So, Trump was elected a year ago.

[robkelk]

What's he done?

He's signed 58 bills into law, including such memorable legislation as HR 609 (an act to designate a health care centre in Butler County, PA as the "Abie Abraham VA Clinic") and HR 534 (the U.S. Wants to Compete for a World Expo Act). Not a record - Jimmy Carter signed 70 acts into law in his first year. Okay, HR510 is important... but it's no "new health care plan" or "start building a wall".

The stock market went up 21% year-over-year. In the first year of John F. Kennedy's presidency, the stock market went up 26.5%; in the first year of George H. W. Bush's presidency, it went up 22.7%. So, good but not record-setting.

The U.S. unemployment rate is about where it was under the last year of Obama's administration. The percentage is lower, but the number of jobs created is also lower. So, no real change there.

Trump's taken almost as many days off in his first year (60) as Jimmy Carter took in his entire administration (79).

More people dislike him than like him. That's a record for the end of the first year of a presidency - even Bill Clinton was liked by more people than disliked him at the end of his first year. (Granted, the numbers only go back 70 years, to Harry Truman.) Also, his overall approval rating has been trending downward since day 15 of his presidency.

And, according to the Toronto Star (the newspaper of record in the largest city in Canada), he's been caught lying an average of 2.9 times a day - 835 times in his first 290 days in office. Here's the list.

[hazard]

Something to keep in mind with the economical matters; at least for the first two years or so of Trump's presidency that's not a result of his actions.

It's the result of the Obama administration's economic policies and their ongoing effects. We're not going to see clear results of Trump's effect on the economy until the 2018 election at the earliest.

I'm curious, is Jimmy Carter a Democrat or a Republican, because the total days off for the previous Democratic administrations (both ran 8 years, and spent about 340ish days on average on vacation) and the previous Republican one (close to 1100) offer interesting insights in the Republican and Democratic work ethics.

The lack of keystone laws signed by Trump is unsurprising. Or would be, if it was a Democratically held Congress stonewalling legislature out of spite for the manner the Republicans acted in Obama's later term. But it isn't. The party on whose ticket Trump ran and is in complete control of Congress is apparently less able to pass law than Obama was while the Republicans held Congress. This is worrisome, especially in a strongly partisan Congress divided among party lines.

[DHBirr]

The party on whose ticket Trump ran and is in complete control of Congress is apparently less able to pass law than Obama was while the Republicans held Congress. This is worrisome, especially in a strongly partisan Congress divided among party lines.

Why do you call it "worrisome"?  I'd think anyone sane would be glad that President Windrip's enablers can't get things done.

[robkelk]

...
I'm curious, is Jimmy Carter a Democrat or a Republican, because the total days off for the previous Democratic administrations (both ran 8 years, and spent about 340ish days on average on vacation) and the previous Republican one (close to 1100) offer interesting insights in the Republican and Democratic work ethics.
...

Jimmy Carter is a Democrat.

This paragraph from his Wikipedia page is interesting:

On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all evaders of the Vietnam War drafts. During Carter's term as president, two new cabinet-level departments, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, were established. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and the return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. On the economic front he confronted persistent "stagflation", a combination of high inflation, high unemployment and slow growth. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response to the invasion, Carter ended détente, escalated the Cold War, and led the international boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. In 1980, Carter faced a primary challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy, but Carter won re-nomination at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Carter lost the general election in an electoral landslide to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Polls of historians and political scientists usually rank Carter as a below-average president.

He did all that in one term, and he's considered to be below-average.

[hazard]

Why do you call it "worrisome"?  I'd think anyone sane would be glad that President Windrip's enablers can't get things done.

I am glad.

But it's worrisome because this points towards major structural issues in the Republican party. In a time of partisan partyline unity the majority party that has more than half the seats and the presidency and thus nearly guaranteed to succeed in bringing its bills to the floor and signed into law cannot do so, has not done so in fact for a year for any bill they ran on. Despite multiple attempts to do so.

This shows a massive failure of the Republican party in its politics. More worrisome, most of those proposals they failed on are a result of either the public getting angry at them for betraying them (and forcing party members to heed them for fear of a recall election or certain failure to reelect) or by members getting angry the party is attempting to ram legislature through the process without proper review, which implies rather strongly that the party leadership knows that with proper review their constituents would get angry at them for their betrayal.

Jimmy Carter is a Democrat.

This paragraph from his Wikipedia page is interesting:

On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all evaders of the Vietnam War drafts. During Carter's term as president, two new cabinet-level departments, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, were established. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and the return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. On the economic front he confronted persistent "stagflation", a combination of high inflation, high unemployment and slow growth. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response to the invasion, Carter ended détente, escalated the Cold War, and led the international boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. In 1980, Carter faced a primary challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy, but Carter won re-nomination at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Carter lost the general election in an electoral landslide to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Polls of historians and political scientists usually rank Carter as a below-average president.

He did all that in one term, and he's considered to be below-average.

...

The US desperately needs more Democrats and Democrat party presidents. Preferably more such presidents of Jimmy Carter's stripes; the man appears to have been more able in 4 years than Obama or Clinton were in 8.

[robkelk]

Why do you call it "worrisome"?  I'd think anyone sane would be glad that President Windrip's enablers can't get things done.

I am glad.

But it's worrisome because this points towards major structural issues in the Republican party. In a time of partisan partyline unity the majority party that has more than half the seats and the presidency and thus nearly guaranteed to succeed in bringing its bills to the floor and signed into law cannot do so, has not done so in fact for a year for any bill they ran on. Despite multiple attempts to do so.

This shows a massive failure of the Republican party in its politics. More worrisome, most of those proposals they failed on are a result of either the public getting angry at them for betraying them (and forcing party members to heed them for fear of a recall election or certain failure to reelect) or by members getting angry the party is attempting to ram legislature through the process without proper review, which implies rather strongly that the party leadership knows that with proper review their constituents would get angry at them for their betrayal.

Jimmy Carter is a Democrat.

This paragraph from his Wikipedia page is interesting:

On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all evaders of the Vietnam War drafts. During Carter's term as president, two new cabinet-level departments, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, were established. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and the return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. On the economic front he confronted persistent "stagflation", a combination of high inflation, high unemployment and slow growth. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response to the invasion, Carter ended détente, escalated the Cold War, and led the international boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. In 1980, Carter faced a primary challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy, but Carter won re-nomination at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Carter lost the general election in an electoral landslide to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Polls of historians and political scientists usually rank Carter as a below-average president.

He did all that in one term, and he's considered to be below-average.

...

The US desperately needs more Democrats and Democrat party presidents. Preferably more such presidents of Jimmy Carter's stripes; the man appears to have been more able in 4 years than Obama or Clinton were in 8.

He was and still is a driving force behind Habitat for Humanity, the group that helps promote affordable housing by going out and building it.

I have nothing but respect for Mr. Carter.

[Labster]

It's kind of heartening the respect I hear for Jimmy Carter these days.  He was not terribly effective as President, largely due to events beyond his control.  But I feel he is the best Ex-President that America has ever had.  And that includes competition from Taft, who went to the Supreme Court, and Washington, who had the good sense to quit the job and stay out of politics for the sake of the republic.  Carter is a man who is always willing to run into crises to help negotiate peace, builds houses for the poor in spare time, and is largely responsible for the impending extinction of the parasitic guinea worm.  Trump has always wanted to great, and Carter has always wanted to be good.

The good news for us here is that the Republicans are going to fail.  This is also the bad news.  As much fun as it is to have supermajority rule here in California, it's also worrying that the CA GOP is continuing its slide into irrelevance here.  Both because it would be nice to have a functioning multiparty democracy, and because it means that things will be so much worse in the rest of the country.  I have friends that are establishment conservatives, as establishment as they come, and they're railing against their own party leadership.  It's sad times.

I truly believe the GOP won't be able to pass a tax cut this year, either.  For many reasons, because Trump is a distraction: he neither knows nor cares about the details of bills.  He concedes negotiating points over Twitter, then clarifies that he'll keep it as a negotiating point, but it won't make it in the final bill (what???).  And it's hard to build a support base for a bill when indictments keep happening around the executive branch.  

The bill itself isn't better.  Eliminating certain deductions that target coastal states will result in tax increase here (home mortgage, state taxes), and that will force Republicans in those states into a game of chicken with different parts of their base.   My pet peeve is that the bill will increase taxes on grad students by $2000 to $10000 annually, by eliminating the deduction for tuition waivers.  These are my complaints before even getting to the beneficiaries of the tax cuts.  Bills this extensive can pass as part of a grand bargain between the parties, so that everyone shares the blame.  But on razor-thing margins, run by people who appear to have no idea wtf they are doing?  Not a chance.  We'll still have to fight it anyway, sadly.

Saw the groundhog today, looks like it's gonna be another year of failure for the Republican party.