2008. Job creation averaged 95,000 private sector jobs per month, measured from February 2001 to January 2009, the least of any president since 1970. Job creation during the 2001–2007 period was slow by historical standards and arguably unsustainable, as nearly all the net job creation was reversed during the subsequent Great Recession. The employment recoveries from both the 2001 and 2007–2009 recessions were protracted; the peak employment level for private sector workers in January 2008 was not regained until 2014. Income inequality continued to worsen pre-tax (a trend since 1980) and was accelerated after-tax by the Bush tax cuts, which dis-proportionally benefited higher-income taxpayers, who pay the majority of income taxes.

The U.S. national debt grew significantly from 2001 to 2009, both in dollar terms and relative to the size of the economy (GDP), due to a combination of tax cuts, wars and recessions. Measured for fiscal years 2001–2008, Federal spending under President Bush averaged 19.0% of GDP, just below his predecessor President Bill Clinton at 19.2% GDP, although tax receipts were substantially lower at 17.1% GDP versus 18.4% GDP. Income tax revenues averaged 7.7% GDP under Bush, versus 8.5% GDP under Clinton. The sizable national debt increases during his administration represented a reversal from a sizable surplus projection by the Congressional Budget Office just prior to his taking office.

As of 2017, a major legacy of President Bush's economic policy was his tax cuts, which were extended indefinitely by President Obama for roughly the bottom 99% of taxpayers, or about 80% of the value of the tax cuts.

Between 2001 and 2003, the Bush administration instituted a federal tax cut for all taxpayers. Among other changes, the lowest income tax rate decreased from 15% to 10%, the 27% rate went to 25%, the 30% rate went to 28%, the 35% rate went to 33%, and the top marginal tax rate went from 39.6% to 35%. In addition, the child tax credit went from $500 to $1000, and the "marriage penalty" reduced. Since the cuts got implemented as part of the annual congressional budget resolution, which protected the bill from filibusters, numerous amendments, and more than 20 hours of debate, it had to include a sunset clause. Unless congress passed legislation making the tax cuts permanent, they were to expire after the 2010 tax year.

Facing opposition in Congress for an initially proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut (over ten years), Bush held town hall-style public meetings across the nation in 2001 to increase public support for it. Bush and some of his economic advisers argued that unspent government funds had to be returned to taxpayers. With reports of the threat of recession, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said tax cuts could work but must be offset with spending cuts.

Bush argued that such a tax cut would stimulate the economy and create jobs. Ultimately, five Senate Democrats crossed party lines to join Republicans in approving a $1.35 trillion tax cut program — one of the largest in U.S. history.

The United States Congress passed the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA) on May 23, 2003 and President George W. Bush signed it into law five days later. Nearly all of the cuts (individual rates, capital gains, dividends, estate tax) were to expire after 2010.

Among other provisions, the act accelerated certain tax changes passed in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, increased the exemption amount for the individual Alternative Minimum Tax, and lowered taxes of income from dividends and capital gains. JGTRRA continued on the precedent established by the 2001 EGTRRA, while increasing tax reductions on investment income from dividends and capital gains. JGTRRA accelerated the gradual rate reduction and increase in credits passed in EGTRRA. The maximum tax rate decreases originally scheduled to be phased into effect in 2006 under EGTRRA were retroactively enacted to apply to the 2003 tax year. Also, the child tax credit increased to what would have been the 2010 level, and "marriage penalty" relief accelerated to 2009 levels. In addition, the threshold at which the alternative minimum tax applies was also increased. JGTRRA increased both the percentage rate at which items are depreciated and the amount a taxpayer may choose to expense under Section 179, allowing them to deduct the full cost of the item from their income without having to depreciate the amount.

In addition, the capital gains tax decreased from rates of 8%, 10%, and 20% to 5% and 15%. Capital gains taxes for those currently paying 5% (in this instance, those in the 10% and 15% income tax brackets) are scheduled for elimination in 2008. However, capital gains taxes remain at the regular income tax rate for property held less than one year. Certain categories, such as collectibles, remained taxed at existing rates, with a 28% cap. In addition, taxes on "qualified dividends" reduced to the capital gains levels. "Qualified dividends" includes most income from non-foreign corporations, real estate investment trusts, and credit union and bank "dividends" nominally interest.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has consistently reported that the Bush tax cuts (EGTRRA and JGTRRA) did not pay for themselves and represented a sizable decline in revenue for the Treasury:

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt said the middle class will not benefit enough from the tax cut and the wealthy will reap unfairly high benefits. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle argued that the tax cut is too large, too generous to the rich and too expensive.

Economists, including the Treasury Secretary at the time Paul O'Neill and 450 economists, including ten Nobel prize laureates, who contacted Bush in 2003, opposed the 2003 tax cuts on the grounds that they would fail as a growth stimulus, increase inequality and worsen the budget outlook considerably (see Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts). Some argued the effects of the tax cuts have been as promised as revenues actually increased (although income tax revenues fell), the recession of 2001 ended relatively quickly, and economic growth was positive.

The tax cuts had been largely opposed by American economists, including the Bush administration's own Economic Advisement Council. In 2003, 450 economists, including ten Nobel Prize laureate, signed the Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts, sent to President Bush stating that "these tax cuts will worsen the long-term budget outlook... will reduce the capacity of the government to finance Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as investments in schools, health, infrastructure, and basic research... [and] generate further inequalities in after-tax income."

The Bush administration had claimed, based on the concept of the Laffer Curve, that the tax cuts actually paid for the themselves by generating enough extra revenue from additional economic growth to offset the lower taxation rates. However, income tax revenues in dollar terms did not regain their FY 2000 peak until 2006. Through the end of 2008, total federal tax revenues relative to GDP had yet to regain their 2000 peak.

When asked whether the Bush tax cuts had generated more revenue, Laffer stated that he did not know. However, he did say that the tax cuts were "what was right," because after the September 11 attacks and threats of recession, Bush "needed to stimulate the economy and spend for defense."

Critics indicate that the tax revenues would have been considerably higher if the tax cuts had not been made. Income tax revenues in dollar terms did not regain their FY 2000 peak until 2006. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (which were scheduled to expire in 2010) would cost the U.S. Treasury nearly $1.8 trillion in the following decade, dramatically increasing federal deficits.

The Tax Policy Center reported that the various tax cuts under the Bush administration were "extraordinarily expensive" to the Treasury:

Federal income taxes (distinct from payroll taxes) are paid overwhelmingly by the highest income taxpayers. For example, in 2014 the top 1% of income earners paid 45.7% of federal income taxes; the bottom 80% of earners paid 15%. Therefore, policies that reduce income tax rates, such as the Bush tax cuts, dis-proportionally benefit the rich, as they pay the lion's share of the taxes. During President Bush's terms, income inequality grew, a trend since 1980. CBO reported that the share of after-tax income received by the top 1% rose from 12.3% in 2001 to a peak of 16.7% in 2007, before ending at 14.1% in 2008. Comparing 2001 and 2008, the lowest and highest quintiles of the income distribution had a larger share of the after-tax income, while the middle three quintiles had a lower share.

Further, income inequality can be measured both before-tax and after-tax, so the Bush tax cuts primarily impacted the latter measurements. President Bush did not take deliberate steps to address pre-tax inequality, which involves policies such as raising the minimum wage, strengthening collective bargaining power (unions), limiting executive pay, and protectionism. CBO reported that the top 1% paid an average total federal tax rate of 32.5% in 2000, 30.1% in 2004, and 28.2% in 2008. The top 1% paid an average federal income tax rate of 24.5% in 2000 and 20.4% in 2008.

In terms of increasing inequality, the effect of Bush's tax cuts on the upper, middle and lower class is contentious. Some economists argue that the cuts have benefited the nation's richest households at the expense of the middle and lower class, while libertarians and conservatives have claimed that tax cuts have benefitted all taxpayers. Economists Peter Orszag and William Gale described the Bush tax cuts as reverse government redistribution of wealth, "[shifting] the burden of taxation away from upper-income, capital-owning households and toward the wage-earning households of the lower and middle classes."

This would suggest that the Bush tax cut policy was highly regressive, but some writers, notably at the Koch-funded Tax Foundation, argue that the concept of a progressive tax should be detached from its traditional association with income redistribution, noting that since the share of income of the most wealthy rose so much during the period, their share of the total tax burden went up even as their tax rates went down. Between 2003 and 2004, following the 2003 tax cuts, the share of after-tax income going to the top 1% rose from 12.2% in 2003 to 14.0% in 2004. (This followed the period from 2000 to 2002, where after-tax incomes declined the most for the top 1%.) At the same time, the share of overall tax liabilities of the top 1% increased from 22.9% to 25.3%. In this way, they claim, the tax system actually became more progressive between 2000 and 2004.

Defense spending increased from $306 billion in 2001 (2.9% GDP) to $612 billion in 2008 (4.2% GDP). The invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, along with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, added significantly to defense spending. The Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress approved $1.6 trillion during the FY2001-FY2014 periods for "military operations, base support, weapons maintenance, training of Afghan and Iraq security forces, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the war operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks." Roughly half this amount, $803 billion, was approved for the FY2001-2008 period of the Bush administration.

This spending was incremental to the "base" Department of Defense budget, which also increased faster than inflation during the period. The Comptroller of the Department of Defense (DOD) estimated spending for "Overseas Contingency Operations" (OCO), analogous to the CRS amount above, at $748 billion for the 2001-2008 period. This was incremental to the "base" DOD budget, which totaled $3.1 trillion during the 2001-2008 period.

Other estimates define the cost of the Iraq war alone over time as considerably higher. For example, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has estimated the total cost of the Iraq War at closer to $3 trillion, considering the long-term care for military personnel, equipment replacement, and other factors.

The U.S. fiscal position changed dramatically for the worse during the Bush years. CBO projected in its January 2001 baseline that the U.S. would have a total of $5.6 trillion in annual "surpluses" over the 2002-2011 decade, assuming the laws in place during the Clinton era continued and the economy performed as expected. However, the actual "deficits" during those years ended up being $6.1 trillion, a negative swing of $11.7 trillion. Two recessions, two wars, and tax cuts were the primary drivers of the differences.

During his two terms (2001-2008), President Bush averaged 19.0% GDP spending, slightly below the 19.2% GDP spending under Clinton (1993-2000). However, revenues of 17.1% GDP were 1.3% GDP below the 18.4% GDP average during the Clinton era. Further, CBO had forecast in 2001 that revenues would average 20.4% GDP during the 2001-2008 period (above the FY2000 record of 20.0% GDP), while spending would average 16.9% GDP and be on a downward trend, very low by historical standards.

CBO reported that debt held by the public, a partial measure of the national debt, rose from $3.41 trillion in 2000 (33.6% GDP) to $5.80 trillion in 2008 (39.3% GDP). However, CBO had forecast in 2001 that debt held by the public would fall to $1.0 trillion by 2008 (7.1% GDP).

Interest on the debt (including both public and intragovernmental amounts) increased from $322 billion to $454 billion annually. The share of public debt owned by foreigners increased significantly from 31% in June 2001 to 50% in June 2008, with the dollar balance owed to foreigners increasing from $1.0 trillion to $2.6 trillion. This also significantly increased the interest payments sent overseas, from approximately $50 billion in 2001 to $121 billion during 2008.

Most of the debt increase over the 2001-2005 period was accumulated as a result of tax cuts and increased national security spending. According to Richard Kogan and Matt Fiedler, "the largest costs — $1.2 trillion over six years — resulted from the tax cuts enacted since the start of 2001. Increased spending for defense, international affairs, and homeland security – primarily for prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – also was quite costly, amounting to almost $800 billion to date. Together, tax cuts and the spending increases for these security programs account for 84 percent of the increases in debt racked up by Congress and the President over this period." Lawrence Kudlow, however, noted "The U.S. has spent roughly $750 billion for the five-year war. Sure, that’s a lot of money. But the total cost works out to 1 percent of the $63 trillion GDP over that time period. It's miniscule [sic]." He also reported that "during the five years of the Iraq war. . .household net worth has increased by $20 trillion."

In terms of the budget legacy passed to his successor President Obama, CBO forecast in January 2009 that the deficit that year would be $1.2 trillion, assuming the continuation of Bush policies. From a policy perspective, the long-term deficit legacy depended significantly on whether the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire in 2010 as initially legislated. President Obama extended the Bush tax cuts entirely through the end of 2012 as part of the 2010 Tax Relief Act, then extended them for the bottom 99% of income earners indefinitely thereafter as part of the fiscal cliff resolution, roughly 80% of the dollar value of the cuts.

President Bush also signed into law Medicare Part D, which provides additional prescription drug benefits to seniors. The program was not funded by any changes to the tax code. According to the GAO, this program alone created $8.4 trillion in unfunded obligations in present value terms, a larger fiscal challenge than Social Security.