Greenfield: Un-kept promises

By Jeff Greenfield
CNN Senior Analyst

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- The president talked about immigration, health care and energy Tuesday night.

But if you want a measure of how hard it is to achieve progress in these areas, just look back a few years -- or a few decades -- to see an awful lot of similar talk that led to...not much.

For instance, here's President Bush on immigration Tuesday night:

"Extending hope and opportunity in our country requires an immigration system worthy of America, with laws that are fair and borders that are secure. When laws and borders are routinely violated, this harms the interests of our country. To secure our border, we are doubling the size of the Border Patrol, and funding new infrastructure and technology. (Watch President Bush argue for comprehensive immigration reform )

OK? Here's what President Reagan said during a presidential debate in 1984 -- that's 1984 -- about an immigration bill he'd signed.

"And I'm going to do everything I can, and all of us in the administration are, to join in again when Congress is back at it to get an immigration bill that will give us once again control of our borders."

Back when Reagan spoke, Time Magazine reported there were anywhere from 3 to 6 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Today, estimates run as high as 12 million.

Or take health care. Here's what Bush said Tuesday:

"A future of hope and opportunity requires that all our citizens have affordable and available health care. When it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled, and poor children. We will meet those responsibilities. (Watch Bush pitch his new health care initiative)

And this is what President Nixon said in his 1974 message -- 33 years ago:

"I shall propose a sweeping new program that will assure comprehensive health insurance protection to millions of Americans who cannot now obtain it or afford it...."

Nixon's health care plan -- along with his presidency -- was wiped out by the rising waters of the Watergate scandal. But 20 years after Nixon spoke, President Clinton launched a major political effort on health care -- and put his wife in charge of shaping the program.

In a dramatic moment, Clinton brandished a pen and warned the Congress:

"Hear me clearly. If the legislation you send me does not guarantee every American private health insurance that can never be taken away, I will take this pen, veto that legislation, and we'll come right back here and start over again."

The health care plan died an ignominious death a few months later -- as did Democratic control of the Congress.

And what about energy independence? President Bush was rhetorically adamant on Tuesday night, saying:

"Let us build on the work we have done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years. When we do that we will have cut our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East." (Watch Bush call for a reduction in gasoline use )

That was much the same pledge made by Nixon in 1974, when he said "Let this be our national goal. At the end of the decade in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need to provide our jobs, to heat our homes, and to keep our transportation going."

At the time, according to a Wall Street Journal report this week, the United States was importing 35 percent of its oil.

Five years later, President Carter made this promise in a nationally televised address:

"I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation."

By then, we were importing 37 percent of our oil. And now? We're up to about 60 percent.

What's the lesson here?

Our political system, for all of its virtues, just isn't very good at dealing with long-term dilemmas. In fact, the most hopeful prospect for dealing with immigration, energy and health care is that we're now at a point where the problems are staring us dead in the face.

Winston Churchill once said, "The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative."

That may be where we are now.

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