Obama’s tenure has been very productive so far

Tom Harper, Henderson

Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011 | 2:02 a.m.

Kudos to Dwayne Morton’s Wednesday letter to the editor, headlined “GOP shows plenty of hypocrisy on health care reform.” He noted President Richard Nixon proposed universal health care coverage but that it was killed during the Watergate fiasco and, therefore, the recent call for repeal of the reform is GOP hypocrisy and the Republicans should “lead, follow or get out of the way.”

Likewise, kudos to Robert Blanner’s Saturday letter to the editor, headlined “It’s easier to complain than to solve,” in which he points out that now that the Republicans have control of the House, very little has been said about jobs and the deficit, which proves that you should not complain if you have no solutions.

In contrast, during the first two years of his administration, President Barack Obama — in addition to securing passage of health care reform, which many Americans fought in favor of for more than 50 years, accomplished the following:

• the Recovery Act, which rebuilt the American auto industry and prevented permanent outsourcing of a unique American industry;

• middle-class tax cuts;

• credit card reform;

• children’s health insurance;

• nuclear weapons agreement;

• a new GI Bill;

• repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell”;

• protection against hate crimes; and

• fair pay for women in the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

While not all necessary legislative change was accomplished, isn’t it a testament to President Obama and a majority of the Democrats that the above changes took place in the face of such obstructionist partisan politics?

Change we can believe in.