THE PARTY OF GOVERNANCE:

Highlights of first year of 108th U.S. Congress (Reuters, 11.25.03)

Highlights of the first year of the 108th Congress, which neared completion of its work on Tuesday: [...]

MEDICARE: Congress approved the biggest overhaul of Medicare since the federal health program for the elderly and disabled was conceived in 1965 as a part of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." The Republican-led House and Senate added a prescription drug benefit to the program along with free-market reforms.

TAXES: Congress passed a $350 billion, 10-year tax cut that accelerated planned income tax cuts and lowered taxes on dividends and capital gains to 15 percent. The tax cut was sought by Bush as a way to boost the economy. Lawmakers put off until early next year further action on legislation that would repeal tax subsidies for U.S. exporters that the World Trade Organization said violate international trade rules.

ABORTION: Congress passed a ban on a procedure critics call "partial birth" abortion after years of debate. If upheld by the courts, it would be the first federal restriction on an abortion procedure since the 1973 "Roe versus Wade" decision upholding abortion rights. [...]

JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS: Democrats blocked six of Bush's most conservative judicial nominees, two after an around-the-clock Senate debate during which Republicans accused them of unprecedented obstructionism. Democrats denied the charge, noting that they helped confirm 168 of Bush's other judicial candidates the past three years.

OVERTIME REGULATIONS: The administration has said that despite objections by most members of Congress it plans to implement changes in work rules that foes say would cost millions of Americans their overtime pay. Foes vow to keep battling the regulations in Congress, and labor promises to challenge them in court.