o Backing the National Missile Defense program: This $60 billion-plus defense system attempts to "protect" America from the likes of such starving foes as North Korea and Libya, while breaking a thirty-year old good-faith treaty. NMD has been decried by most developed nations as a destabilizing and risky effort in one-upsmanship likely to re-ignite an arms race. The Pentagon now says it needs hundreds of billions more.

o Gun control, children first:

Bush ordered the frisking of children 3-6 years old for "guns/ammunition, knives with blades over 3in, mace or electric stun guns," and balloons, at the annual egg roll on the lawn. It was later rained out.

o Vanishing Education Department funding: While Bush had promised that "in the budget I submit, the largest increase of any department will be for the Department of Education," the greatest increase by percentage, of 13.6%, goes to the State Department. By dollars, the Defense Department, with an extra $14.2 billion, is the winner.

o "Energy crisis" maneuverings:

Blackouts in California allowed Bush to declare an "energy crisis" as a basis for increased drilling in America’s parkland and new oil fields in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Yet he put together a budget slashing in half funding for research into solar and wind energy generation. He wants explore drilling wells in the Rocky Mountains and off the coast of Florida. Cheney had voted against exploration in Wyoming.

o Tax inequities: While campaigning, Bush referred to his tax break as a $1 trillion cut. Later it began to be was revised upwards to $1.3, and then to $1.6 trillion. After factoring in his desired estate tax cut, the amount exceeds $2.7 trillion. Bush’s proposed tax cut would return an average of $60,000 to the top 1% of America’s taxpayers annually, about the price of a well-equipped luxury car. The bottom 60% would receive an average of $227 a year, roughly enough to pick up an extra cup of coffee on the way to work.

o Dividing Korea, again: Though the majority of South Koreans prefer a policy of engagement with North Korea, Bush dramatically toughened U.S. stance against the impoverished Communist state. While the Clinton administration had warmed relations between the two Koreas and the United States, Bush’s expressed distrust and halted any reconciliation between the Koreas. Plans to build a railroad connecting the nations and to reunite torn families have been stalled due to the American hostility. North Korea has since responded by further threatening to withdraw from nuclear accords with the United States.

o Turnaround on environmental campaign promises: During the campaign, candidate Bush pledged to regulate carbon dioxide, the primary cause of global warming as a pollutant. After a few weeks in office, Bush let his head of the EPA, Christie Whitman, reaffirm that pledge. Later, Bush said that he would not regulate CO2. In Miami late last summer, Bush claimed that, "expanding the aims of the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, I will ask Congress to provide $100 million to support the exchange of debt relief for the protection of tropical forests." His budget in fact earmarks only $13 million for this program.

o The Invisible Executive: The Bush administration decided it would no longer hold formal press conferences, a tradition meant to keep Presidents accountable, and give them a proper rapport with the public through the media. Instead, he would just interact with press on an informal, unregularly scheduled manner, slowing the flow of information from the White House, and preventing the media from assembling experts for questioning.

o Arsenic and laced air: Days after rolling back an unimplemented rule to restrict the level of arsenic in drinking water to levels deemed safe by the EPA, the Bush administration rejected the Kyoto Protocol, which is aimed at reducing the greenhouse gases of all signatory nations over the next decade. The United States, though only having one-twentieth of the world’s population, emits one quarter of its greenhouse gases. Without the United States signing, the Kyoto Protocol is as good as dead, frustrating and enraging much of Europe, Japan, Australia, and other nations that would have been part of the agreement.