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In 1988, George H.W. Bush was Vice President and ran for President, He won the election and broke a 152-year-old tradition. President Bush ran for the Republican side. He was in office for eight years. In the Election of 1988, Bush to chose as his running mate, Senator J. Danforth "Dan" Quayle. This was a surprise to the Democrats. But the Democrats weren't going to give up, they had a dozen candidates that wanted to challenge Bush. Bush had to go up against Dukakis, a more middle -of-the-road candidate. The election was close but in the end, Bush received 53 percent of the popular votes, Bush took 426 electoral votes to Dukakis's 111. When Bush went into office, he brought a wide range of experience to the White House. In his inaugural address, he said that "A new breeze is blowing" that he would not follow the old ideas and attitude of the Regan era. Bush had a good back round, fighting in World War II, and receiving a medal for bravery. After the war, Bush left his home town of Connecticut and moved to Texas to become successful in the oil business. He also served as an ambassador, and as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. During the 1988 campaign, George Bush had spoken out strongly against the spread of illegal drugs. Bush appointed William Bennett to be a special "drug czar" to oversee the use of drugs in America. William said that the use of drugs had begun to drop, but the flow of drugs coming in from other country's was still high. Bush didn't like what he heard so he replaced William with Bob Martinez, the former governor of Florida. Another thing that he was for was education. He had standards for these schools and called a meeting with the nation's governors. He told them that they would have to raise the money spendings to reach his goals. Bush also was for a good environment. He signed a bill that was for reducing the air pollution. Also nuclear waste was a problem with the environment.he shut down 17 military plants that manufactured nuclear weapons. He had the the plants investigated and it showed that they were unsafe and dangerous. If they did make the plants safer and less dangerous, it would cost up to $200 billion.
 * __Bush Takes Over__**

The saving and Loan crisis was another big deal to the united states people. If the saving banks would fail it would put more pressure on the nation's finances. There was a institution known as S&L that would help people to save money. In the 70's the interest rates soared up and the saving banks were struck with low-interest. Many banks and S&L's were on the verge of going out of business. The Bush administration set up a federal agency to take over the failed banks, selling them or selling their profits. They estimated if they would help out these banks it would cost up to $600 billion in ten years. Bush was not blamed for the collapse but it was Regan that took the heat. By the 90's the collapse of many S&L's weakened the nation's banking system in general. The saving and loan crisis added to the growing deficit in the federal budget. How they could help is if the president and congress would cut back in their spending money or if they would raise money. Bush said no to raising the taxes and congress could not agree on how to cut the spendings. Finally after months of arguing and thinking, Bush and congress agreed that they would cut the deficit by nearly $500 billion in over five years. They increased the prices of tobacco, alcohol, and gasoline but it also cut spendings in different areas.

In 1989 Bush was angered by the Supreme Court decision that allowed the burning of and American flag. He said that the defacing of the flag shouldn't be allowed. Supporters said that it was not a freedom of speech, but an insult to the nation. This made a lot of people mad but some people said it was fine, don't worry bout a flag, but to protect basic freedom than symbols. Bush put David Souter as head of Supreme Court so that he could change this new law and make sure that nothing else was passed that was pointless like this one. He was seated on October of 1990.

__**A World in Transition**__ Since the end of World War II, the Soviet Union took over the nations government in Eastern Europe. Europe tried to take it back but was harshly put down, the Freedom Fighters was one of the groups that tried. These groups did not give up though, East Germany built a wall, separating the east and west (the communist and non-communist). The wall came down on November of 1989.

Bush took a less militant approach towards Nicaragua then Regan did, he did not want to continue to press for military aid to the contras. Instead of military, he sent aid with food, clothing, and medical supplies. In 1990, the relations between the U.S and Nicaragua was slipping, it remained uncertain since Nicaragua was losing its power. In 1989, Bush sent military support to Panama, because they were smuggling drugs in. Bush sent in a new government to help Panama and offered to rebuild the nation's shattered economy.