Obama’s legislative accomplishments
By JR Hoeft | Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 | PoliticsIn this clip, Texas State Sen. Kirk Watson “answers” the host of MSNBC’s “Hardball”, Chris Matthews, question on Sen. Barack Obama’s legislative accomplishments.
“Yes we can!”
No you didn’t. No you won’t. And no we can’t.
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
JR Hoeft
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
Comments
9 Responses to "Obama’s legislative accomplishments"
You should change the title from the above, to Obama supporters should take the time to learn about his accomplishments(mostly borrowed from elsewhere):
-Obama passed legislation with Republican Senator Jim Talent to give gas stations a tax credit for installing E85 ethanol refueling pumps. The tax credit covers 30 percent of the costs of switching one or more traditional petroleum pumps to E85, which is an 85 percent ethanol/15 percent gasoline blend.
-After a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.
-His first law was passed with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent.
-Obama created the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working families in 2000 and successfully sponsored a measure to make the credit permanent in 2003. The law offered about $105 million in tax relief over three years.
-Obama joined forces with former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL) to pass the toughest campaign finance law in Illinois history. The legislation banned the personal use of campaign money by Illinois legislators and banned gifts from lobbyists. Before the law was passed, one organization ranked Illinois worst among 50 states for its campaign finance regulations.
-As a member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan.
-He traveled to Russia with Republican Dick Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world.
-Obama has been a leading advocate for protecting the right to vote, helping to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and leading the opposition against discriminatory barriers to voting.
- In the U.S. Senate, Obama introduced the STOP FRAUD Act to increase penalties for mortgage fraud and provide more protections for low-income homebuyers, well before the current subprime crisis began.
-Obama sponsored legislation to combat predatory payday loans, and he also was credited with lobbied the state to more closely regulate some of the most egregious predatory lending practices.
-Barack Obama introduced the Patriot Employer Act of 2007 to provide a tax credit to companies that maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in America relative to those outside the US; maintain their corporate headquarters in America; pay decent wages; prepare workers for retirement; provide health insurance; and support employees who serve in the military.
-Obama worked to pass a number of laws in Illinois and Washington to improve the health of women. His accomplishments include creating a task force on cervical cancer, providing greater access to breast and cervical cancer screenings, and helping improve prenatal and premature birth services.
-Obama has introduced and helped pass bipartisan legislation to limit the abuse of no-bid federal contracts.
-Obama and Senator Feingold (D-WI) took on both parties and proposed ethics legislation that was described as the “gold standard” for reform. It was because of their leadership that ending subsidized corporate jet travel, mandating disclosure of lobbyists’ bundling of contributions, and enacting strong new restrictions of lobbyist-sponsored trips became part of the final ethics bill that was signed into law.
- He worked as a community organizer in the south side of Chicago
- Taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago (and this nation NEEDS a President who has actually read – and even more so, appreciates and understands the Constitution).
etc. etc.
Ragnar, it’s good to see you admit that Obama’s accomplishments are “mostly borrowed from elsewhere.”
He looks like he coattailled on a lot of other people’s work.
I actually felt sorry for the guy. At least he seems to have a sense of humor over the incident in hindsight:
http://www.kirkwatson.com/media/whats-new/2008/02/20/msnbc-and-me/
Brian,
I think Ragner was trying to say that he (Ragner) borrowed most of the entries in his list from other sources.
However, looking at the list, if accomplishments such as these were included in a list for John McCain we might have to have several volumes to list them all.
LD, BK was just playing with my imprecise use of langauge.
The bottom line is that no, there are others with more accomplishments. But, we would all be loathe recall Carter (experience) v. Reagan (hope), Lincoln’s presidency (what experience?), how about Washington? etc.
There is much more to being a leader than experience, and some of the most experienced have turned out to be the worst Presidents.
But with Obama we get the lack of experience added to a campaign based upon populist messages delivered with a silver tongue.
I want change. I am fearful of all the changes Barack is promising. John McCain might be change enough for me.
Barack Obama is going to be unable to deliver on all the promises he is making. I’m left wondering which ones from the menu he might be successful with and I object to some of them.
The thing that irritates me about conversations like these from openly partisan bloggers is that experience or not, you’re not going to support a Democrat. You disagree with party platforms, no? So the critique of Obama is intended to sway voters to support your candidate without actually engaging the policy issues.
If a Republican with comparable experience to Obama ran- my money says you’d be supportive. Not that you wouldn’t note or bemoan any type of candidate deficiencies, but you sure as hell wouldn’t be blogging about it.
Matthew,
Where have I, in this conversation, intimated that McCain should be supported due to his being a Republican or something? You were not paying attention to the conversation.
I like Hillary. Hard choice for me between Hillary and John. Not too hard for me to choose against the empty promises of Barack.
Matt,
You are on the money. Moreover, the irony is that the conservatives get so hot and bothered over the “silver tongue” of Obama, yet spend little time looking in the mirror at their own support, and cult of personality around, the inexperienced Reagan – with the silver tongue, or the inexperienced W. Bush (sans silver tonuge – and sans cult of personality…).
Leave your response
The comments section is for meaningful discussion. Readers are reminded to post comments that are germane to the article and write in a common language that steers clear of personal attacks and/or vulgarities.
Please take a moment to review our comment policy.