George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States of America, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. The oldest son of former United States President George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush was elected president himself in the 2000 general election. Previously, Bush had been serving as the 46th governor of Texas since 1995. Bush was reelected in 2004 as president. Bush worked in his family's oil businesses following college. In 1978, he made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before returning to politics in a campaign for Governor of Texas. He defeated Ann Richards and was elected as Governor in 1994, serving until his successful campaign for president. Bush won the presidency in ...more >>2000 as the Republican candidate in a close and controversial contest. Although he lost the popular vote, the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore gave Bush the required number of electoral votes with a 537-vote margin in the state of Florida. As President, Bush pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program and the No Child Left Behind Act, and has also pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based welfare initiatives. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Bush declared a global War on Terrorism and ordered an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, destroy Al-Qaeda and to capture Osama bin Laden in October 2001. In March 2003, Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, asserting that Iraq was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441.[1] Running as a self-described "war president" in the midst of the Iraq War,[2] Bush won re-election in 2004[3] after a heated general election campaign against Senator John Kerry, in which Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War and his handling of the economy became central issues.[4][5] After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism, even from for