A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

     Old Democrats and New Democrats, for all their differences, have had at least one thing in common: seeking to reduce tariffs and bolster free trade. Grover Cleveland reduced tariffs. Woodrow Wilson reduced tariffs by more than 40 percent and transitioned federal income to direct taxation on wealthy individuals. While unsuccessful, President Obama proposed a Trans-Pacific Partnership, and he did manage to open free trade with South Korea and Colombia in 2011. President Biden has already sought to reduce tariff rates in Southeast Asia to compete with China. Perhaps the most notable example of this comes from President Clinton, who, aside from signing over 300 trade agreements with nations, secured the passage of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.      NAFTA actually originated in 1988, when President Reagan passed a United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement. In 1992, President Bush secured a skeletal agreement, but it faced stiff opposition in Canada and the United Stat

     Woodrow Wilson had the most successful first two years of just about any presidency. He laid out his New Freedom domestic agenda and achieved it in its entirety. The Clayton Antitrust Act and Federal Trade Commission Act? Done. The Revenue Act? Done. The Adamson Act? Done. Another achievement: the Federal Reserve Act, the focus of today's anniversary. Establishing the eight-hour workday, enacting new antitrust legislation, pummeling the tariff to establish an income tax on the rich, granting women the vote, guiding the United States through World War I, providing aid to farmers, proposing the League of Nations, and acquiring the U.S. Virgin Islands while granting autonomy to Cuba and the Philippines would have been enough to earn Wilson a top spot among presidents, but he also established America's modern banking system.      Introduced by Carter Glass on August 29th, 1913, passed by the House on September 18th, and passed by the Senate on December 18th before being amende

       Between 2014 and 2017, with the help of the Holy See and the government of Canada, Barack Obama was able to restore relations with Cuba while also continuing to develop America's relationship with Vietnam and becoming the first sitting president to visit Myanmar and Laos.       Known as the "Cuban Thaw," this process was announced by Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro on December 17th, 2014. It resulted in the reopening of American embassies in Cuba and vice-versa, the lifting of travel and banking restrictions, the removal of Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List, and Obama becoming the first president to visit Cuba since the Cold War.      While Trump attempted to reverse these policies, he was largely unsuccessful, and America continues to improve its relationships with countries it once opposed during the Cold War.

       On December 15th, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson, in office for less than a month in the wake of the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, signed his first major bill into law: the Clean Air Act. 60 years ago today, the law built upon a decade of research by setting the first requirements for controlling air pollution. The need for data and enforcement led to the founding of the EPA in 1970. The Act would later be amended in 1965 to establish regulations for automobile emissions and again in 1990 to make further progress.      Also noteworthy is that the law was the first that allowed citizens to file civil suits in response to corporate violations of regulations. This power has since been used thousands of times by local citizens and environmental groups to check pollution and threats facing endangered species and habitat; litigation is now one of the pillars of the environmental movement.

     60 years ago today, President Kennedy became the final president in the United States to be assassinated. As four were shot dead between 1865 and 1963, security was greatly tightened for American legislators and executives after Lee Harvey Oswald delivered fatal bullets to Kennedy's neck and head in Dallas, Texas.      Oswald, a veteran with Russian ties who later murdered a police officer, was shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days later. Although the Warren Report, in part composed by Gerald Ford, later clarified that Oswald acted alone, his assassination by Ruby as well as Kennedy's life (including his youth, his socialite family, and his affairs) have led to a continued flurry of conspiracy theories.      Many elderly people, much as people remember the 9/11 terrorist attacks, still remember where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated, including my grandmother, who was 18 at the time. Kennedy is often listed as among the five greatest American pres

       Jimmy Carter often called marrying his wife, Rosalynn, his "biggest accomplishment." Perhaps, therefore, it comes as no surprise that Carter made advancing the rights of women a priority of his administration. 1977 was the last year in American history in which every member of the Senate was a man; a quarter of senators are now women, and, perhaps someday, the number will grow to be the 51:49 ratio it deserves to be.      When Carter appointed 262 federal judges from 1977 to 1981, he made sure a record number of them were people of color as well as women, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1980.       On October 31st, 1978, Carter signed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act as a direct response to the Supreme Court ruling General Electric Company vs. Gilbert , a 1976 abomination of justice that ruled pregnancy-related firings did not constitute sex discrimination. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act amended the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include pregnancy as a protected status; t