Summary: In his January 20, 2009 inaugural address, President Barack Obama promised to “begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people” and forge “a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan,” the two wars he inherited from President George W. Bush. President Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq is on the agenda for the first full day of his presidency, January 21, 2009, when the new commander in chief meets with top national security aides and senior commanders.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: President George W. Bush presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, with economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly viewing his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation’s thorniest fiscal challenges. Specifically, the number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush’s tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans’ incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush’s father George H. W. Bush.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: In the summer of 2008, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann claimed she had a plan to lower the price of gasoline to $2 a gallon by increased drilling, including offshore drilling and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. However, by fall, the price at the pump dropped to nearly $2 in a matter of weeks, simply as a result of reduced demand during the economic recession.

  ::  Read Comments (0)