Our system of government does not encourage sudden changes in direction. And, taken as a whole, the policy initiatives of the Bush administration to date do not amount to radical departures.
On any number of fronts, though, the actions taken by the new occupants of the West Wing remind us that there are differences between Republicans and Democrats and that it matters who wins and loses on Election Day.
That reality was brought home to environmentalists concerned about global warming when the president reversed a campaign promise and told his Environmental Protection Agency not to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants.
But the about-face was the exception that obscures the point; the vast majority of the changes Bush has imposed, or is seeking, are quite consistent with the stances he took as a candidate. A few relate to issues he never mentioned while running. But his positions on those haven't come as a shock either.
Let's begin with the executive orders, none of which would have emanated from a Gore White House.
On March 20, Bush scrapped a regulation, promulgated in the closing days of the Clinton administration, that would have lowered the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water. He's done away with several Clinton-era rules favored by organized labor, including one that set up labor-management councils in unionized federal workplaces.
Last week, in a move that elated conservative activists, Bush eliminated the traditional role of the American Bar Assn. in pre-screening would-be nominees for federal judgeships. He has used the powers of his office to reverse the Clinton administration's policy and make sure that no U.S. foreign aid goes to international groups that support abortion rights.
On the legislative front, Bush has already signed one bill and indicated his desire to sign a second that Gore surely would have vetoed. The one Bush signed revoked a set of sweeping (and arguably over-reaching) ergonomics regulations intended to reduce repetitive stress injuries on the job; those rules went into effect during Clinton's final week. The one he plans to approve toughens the nation's bankruptcy laws as they apply to consumers; Clinton vetoed a similar bill late last year.
Bush continues to push for his 10-year tax cut, priced at a minimum of $1.6 trillion, a package that has numerous benefits for people at the top of the income scale and that would, in the short run, inject little new money into an economy seemingly in need of stimulus. His determination to see his entire package turned into law has made him slow to warm to stripped-down bipartisan proposals to provide immediate rebates to all taxpayers.
His opposition to outlawing all "soft money" contributions to political parties has emboldened the opponents of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform bill (which Gore favored) and complicated its prospects for becoming law.
Last week, Bush reiterated his threat to veto any patients' bill of rights that does not include significant limitations on an individual's right to sue an HMO and on damages that might be awarded.
His budget priorities include more money for education but, according to The New York Times, less for child-care assistance for the poor and for programs designed to fight child abuse.
In foreign policy, the early signs suggest that Bush is adopting an approach that is more unilateral in nature and less enamored of negotiation than the one Gore envisioned.
Whether these orders, proposals and positions are good or bad isn't the point, at least not for this column on this day. What I'm saying is that the cumulative policy landscape would look much different today had Al Gore, not George W. Bush, become the 43rd president of the United States. Or had the Democrats managed to capture either house of Congress.
Elections have consequences.
It is often said, by Ralph Nader and others who speak of the constraints of the two-party system, that American politics is fought between the 40-yard lines of the playing field in terms of the ideology that governs, the interest groups that control and the options that get considered. I don't disagree.
But it doesn't mean that the game's not worth playing. Or that it doesn't matter who's in the White House, calling the shots.
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