Friday, March 29, 2024

Obama's policies not so different from former Republican leaders

These days, it seems President Barack Obama can’t make any policy proposals without the Republican Party accusing him of undermining free enterprise or national security. The entire spectrum of right wingers have condemned the recently passed health care reform bill and proposed cap-and-trade measures as government takeovers all the while claiming the president’s policies toward detained terrorists and the international community make America less safe.

But what the Right has forgotten is that many of Obama’s policies are fundamentally no different than those of past Republican administrations. President Richard Nixon, for example, championed his own health care reform bill that would have provided subsidies for those too poor to afford insurance and even would have banned excluding coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

Even cap-and-trade historically has enjoyed Republican support. In 1990, when former President George H.W. Bush expressed a need for amendments to the Clean Air Act to reduce the threat of acid rain, Congress passed a bill that set emissions trading standards for sulfur dioxide. The 1990 Clean Air Act’s cap-and-trade provision was not only effective at combating acid rain, but it had broad bipartisan support — passing the House and Senate by margins of 401-21 and 89-10, respectively.

With respect to national security, many have claimed Obama is making America less safe by trying terrorists in civilian courts and pledging not to torture. Such critics, however, should be reminded that it was the policy of the former President Ronald Reagan administration to treat terrorists as criminals, not soldiers, and that former President George W. Bush had Richard Reid, the first shoe bomber, tried in a civilian court. Reagan was also a staunch anti-torture advocate as evinced in his support of the 1988 Convention Against Torture.

Conservatives are even criticizing Obama over the recently negotiated extension of the START Treaty — claiming that its trust in the Russians is naive and would constitute an unsafe depletion of our nuclear arsenal. Let them not forget, however, that some measure of trust was implicit in Reagan’s negotiation of the first START Treaty — a treaty designed with the explicit goal of reducing nuclear arsenals.

Despite undeniable similarities between the policies of past Republican presidents and Obama, unlike our current president, Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes never had to prove their commitment to national security or free market principles by virtue of the “R” that appeared next to their names. In order to keep our nation moving forward, Republicans need to accept that Obama is not a radical leftist terrorist sympathizer who hopes to turn America into a socialist empire but a pragmatic centrist who recognizes that good policy is good policy no matter what side of the aisle from which it comes. Republicans would do well to emulate him and start contributing to our nation’s political discourse instead of trying to destroy it.

Joe Duffy,
director of membership, MSU College Democrats
social relations and policy sophomore

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