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It's a huge problem that when the opposition comes into power, they immediately try to revert and undermine what the previous party did. Not because of merit, but just because of partisanship. So you end up with a lot of programs that get started and after a while get repealed or maintained badly. This costs the country a lot of money.

The ACA is a classical example. Instead of improving it or proposing a real replacement, they campaign for repealing it and some incantations of "free market" without explaining how patients won't get screwed over even more than now.


Please provide examples of Democrats undoing good policy/legislation just because it was passed by a prior Republican administration.
"Please provide examples of Democrats undoing good policy/legislation just because it was passed by a prior Republican administration."

It's going to be hard to argue with people on the basis of what was "good". That's subjective, and the very basis for why there are separate parties.

> going to be hard to argue with people on the basis of what was "good"

I'd expand this to examples of either party undoing legislation the other championed and passed. It's exceedingly rare, in large part by design.

That's not how the opposition is undoes something. The opposition reduces funding and scope and passes legislation that effectively nullifies previous laws.

The reason Republicans are mentioned above is that they have a well documented public history of endorsing and carrying out these kinds of shenanigans. Democrats, though cut from the same cloth, somehow manage to be one step above on an imaginary decency scale.

I was mostly focused on the policy part of their comment. A lot of the changes come based on a level or two removed. You generally don't see laws fully flip flopping. Instead it's quite common for someone to get appointed and then their decisions are the ones that change policies (especially internal policies at various agencies). SCOTUS, both now and in the past is a good example of the external law/policies changing based on interpretation. But yeah, actual repeal of laws is very rare.
I still hope we can undo the "permanent" tax cuts of 2017 at some point.
Which ones specifically? I haven't followed how the individual elements have played out. Many of the elements seem minor, but I don't remember if the CBO broke down which portions would create the deficit. I assume it's the corporate pieces, but don't know which ones.
Why would you expect that?

We didn't even allow the 2001 Bush tax cuts to automatically expire at the end of 2010, despite control of the House, Senate, and White House passing from the Republicans to the Democrats during the intervening years.

I would give the example of the 2001 Bush tax cuts.

Since the Republicans lacked 60 votes in the Senate and zero Democrats supported the Bush tax cuts, The law enacting them was passed using budget reconciliation rules.

> Budget reconciliation is a special parliamentary procedure of the United States Congress set up to expedite the passage of certain federal budget legislation in the Senate. The procedure overrides the Senate's filibuster rules, which may otherwise require a 60-vote supermajority for passage. Bills described as reconciliation bills can pass the Senate by a simple majority of 51 votes or 50 votes plus the vice president's as the tie-breaker

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States...

Using budget reconciliation rules automatically set a sunset date for the tax cuts, after which they would automatically expire.

When the tax cuts should have automatically expired at the end of 2010, the Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House. Despite frequent claims over the decade that tax cuts for the rich were morally reprehensible, the Democrats did not allow the tax cuts to automatically expire, extending them for two years in the lame duck session of Congress, and then most were made permanent two years later before they should have expired again.

Despite frequent claims over the decade that tax cuts for the rich were morally reprehensible, the Democrats did not allow the tax cuts to automatically expire, extending them for two years in the lame duck session of Congress, and then most were made permanent two years later before they should have expired again.

Isn't that the opposite of "undoing legislation"?

Isn't this the opposite of what you're saying? Democrats didn't undue policy just because it was passed by the GOP
The great increase in illegal entry into the country through the southern border is a good recent example. Though, I suppose this is predicated upon it being "good policy" that illegal immigration be slowed.
What policy/legislation was undone to lead to that?
I think a new policy wasn’t enacted because it would make the democrats look good.
What increase? The numbers are very constant.
I would love to see your sources; everything I've seen across the partisan spectrum shows a large increase from the 2010-2020 period to 2020 and onwards.
That's not a policy. A policy would be reverting immigration laws.
Our current border situation...?
But the Democrats haven't made an¥ significant changes to immigration policy. In fact, they offered an bipartisan immigration bill that tilted significantly toward the Republicans' wishlist and the GOP rejected because Trump wants to run on immigration and giving Biden a political win in that area was unacceptable to thim (even though many on the left found the proposed legislation very disagreeable).

The main change at the border is a larger number of migrants. Migration trends are up globally, for a variety of reasons including climate change.

Perhaps people should stop treating the president like a king, and you know, actually pass laws the way our government was designed to work...
Congress honestly seems to have completely shut down as a body able to accomplish anything. The president is all we have
This is a feature of the US constitutional system, not a bug. It's designed such that things move very, very slowly. If Congress isn't able to pass laws, it probably reflects a division in how the voting populace feels about the subject of such laws.

The president may be all we have, but he is constitutionally forbidden from acting like a king. Though, of course, that hasn't stopped presidents from trying.

100% Correct. People all too often look at Congress and say "gee, they aren't passing all the things I want them to do, therefore Congress must be broken!"

This fails to realize Congress works entirely the way it was designed. As you said, inaction == lack of consensus.

Imaging running a country where significant ways of life (influenced by laws) change willy-nilly depending on the flavor of the day? The legal whiplash would be absurd.

So, people often look to the president as some sort of king analog, and demand action via Executive Order - then cry foul when the next president undoes the previous one's EO's... it's lunacy and not a good way to run a society.

> This fails to realize Congress works entirely the way it was designed.

Don't really think so.

The 1929 Permanent Apportionment Act subverted the intentions of the founders and clearly swayed the power balance back towards rural areas, even though they have equal representation in the senate.

“ it probably reflects a division in how the voting populace feels about the subject of such laws.”

I don’t think that’s correct. There is way too much propaganda coming from the parties to think that voters have made up their minds based on the facts. It’s actually quite hard to get the facts because the media is mostly reporting politics like they report a football match.

I'm actually curious on the reverse. What programs did the GOP start that were cancelled by the Dems? Note I'm a biased liberal, so potentially the reversals might've been propagandized to me as lifting restrictions or some other such political language and I might be unaware of the actual policies.
A couple of examples would be reduction of some of the Reagan-era defense spending under the Clinton administration, and partial rollback of some of the Reagan-era tax cuts under the Clinton administration.

Of course these were not complete elimination of programs, but adjustments. And you could argue that there were other reasons besides partisanship, like the end of the Cold War and budgetary issues.

> reduction of some of the Reagan-era defense spending under the Clinton administration

...you mean when the USSR collapsed, and Cold War ended?

You're totally right that it's especially bad with e-branch stuff, but it's not necessarily limited to that. Most programs established by congress will be given an expiration date beyond which it would require another act of congress to reauthorize. I think it's mandatory for anything that costs money, basically. I can see the basic rationale that if something is not popular enough to be reauthorized, why keep doing it, but it sure does contribute to instability not knowing if you can depend on something important continuing to exist.
In 1991 the ACA was the conservative proposal, but in 2010 when it was passed under the Obama administration it suddenly became communist marxism. Sigh.
It's known as Cleek's Law: "Today's Conservatism is the opposite of whatever Liberals want today, updated daily."
In good faith, when have the Democrats have done this?
> ACA is a classical example. Instead of improving it or proposing a real replacement, they campaign for repealing it

The GOP has controlled the government mulitple times since ACA passed. That nothing was done shows it's a talking point.

Legislation is hard to overturn. Executive actions, less so.

You have a pretty loose definition of talking point. It was pretty widely televised that McCain broke ranks with the party to prevent an ACA repeal [1] but ignoring that event there were many attempts over the course of 7 months [2] to replace it. That time could've been invested into literally anything else.

But yeah a lot of things end up being campaign talking points. Like Obama saying they'd enshrine abortion rights into law and uh didn't.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2017/07/27/539907467/senate-careens-towa...

[2]: https://ballotpedia.org/Timeline_of_ACA_repeal_and_replace_e...

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