For Obama, 'lame duck' Congress ends on high note

The legislative accomplishments were anything but lame in the post-election period, according to analysts and even some of President Barack Obama's Republican adversaries who begrudged him some late 2010 victories, including a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia and repeal of a ban on openly gay troops.

Having described his Democrats' drubbing at the ballot box in November as a "shellacking", Obama headed to a Hawaii vacation this week on a high, savoring the latest in a litany of legislative victories that marked his first two years in office.

"The 111th Congress is one of the most productive Congresses in American history, certainly since Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society' and the programs that were passed in the mid-1960s," Stephen Hess, an expert on American politics at the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington, told AFP.

"History will tell over time the value of what (Congress has done) but in terms of sheer production it is really an exceptional record."

It began in January 2009, when a fresh president put forward a comprehensive plan to revive a US economy hit by the worst crisis since the 1930s. One month later, politicians passed a massive 814-billion-dollar stimulus package.

Then in early 2010, after months of negotiations with an entrenched Republican opposition, a Democratic majority Congress adopted health insurance reform. Shortly after, a major reform of financial regulation was adopted to counter a Wall Street meltdown.

For John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, the first Obama Congress was "perhaps not quite at the same level (as Johnson's) but certainly in the same category in terms of sheer productivity."

Obama's congressional conquests stuttered in 2009, when unemployment rose past the 10 percent mark and the upstart ultra-conservative Tea Party movement galvanized American voters frustrated over the economy and Washington.

That carried over into mounting disaffection for Obama this year, with Democrats suffering a thrashing at the mid-term elections on November 2.

And yet despite that defeat, the Democrats, who next month will pass control of the House of Representatives to Republicans while keeping a diminished majority in the Senate, rallied in the eight-week lame duck session that marks the period before a shift in congressional power.

Within a few weeks, Congress managed to extend temporary Bush-era tax cuts, end the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" rule to allow gays to serve openly in the military for the first time, and, on the final day of the session, ratify the new START nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia.

Obama was beaming on Wednesday, highlighting his own persistence -- "If I believe in something strongly, I stay on it" -- and overcoming partisan bickering to build the bipartisan compromise that allowed the laws to squeeze through.

"I think it's fair to say that this has been the most productive post-election period we've had in decades," Obama said.

As he spent the first day of his Hawaii vacation mostly playing golf, Obama's campaign operation sent out an email to supporters touting the "real and meaningful" change in the lives of Americans due to the legislative victories.

"Let's steady ourselves with the resolve to continue pressing forward, because the coming year will hold new challenges -- battles that have yet to be fought, and stories of progress that have yet to be written," Obama wrote in the Christmas email.

Even some political adversaries were impressed with Democratic efforts in recent weeks.

Senator Lindsey Graham said his fellow Republicans "capitulated" to Democratic pressure, but in the end the lawmaker took his hat off to Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"When people say President Obama had a great two weeks, they're absolutely right," Graham told Fox News Radio.

"Even though I don't like what happened, I do give them credit."

In 2011, the Republicans in the 112th Congress will be looking to blunt some of the Democratic progress, and they'll start by wielding a sharp budget axe.

Obsessed with controlling runaway expenditures, Republicans have vowed to conduct intense administrative oversight, and slash 100 billion dollars from the next budget.

© Copyright AFP Agence France-Presse GmbH - All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed. All reproduction or redistribution is expressly forbidden without the prior written agreement of AFP.