Will Obama's Progressive Agenda Be Successful?
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Food for Thought
...The recent period surely will not match the impact of the New Deal. Nothing is likely to, notes David Kennedy,a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, because the New Deal created much of the modern American government. “These are not as dramatic as the foundational moments,” Mr. Kennedy said, “but they’re significant changes.”
Alan Brinkley, a historian of the Depression, added: “This is not the New Deal, but it’s a significant series of achievements. And given the difficulty of getting anything done under the gridlock of Congress, it’s pretty surprising.”
The last 16 months seem most similar in scope to three other periods in the last 80 years. After World War II, the federal government helped build the modern middle class with the G.I. Bill, housing subsidies, the highway system and incentives for employers to offer health insurance. The 1960s — mostly under Mr. Johnson, but also Richard Nixon — brought civil rights legislation, Medicare, Medicaid and environmental laws. Then Mr. Reagan ushered in a period that continued, more or less, until 2008: tax cuts, less regulation and other attempts to unleash the competitive forces of the market....
Will this new progressive project succeed? There are any number of uncertainties: whether enough charter schools will succeed, whether the new health insurance markets will function well, whether the Fed will learn to become an effective regulator of Wall Street.
Some of those questions won’t be resolved for years. But one issue should become clear much sooner. Mr. Reagan, Mr. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt cemented their changes by retaining enough allies in Congress and serving more than four years in the White House. Mr. Obama has yet to do so.