Professional Documents
Culture Documents
George W. Bush
Republican
(2001-2009)
Hurricane Katrina
Immigration
Banned same sex marriage
Radical program to privatize much of social security
Obama strongly counterpunched against the deepening crisis. In his first hundred days he pushed through a
series of major initiatives that included a new round of help for troubled banks, tax and mort- gage relief, and
a huge stimulus billthe American Recovery and Reinvestment Actthat contained nearly a trillion
dollars of tax cuts, as well as new spend- ing for jobs, infrastructure projects, and relief to state and local
governments.
The conjunction of expanding federal programs and mounting deficits tapped into a deep vein of American wariness of big
government.
Starting with vehement attacks on the health-care bill in the summer of 2009, angry protesters accused the Obama administration of
promoting socialism and unconstitutional controls over individual lives.
Calling themselves the Tea Party after the American Revolutionary Patriots, these aggrieved citizens combined a knack for streettheater demonstrations with nonstop Internet and media fulminations against the president and his policies.
To a striking degree, inequalityboth economic and politicalremained a central theme of the heated 2012 presidential race.
Barack Obama sought reelection on the basis of his stewardship of the economy in crisis times, his signature health-care law
and his winding down of two unpopular wars over- seas. Citing both fiscal soundness as well as economic fairness, he
promised to restore income-tax rates on high earners to Clinton-era levels.
Mitt Romney hewed to a much more conservative line, promising to repeal both the Affordable Care Act and the Wall Street
Reform Act, cut domestic spending, and slash taxes.
What does citizenship and civil rights look like in the 21st century (1002-1004)?
Public frustration
Affordable care act
Troubles abroad
Ebola
The Middle East
Barack Obama
Democrat
(2009-Present)
Well beyond its two-hundredth birthday as the twenty- first centurys second decade unspooled, the
United States was both an old and a new nation. It boasted one of the longest uninterrupted traditions of
democratic government of any country on earth.
The U.S. economy, despite the impact of the Great Recession, remained an important engine of world
economic growth.
Astonishing breakthroughs in science and technology, especially in genetics, bioengineering, and
communications, presented Americans with stunning opportunities as well as wrenching ethical choices.
Inequality and prejudice continued to challenge Americans to close the gap between their most hallowed
values and the stark realities of society in the twenty-first-century United States.
Democratic Institutions are never done; they are like living tissue, always a-making. It is a strenuous
thing, this of living the life of a free people.