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Listing political party’s achievements over time

Several recent letters to The Inter-Mountain have grossly misrepresented the policies of the Democratic Party and falsely minimized its contributions to society and its foreign policy achievements. One of the writers slandered the Democratic Party as being characterized by “stupidity.” Another confirmed his hatred of Democrats and called them “the lowest form of life on earth.”

To set the record straight, I submit below a partial list of Democrats’ and liberals’ achievements. In virtually all of these cases, the Republican Party and conservatives in general fought tooth and nail to defeat the legislation. The letter writers have surely benefited from many of these enactments. Note how people too often vote against their own interests.

Democrats were responsible for the following:

Social Security Act, Medicare, Medicaid, ACA (Obamacare), GI Bill of Rights, National Industrial Recovery Act, National Housing Act, Federal Communications Act, National Labor Relations Act, Fair Labor Standards Act (minimum wage; maximum hours laws), Public Works/Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Act, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Rural Electrification Act, Full Employment Act, Permanent School Lunch Program, the end of segregation in the armed forces, Veterans Emergency Housing Act, Public Health Service Act, Marshall Plan, Peace Corps, aid to dependent children programs, Small Business Investment Act, consumer drug protection laws, Clean Air Act, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Mass Transportation Act, Omnibus Poverty Act, Vista, Job Corps, Head Start (for pre-school children), Land Conservation Fund, Food Stamp Program, Appalachia Regional Development Act, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Higher Education Act, Freedom of Information Act, Clean Water Restoration Act, federal ethics code, creation of Superfund (cleanup of toxic waste), Highway and Mass Transit Funding Bill, Americans With Disabilities Act, major tax increase on the wealthy to fight the deficits created by Reagan, Family Medical Leave Act, increases in minimum wage, promotion of spending on inner-city schools, and major efforts to challenge the dangerous proliferation of assault weapons.

Here is a list of significant Republican achievements:

Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid to Highways Act of 1956 (it was introduced in the House by George Fallon, a Democrat of Maryland); Reagan signed the Martin Luther King Holiday Act (Representative John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, and Senator Edward Brooke, a Republican from Massachusetts, introduced the bill in Congress.); Nixon signed the Philadelphia Plan, requiring government contractors to hire minority workers (Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had already identified Affirmative Action as necessary to redress the effects of racism.); Nixon signed an executive order establishing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and signed into law the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Lyndon B. Johnson having earlier submitted a comprehensive occupational health and safety bill to Congress.

The Democratic Party is the party of integrity. Reagan had 26 in the executive branch convicted of crimes, Nixon 55, George W. Bush 16, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton 1 each, Barack Obama zero. Since 1968, Republicans, with 28 years in office, have had 120 Federal criminal indictments, 89 convictions, and 34 prison sentences. Democrats, with 20 years in office, have had three indictments, one conviction, and one prison sentence.

So far there have been 55 indictments in Trump’s administration, campaign, or organization, five convictions, and three imprisonments, plus 153 instances of foreign assistance to his campaign.

W. Royal Stokes

Elkins

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