In final quarter, Bush is no Reagan

[babylonsister]

In final quarter, Bush is no Reagan
The current president signals he's disinclined to compromise with Congress, as Reagan did.
By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 14, 2007 edition

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Reporter Linda Feldmann compares the end of the Reagan presidency to the current Bush administration when it comes to dealing with a Democratic Congress.


WASHINGTON - When the Republican Party lost control of both houses of Congress last November, George W. Bush knew he had his work cut out for him going into the final quarter of his presidency. If he was to get anything done that involved Congress's approval, he would have to work with the Democrats.

If he wanted a role model, he needed look no further than President Ronald Reagan, who also faced a new Democratic majority in his final quarter, after the Democrats retook the Senate in 1986.

Mr. Reagan, like Mr. Bush, had gone through his share of second-term blues, including scandal (Iran-contra) and a hit to his job approval. But Reagan rebounded in his final year-plus in office – in part by cutting deals with Congress (and the Soviet Union) – and ended his presidency with job-approval ratings above 60 percent. Perhaps not coincidentally, he pulled off a rare feat: He was succeeded by his vice president, George H.W. Bush.

The current President Bush has shown no such inclination to compromise with the Democrats lately, instead using or threatening to use the veto pen early and often, particularly on spending bills. On Tuesday, Bush signed one, Defense appropriations, and vetoed one, the Labor-Health-Education appropriations bill, on the grounds that it was $10 billion over budget and funded 2,000 special projects.

Bush went after Congress in a speech Tuesday in Indiana: "Their majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility, but so far it is acting like a teenager with a new credit card."

Bush went 5-1/2 years before his first veto, but his apparent goal now is to reestablish his bona fides as a fiscal conservative, after spending big earlier in office.

more...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1114/p02s01-uspo.html

[sam sarrha]

1. Chaney's little wet brain alcoholic punk ass'd bitch isnt even half the man dan Quayle was, no way

could he compare to a president, not even one they gave a lobotomy to to prevent from testifying at the iran contra hearings...

[bullimiami]

2. reagan was always 80% myth. he could deliver a line though.

and what sort of deluded bullshit is this

"Bush went 5-1/2 years before his first veto, but his apparent goal now is to reestablish his bona fides as a fiscal conservative, after spending big earlier in office."


the ONLY thing he is doing is trying to spend us into poverty by enriching defense contractors with billions yet denying pennies to everyone else. what part of his actions now are fiscally conservative? i usually find the csm to be pretty objective but this is pure fantasy at best.

[Ganja Ninja]

5. "after spending big earlier in office."???

:wtf: He's still spending us into the poor house. He hasn't stopped. The only spending he's conservative on is spending on the American people's needs. If there's a war to spend on, or a dictator or corporate crony with their hand out he'll fill it with money by the plane & pallet load.

[goddess40]

3. Reagan wasn't Reagan either

the Reagan the right worships was a figment of their imagination.

[Justyce]

4. In the sense of creating more homeless, fewer jobs,

and weakening labor unions, he's pretty Reagan-esque...