"We haven’t bled enough. It’s never enough for these sons of bitches."

[joshcryer]

61. Everything there is just previous policy implementation.

Most of which LBJ's administration got the ball rolling on. There's one thing you don't do as President, and that's roll back policy that is already in place and moving forward. Even getting out of Vietnam was under Johnson's timetable (Operation Menu), which, ironically, was to be included in the articles of impeachment, since it was a secret operation that Nixon undertook.

SSI, EPA, OSHA, NOAA, those were all things that were in the works. The EPA was born out of necessity, and Nixon actually vetoed one of the Clean Water Acts. With regards to the EPA, Congress passed NEPA which forced Nixon's hand on the matter. The famous "literally now or never" quote came after NEPA's scathing reports about environmental quality came out. Basically he had no choice. NOAA, like the EPA, was merely an obvious merging of various agencies. Nixon didn't spearhead it, it was just seen as a logical policy move (in reality it wasn't that big of a deal since all it did was put the Geodetic Survey, Fishery Service, and Weather Bureau under the power of one administration). OSHA was started under Johnson, Nixon just signed off on what the Labor Bureau was wanting since 1968. SSI is an interesting case but the argument can be made that it merely followed the policies set forth in the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (War on Poverty).

I'll grant you Roe v. Wade, however, I think that decision was a pretty cut and dry decision, and we had not yet experienced the far right religious atmosphere that followed Regan.

I have an issue giving credit to Republicans for progressive policy, especially if it's clear that policy was, simply, a continuation of Democrat policy. I think the negative income tax proposal was nice, but even Goldwater proposed something like that, and his platform was championed on this forum (despite it being a MIC nightmare), except there were no major efforts to achieve it. Same goes for single payer. Everyone and their mother was promising that back then but somehow no one managed to do it.