Trump one year in: Promises kept

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump often brags he's done more in his first year in office than any other president.

While he's fallen short on many measures and has a strikingly thin legislative record, Trump has followed through on dozens of his campaign promises, overhauling the country's tax system, changing the U.S. posture abroad and upending the lives of hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

A year in, Trump is no closer to making Mexico pay for a border wall than when he made supporters swoon with the promise at those rollicking campaign rallies of 2016.

He's run into legislative roadblocks -- from fellow Republicans, no less -- at big moments, which is why the Obama-era health law survives, wounded but still insuring millions. His own administration's sloppy start explains why none of the laws he pledged to sign in his first 100 days came to reality then and why most are still aspirational.

Nevertheless, Trump has nailed the tax overhaul, his only historic legislative accomplishment to date, won confirmation of a conservative Supreme Court justice and other federal judges and used his executive powers with vigor to slice regulations and pull the U.S. away from international accords he assailed as a candidate.

Courts tied his most provocative actions on immigration and Muslim entry in knots, but illegal border crossings appear to be at historic lows.

The upshot? For all his rogue tendencies, Trump has shaped up as a largely conventional Republican president when measured by his promises kept and in motion.

The Twitter version of Trump may be jazzed with braggadocio about the size of his (nonexistent) nuclear button and his "very stable genius." But the ledger of actions taken is recognizable to Washington: mainstream Republican tax cuts, pro-business policy (with exceptions on trade), curbs on environmental regulation and an approach to health care in the GOP playbook for years.

A look at some of his campaign promises and what's happened with them:

Taxes

Trump and congressional Republicans delivered on an overhaul, substantially lowering corporate taxes and cutting personal income taxes, as promised. It's sizable but not everything Trump said it would be, and it is more tilted to the wealthy than he promised or will admit. He promised a 15 percent tax rate for corporations and settled for 21 percent, still a major drop from 35 percent. He promised three tax brackets; there are still seven. He did not eliminate the estate tax or the alternative minimum tax as he said he would. Fewer people will be subject to those taxes, however, at least temporarily.

"Everybody is getting a tax cut, especially the middle class," he said in the campaign. Most will; some will pay more.

Immigration

Candidate Trump rocked the political landscape when he proposed a temporary ban on all non-U.S. Muslims entering the country. While he's long backed away from such talk, Trump has worked since his first days in office to impose new restrictions on tourists and immigrants, signing executive orders in efforts to make good on his anti-immigration promises had those orders not been blocked by courts.

He's now succeeded in banning the entry of citizens from several Muslim-majority countries and in severely curbing refugee admissions. He's tried to deny certain federal money for cities refusing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Trump is now deep in negotiations over an immigration deal to deliver on other promises, including money for the border wall with Mexico and overhauling the legal immigration system to make it harder for immigrants to sponsor their families, in exchange for extending protections for hundreds of thousands of young people brought to the country illegally as children. They are protections he once slammed as an "illegal" amnesty and pledged to end.

Mexico still isn't ponying up money for the wall.

Health care

Probably nothing exemplifies frustrated ambition more than the Affordable Care Act law Republicans have been trying to dismantle ever since it was enacted in 2010. Trump has declared it dead many times -- he just never got around to killing it.

He made this overpromise in the campaign: "My first day in office, I'm going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability. You're going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost. It's going to be so easy."

Hasn't happened.

Republicans took several runs at repealing and replacing the law last year, only to fall short. The December tax law, though, is knocking out a pillar. As of 2019, the requirement to carry health insurance or pay a fine will be gone.

Trump has come out with a proposed regulation to promote the sale of health plans across state lines. The goal is to make it easier for associations to sponsor plans cheaper than Affordable Care Act policies but not meeting all consumer protection and benefit requirements of the law.

Insurance industry groups, patient groups and some state regulators are wary of the idea and see little chance it can make more than a dent in the ranks of the uninsured (nearly 30 million). Easing restrictions on the sale of health insurance across state lines has been a longtime mainstream conservative goal.

He also promised to authorize Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. It hasn't been done yet.

Infrastructure

Trump pledged a $1 trillion effort to rebuild the country's airports, roads, bridges and other infrastructure. As with his tax plan, it's shaping up to be less ambitious than promised, though it still might be significant. Placed behind the failed effort to repeal the health law and the successful one to cut taxes, infrastructure may or may not emerge as a proposal in coming weeks.