A story in the Wall Street Journal highlights the difference between a reactionary government like we had from 2001 to the start of 2009 and a new Washington crowd with a somewhat more progressive mindset. For eight years, there were folks trying -- and sometimes succeeding -- in trying to put America on the wrong track. Now we're finally headed in the right direction, but we're using a Baldwin steam locomotive when we need a Japanese bullet train to catch up to where we need to be:
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.
Rob Nabors, the White House's deputy budget director, called the series of new laws "a very, very quiet but important victory."
Look, clearly it's going to take years to fix things that we're sometimes screwed up with something as easy as one quick stroke of a pen. That said, I think that President Obama and the leaders of Congress need to start shoveling that coal a lot faster. You need to be givin' her all she's got, Captain.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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