Democrats' Quiet Changes Pile Up

[Ian David]

Democrats' Quiet Changes Pile Up

<snip>

Last week, Mr. Obama signed defense-policy legislation that included an unrelated measure widening federal hate-crimes laws to cover sexual orientation and gender identification -- 12 years after it was first introduced. The same legislation also tightened the rules of admissible evidence for military commissions, an issue that consumed Congress in debate in 2007 but received almost no attention this go-round.

Other new measures signed into law since the administration took office, all of which kicked up controversy in past congresses, make it easier for women to sue for equal pay, set aside land in the West from development, give the government the power to regulate tobacco and raise tobacco taxes to expand health insurance for children. Congress and the White House, in the new defense-policy bill, also killed weapons programs that have survived earlier attempts at termination, among them, the F-22 fighter jet, the VH-71 presidential helicopter and the Army's Future Combat System.

<snip>

In his first year in office, President George W. Bush had more modest success with a conservative wish list. His 2001 tax cut ended the tax penalty on marriage, a longstanding Republican desire, and it slowly phased out the estate tax. But Mr. Bush didn't champion many other conservative wishes, which had been pushed by the Republican-dominated Congress during the years Bill Clinton was in the White House. Proposals from some in the party to eliminate certain government agencies in Washington and roll back work-place and environmental regulations stayed on the shelf.

In contrast, the Obama White House has reached into the Democratic archives, as some of the measures illustrate:

The hate-crimes bill became law 11 years after the slayings of the men it is named after: Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay man left for dead on a split-rail fence in Wyoming, and James Byrd, a black man dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas.

More:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125712507804421903.html

[bluestateguy]

1. Obama has done a lot

The problem is that the previous president, and even the one before him (thank you sooooo much for DOMA President Clinton)left him such a huge mess to clean up that it is easy to only look at the problems that still have yet to get resolved.

Obama is not Superman, even though some of his youngest and most naive supporters might have believed that a year ago.

[jsamuel]

2. I don't think this article reflects scale very well

The article compares Bush and Obama on completely different agendas. It compares a few relatively small non economic issues to Bush's major horrible changes in the tax code.