outdone: more on Obama’s legislative accomplishments

February 25th, 2008 · No Comments

My recent birthday and related festivities have kept me from posting, but I should be back on schedule within a day or two.

For the moment, I wanted to mention that the same day I posted about Obama’s “legislative accomplishments,” Grassroots Mom over at Daily Kos posted a much more thorough and compelling analysis.

She spent a few hours on the Library of Congress website, reading the bills authored or co-sponsored by Clinton and those authored or co-sponsored by Obama. She found that both Senators had solid records of achievement but concluded that Obama’s bills are more ambitious in scope while Clinton’s are targeted and apparently savvy.

One example:

[Hillary] introduced one bill that offered tax credits for building owners who clean up lead paint. Which is a very good thing. And Obama is a co-sponsor. “S.1793 : A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a tax credit for property owners who remove lead-based paint hazards.”

Obama’s anti-lead bill (S. 1306) directed the Consumer Product Safety Commission to classify certain children’s products containing lead as banned hazardous substances. He had another bill prohibitting the interstate transport of children’s products containing lead. (S.2132) And Hillary co-sponsored each of these.

In other words, they both care about protecting children from lead.

The difference is in the scope and the approach.

Obama’s bill shows how he thinks big: do everything we can to make sure that lead-painted Thomas the Tank Engine toys don’t get into the hands and mouths of millions of toddlers in this country.

Or Hillary: encourage people by offering tax credits to clean up lead paint in old buildings. People have been talking about lead paint in old buildings hurting kids in living in inner cities, since, well when I was a kid — for decades. If it is still a big problem, is offering tax credits for clean up, i.e. scrape down the walls and repaint, the best way to protect kids from lead?

How many of you parents have lead paint problems? How many have (or had) toxic Thomas the Tank Engine Toys? They are everywhere. The local bookstore and kid’s shoe store and the doctor’s office and the preschool and the toystore all have train tables. There is nowhere you can go anymore with toddlers that doesn’t have a Thomas the Tank Engine train table covered with toxic toys. But that’s just my feeling.

Obama’s bills risk pissing off the toy industry and the Chinese. Hillary’s risks nothing.

Intriguingly, though, she finds that “Obama appears to have a better record last year in the Senate on getting his bills and amendments passed than does Clinton.” She says she was “blown away” by Obama’s record, and by the scope and variety of his proposals, including bills and ammendments concerning “[H]ealth care[,] energy, [...] Iran, voting, veterans, global warming, campaign finance and lobbyists, Blackwater, global poverty, nuclear proliferation, and education” and lists examples from each category.

Her conclusion, ultimately, is “Obama is the superior choice in every way.”

Read the entire post here.

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