Things in Washington really are changing

In a recent column, Danny Hanlon asserted that under Democrats, “Action and effectiveness have been replaced by months of soaring speeches that promise action but are only precursors to more waiting and political bloviating.”

Aside from the fact that I didn’t know what it meant to bloviate, I was confused. Isn’t it precisely due to this administration and the Democrats’ actions that Republicans and Sarah Palin’s tea-people party are so up in arms?

Republicans have plenty to talk about come November, but it would be positively silly for them to run on the notion that this president and his party are long on talk and short on action.

Allow me to delineate some of their actions over the last year and a half. President Obama, often in conjunction with the Democratic Congress, has successfully negotiated a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the world’s largest nuclear powers; implemented new strategies in Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter of which was expressly backed by one-time opponent John McCain; signed equal pay legislation; widened rights for same-sex couples visiting hospitals; invested in our country’s infrastructure; overturned the ban on stem-cell research; ended torture and managed to pass a decades-in-the-making health reform bill, which is predicted to decrease the deficit by hundreds of billions and increase the number of those insured by 32 million.

As for the economy, retail and home sales are up, job losses are slowing, the GDP is growing again and the stock market is soaring. According to almost every prominent economist, we are in the midst of a recovery.

Under Obama, we’ve moved from an economic free-fall to a climb away from the brink of depression. Shortly after Obama became president, I invested in the stock market and I’ve more than doubled my money. And while Democrats may lose seats in Congress, as history dictates they will, I’ll put my money on the Democrats in the long run.

Pat Cunnane is a senior majoring in political science and journalism. He may be contacted at pcunnane@themiamihurricane.com.