As America approaches a historic transfer of power, it is becoming ever-clearer what a daunting set of tasks awaits the new administration. When Barack Obama takes the oath of office at noon on January 20 he will inherit an economy collapsing before our eyes and a pair of ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he will also inherit a federal government whose machinery should bear an “out of order” sign.

Today’s dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum will bring together all of America’s living ex-presidents for what will likely be a warm and celebratory event. Protocol for the unveiling of presidential portraits and presidential libraries general calls for an abundance of courtesy and good feelings, with politics to be left at the front door.

Like all presidential libraries, this one — built on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas — largely reflects the president’s own view of his time in office. The library and museum also reflects the 43rd president’s unique demeanor — “straightforward, confident, unapologetic and willing to let history be the ultimate decider of his time in office,” according to the Washington Post.

But there are other views, of course. George W. Bush’s presidency — like most — was also marked by controversy, tragedy, bitter political rancor and failings large and small. As the Bush administration ended in Dec. 2008, the Center for Public Integrity took stock of what went wrong during those years in its Broken Government project. In a comprehensive assessment of systematic failures over the previous eight years, the Center found more than 125 examples of government breakdown.

Read the project: Broken Government

In a tag-team move that shortchanged the public’s knowledge of environmental hazards, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) loosened reporting requirements on the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Congress created the TRI database in 1986 to allow the public to track toxic chemical emissions. The 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India, and a subsequent West Virginia chemical plant leak inspired a system in which facilities discharging or disposing of at least 500 pounds of toxic chemicals per year were required to report totals to a public database. The system seemed to work for two decades. But despite American Chemistry Council data showing a near three-quarters reduction in toxic emissions since the program was enacted, in 2005 the EPA proposed raising the reporting threshold tenfold, while allowing facilities to report only every other year. The EPA said it was aiming to reduce the burden on industry to gather and report data on roughly 650 chemicals. The proposal met opposition from a dozen state attorneys general and health groups such as the American Lung Association and the Breast Cancer Fund. Even the American Petroleum Institute expressed doubts that the agency’s approach would achieve its goal of reducing the burden on industry. In addition to a critical letter from its own Science Advisory Board, the EPA received an overwhelming public response, with comments from 122,420 individuals and groups — all but 34 of whom expressed disapproval. Despite these objections, the EPA formally changed the rule in December 2006. The rule did stop short of the proposed 5,000-pound threshold, instead quadrupling the old reporting requirement from 500 to 2,000 pounds of annual toxic emissions. The Government Accountability Office found that more than 3,500 facilities would no longer have to report detailed information about their toxic chemical releases as a result.

The Clinton administration departed with an unprecedented $127 billion budget surplus, but two prolonged wars and a plummeting economy under President Bush have left the country reeling with a record-setting $455 billion deficit for fiscal year 2008. At a hefty $12 billion per month during 2008, the war in Iraq is one factor that accounts for the runaway red ink. The overall jump in annual defense spending, which ballooned from $295 billion in 2000 to $547 billion in 2007, was another factor. Meanwhile, the rising cost of health care, the economic downturn, and the Bush administration’s 2001 tax cuts have compounded the problem. (Without the tax cuts, for example, the nation would have had a budget surplus as late as 2005.) During Bush’s first year in office, the deficit stood at $32 billion; by 2002, the deficit had skyrocketed by nearly 1,000 percent to $317 billion.

In historic terms, the deficit remains a comparatively modest 3.2 percent of gross domestic product — as opposed to the deficits of the mid-1980s, which hit a record 6 percent of GDP after President Reagan’s tax cuts. But that’s scant comfort for citizens who have watched record surpluses turn into historic deficits, with more bad news likely on the horizon. In September, Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle blamed the deficit on “the slow economy and the bipartisan decision to enact a stimulus package.” The solution, said Nussle: growing the economy “by keeping spending in check.”

Follow-up:
In October 2008, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit for FY 2009 could reach up to $700 billion. But that was before the full impact of the slumping economy and the financial bailout became clear; now some experts say the deficit may rise to a staggering $1 trillion in 2009. That sort of deficit could reach a record-breaking 7 percent of GDP. And it could well constrain the scope of President-Elect Barack Obama’s ambitious agenda.

Though federal records laws make clear that the official records of the president and vice president are public and must, in general, be preserved, the Bush administration has not always done so. The Executive Office of the President must document all “activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies” that reflect the president’s duties, says the Presidential Records Act of 1978, and the president may dispose of records “that no longer have administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value,” only after clearing the decision with the Archivist of the United States. Rather than using government e-mail addresses, which would be archived automatically, 88 Bush administration officials were given Republican National Committee (RNC) e-mail addresses. Of those, the RNC preserved no e-mails for 51 officials and preserved only some of the e-mails of the 37 other officials. By using these external addresses for official business, White House officials circumvented requirements of both the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act and, as a result, oversight committees, litigators, and historians will be denied a chance to get a full and accurate view of the administration’s actions and decision-making processes. The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment, but, when this failure came to light, the White House conceded the error: “I will admit it,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “We screwed up.”

Follow-up:
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform continues to investigate the missing e-mails. A federal judge has ordered the White House to preserve all hard drives, tape backups, servers, and other media that may contain the missing e-mails, in response to a lawsuit by the National Security Archive, an independent research institute at The George Washington University.