Thursday, September 30, 2004

100 days

Lynn S has a post about John Kerry's plan for the first 100 days of his presidency. This made me think about George Bush's first 100 days as president. What plans did he have, and what did he accomplish?

From Time magazine:
The case can be made that Bush, while off to a smooth start, doesn't have all that much to hype. A President without foreign policy experience got the stranded crew home from China, and his public statements have generally been in key. But by the yardstick of Rove's ambition — creating a locked-in Republican majority — Bush has a long way to go. The Great Transformation was to begin with passage of his education-reform plan, which the Senate is set to debate this week. The vouchers and testing proposals at its heart have been washed away and diluted, respectively. Still, enough tough-sounding language will survive for Bush to claim victory.

This looks fairly good for George Bush, but the same article also points out that in the same 100 days he abandoned a campaign pledge to reduce carbon monoxide emissions and suspended standards for levels of arsenic in drinking water. A more detailed account can be found here.

The Democratic Party made a list of broken promises made by George Bush during the 2000 campaign and in his first year as president. "Bush said his tax cut would not cause deficits, even in a bad economy." "Bush promised to pay down a record amount of the national debt." Education funding, Pell grants, student loans, energy assistance programs, all things Bush promised to improve and yet ended up cutting in his 2003 budget proposal.

I couldn't find any clearer details of what George Bush planned for his first 100 days and what he accomplished. Please let me know of any resources.

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