Bush proposals find little success

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President Bush's record of getting his State of the Union proposals enacted, after successes in his early years in office, has dropped off substantially.

Of the 12 initiatives that he proposed or called on Congress to pass in 2006, the White House can claim complete success on just three: renewing the Patriot Act, expanding health savings accounts and expanding electronic medical records. That followed unfulfilled calls in 2005 to reform Social Security and the tax code and to pass a guest-worker program for illegal aliens and future immigrants.

That record is a far cry from the major policies Mr. Bush proposed in his 2002, 2003 and 2004 speeches, and later won from Congress, including a stimulus package to pull out of recession in 2002, a $15 billion fund to combat AIDS, a prescription-drug benefit in Medicare, passage of the authority to more freely negotiate trade agreements and the goal of cutting the deficit in half.

This year, Mr. Bush is dropping the laundry-list-style proposals and will instead focus on five major themes, on which he thinks he can find common ground with Democrats.

"I just think some of the old State of the Union formulas have kind of run their course," White House press secretary Tony Snow said last week, acknowledging that the new format is in part a reflection of the new political reality of Democrats controlling Congress.

Clark Judge, a speechwriter for President Reagan and Vice President George Bush, said the recent poor record of accomplishment is part of Mr. Bush's overall political problem -- falling approval ratings.

"That's part of why his numbers dropped -- that the achievements, what he set out to do, particularly in domestic policy, didn't happen, Social Security reform being the big one, but so too making the tax cuts permanent," Mr. Judge said.

Democrats said they just want to see action out of Mr. Bush.

"I wish the president would stop talking about things and just do something," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

In 2002, Mr. Bush's first State of the Union -- as a new president he did not deliver such an address in 2001 -- came as Democrats controlled the Senate. Yet with split control, the president rang up a series of substantial successes. In addition to the stimulus package and trade authority, he also proposed the USA Freedom Corps and won a new package of post-Enron scandal corporate rules.