Obama's First Year in Office

Wavex

Lazy Mod :D
Moderator
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
5,124
Reaction score
119
Points
0
Location
Long Beach, CA
Visit site
Some facts here: The 44th President: The First Year - Progress Report - from CNN.com

Notice the opinion poll carried by CNN in December 09 still showing 54% approve Obama's handling of his job as President.

Another more in debt analysis:

Obama’s First Year Accomplishments in Review

5 January 2010 :: J.E. Robertson

At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, there is controversy over the nature and extent of his accomplishments, and even some allies and supporters appear to have forgotten the atmosphere of multidirectional crisis in which Obama took office. What’s more, the steady decline in Obama’s approval ratings appears to follow very closely a shift in media reporting away from reporting facts and back to the hyper-commentary style of the run-up to the Iraq war, an atmosphere in which conservative political propaganda fares better than the facts of deliberative action.

Pres. Obama was accused early-on of making an unprecedented list of promises, and even by the time of his inauguration, there was speculation about a gap in election-year perceptions and aspirations and the realities of governing. It became popular in the mainstream media to propagate this “controversy”, asserting that Obama was “too idealistic” or even “naïve” and that somehow the “hard realities” of governing would, in time, make his Republican opponents’ case for them. 2009 has largely been a year in which media reporting has moved in the direction of promoting false controversies and enforcing self-fulfilling prophecies for their value as marketing tools.

Many of his detractors, and even some of his wavering supporters, will be surprised to learn that in his first year, Barack Obama has already fulfilled at least 79 campaign promises. This is one of the most accomplished records of any first year in office, and it has come with considerable difficulty in working with and around a Congress fraught with obstructionism and distracted by its own mythology regarding specific points of policy, and in the face of the most uniform and inflexible opposition any president in recent decades has faced.

The 79 promises kept, as fact-checked and reported by PolitiFact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking service of the St. Petersburg Times, are as follows:

No. 6: Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes
No. 15: Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners
No. 16: Increase minority access to capital
No. 33: Establish a credit card bill of rights
No. 36: Expand loan programs for small businesses
No. 40: Extend and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch
No. 50: Expand the Senior Corps volunteer program
No. 58: Expand eligibility for State Children’s Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP)
No. 76: Expand funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners
No. 77: Increase funding to expand community based prevention programs
No. 88: Sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
No. 110: Assure that the Veterans Administration budget is prepared as ‘must-pass’ legislation
No. 119: Appoint a special adviser to the president on violence against women
No. 125: Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq
No. 132: No permanent bases in Iraq
No. 134: Send two additional brigades to Afghanistan
No. 154: Strengthen and expand military exchange programs with other countries
No. 167: Make U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional on anti-terror efforts
No. 174: Give a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administration
No. 182: Allocate Homeland Security funding according to risk
No. 184: Create a real National Infrastructure Protection Plan
No. 200: Appoint a White House Coordinator for Nuclear Security
No. 208: Improve relations with Turkey, and its relations with Iraqi Kurds
No. 212: Launch an international Add Value to Agriculture Initiative (AVTA)
No. 215: Create a rapid response fund for emerging democracies
No. 222: Grant Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba
No. 224: Restore funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program
No. 225: Establish an Energy Partnership for the Americas
No. 239: Release presidential records
No. 241: Require new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions.
No. 247: Recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession
No. 266: Encourage water-conservation efforts in the West
No. 269: Increase funding for national parks and forests
No. 270: Increase funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
No. 272: Encourage farmers to use more renewable energy and be more energy efficient
No. 277: Pursue a wildfire prevention and management plan
No. 278: Remove more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires
No. 284: Expand access to places to hunt and fish
No. 290: Push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors
No. 300: Reform mandatory minimum sentences
No. 307: Create a White House Office on Urban Policy
No. 325: Create an artist corps for schools
No. 326: Champion the importance of arts education
No. 327: Support increased funding for the NEA
No. 332: Add another Space Shuttle flight
No. 334: Use the private sector to improve spaceflight
No. 336: Partner to enhance the potential of the International Space Station
No. 337: Use the International Space Station for fundamental biological and physical research
No. 338: Explore whether International Space Station can operate after 2016
No. 342: Work toward deploying a global climate change research and monitoring system
No. 345: Enhance earth mapping
No. 346: Appoint an assistant to the president for science and technology policy
No. 356: Establish special crime programs for the New Orleans area
No. 359: Rebuild schools in New Orleans
No. 371: Fund a major expansion of AmeriCorps
No. 380: Bolster the military’s ability to speak different languages
No. 391: Appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer
No. 394: Provide grants to early-career researchers
No. 411: Work to overturn Ledbetter vs. Goodyear
No. 420: Create a national declassification center
No. 421: Appoint an American Indian policy adviser
No. 427: Ban lobbyist gifts to executive employees
No. 435: Create new criminal penalties for mortgage fraud
No. 452: Weatherize 1 million homes per year
No. 458: Invest in all types of alternative energy
No. 459: Enact tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars
No. 460: Ask people and businesses to conserve electricity
No. 475: Require states to provide incentives for utilities to reduce energy consumption
No. 480: Unprecedented expansion of funding for regional high-speed rail
No. 483: Invest in public transportation
No. 484: Equalize tax breaks for driving and public transit
No. 494: Share enviromental technology with other countries
No. 498: Provide grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes
No. 500: Increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency
No. 502: Get his daughters a puppy
No. 503: Appoint at least one Republican to the cabinet
No. 506: Raise the small business investment expensing limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009
No. 507: Extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits
No. 513: Reverse restrictions on stem cell research
Most of these items are complex campaign pledges that Pres. Obama has been able to follow through on. Some just show he’s a man who follows through on his word, something the media should take more note of. But PolitiFact’s research shows a long list of serious political accomplishments, many of historic import, yet the mainstream media continues to report on the delays seen in enacting the most complex and comprehensive reforms undertaken in a generation, many of which —like healthcare reform, energy policy reform, terror prosecutions and financial regulatory reform— are actually moving forward at a historically meaningful pace, and will likely be achieved in the first half of 2010.

There are a further 226 campaign promises officially listed, after extensive fact-checking, as “in the works”, as of this morning. Many of these will be accomplished in 2010, giving Pres. Obama the most extensive record of success in fulfilling specific campaign promises in US history. We can expect this fact will not be widely reported, as the mainstream news media appear determined to posture “objectivity” by refusing to report successes Obama’s opponents refuse to acknowledge.

The perception that Pres. Obama has failed to aggressively pursue the progressive agenda he ran on is owing largely to the fact that his legislative and governing style is rooted in principled coalition-building. As both state senator in Illinois and as US senator from Illinois, Obama had important legislative successes that required building consensus across the aisle, with often ideologically-opposed allies on specific issues, like predatory lending and ethics reform.

It is likely the legislative schedule of 2010 will demonstrate that no president in recent history has had so many major legislative achievements, and that will be due to Obama’s insisting that principled policy-making move forward, even where compromises need to be made with ideological opponents, all in the interests of progress. Perhaps no president since John F. Kennedy so deliberately sought to move a progressive legislative agenda forward, and Obama is already being compared to Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson in terms of the scope and historic import of his legislative agenda.

A piece in the New York Times magazine, for Sunday, 3 January 2010, explains Obama’s deliberative coalition-building and willingness to compromise is what makes him a principled progressive, able to see past the temptations of populist rhetoric:

Obama’s relentless pursuit of health care reform, even at the expense of provisions that liberals held sacred, may well place him alongside F.D.R. and Lyndon Johnson in the pantheon of progressive presidents who were able to substantially amend the nation’s social contract.

This unique talent for governing from the center —which requires the spending of political capital and necessarily calls forth protest from both the liberal and conservative wings of the political spectrum— is actually a meaningful change in the political dynamics of American government, and does in fact bring with it the significant promise voters demanded from the president they chose in 2008. It is this style of negotiation and coalition building that has allowed Pres. Obama to change the course of international negotiations and restore the United States to its leadership role abroad.

In the early days of his administration, he made clear his focus on bold, sustained diplomatic efforts would be a departure from the politics of command and control of the last two presidential terms. As this publication reported on 21 January 2009:

On the morning of his first full day as chief executive of the United States government, Pres. Obama phoned four heads of state across the Middle East —Israel, Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan— to discuss his feeling that there is an urgent need to start a practical and viable process of sustainable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

He also issued a strict executive order on ethics, barring anyone who had worked as a lobbyist who joins the administration from having any direct authority over or official contact with entities they had represented. That order marked a major turning point in the direction of the modern presidency, which had come to be dominated by the “revolving door” between government and lobbying, with many key officials in the last administration holding positions of direct influence over former clients.

On his second full day in office, Obama signed four historic executive orders, overturning controversial and/or unconstitutional policies from the previous administration:

He signed one order to close the Guantánamo Bay prison camp by 22 January 2010, another to close CIA “black site” prisons across the globe, another would establish a special task force in collaboration with Defense Secretary Robert Gates to determine detention policy going forward, and the fourth would require all US personnel to adhere at all times to the rules for treatment of prisoners as laid out in the Army Field Manual.

The restructuring of US military detention policy was a major first step to restoring the image of the US around the world, once more taking a leadership role on human rights, and building the political capital necessary for orchestrating international consensus on major global issues. By the spring, the international climate had changed substantially, and there were concrete efforts being made to craft global agreement on key issues like nuclear arms reduction and elimination and greenhouse gas emissions policy.

In his landmark Prague speech, looking forward to “a world without nuclear weapons”, Obama explained “the trajectory we need to be on”:

First, the United States will take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. To put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same. Make no mistake: As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies –- including the Czech Republic. But we will begin the work of reducing our arsenal.

To reduce our warheads and stockpiles, we will negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians this year. (Applause.) President Medvedev and I began this process in London, and will seek a new agreement by the end of this year that is legally binding and sufficiently bold. And this will set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this endeavor.

Indeed, the latter half of 2009 has seen the US and Russia negotiating intensely in Geneva to reach that agreement. Both Pres. Obama and Pres. Medvedev say the deal is near, though Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has no legal role in the negotiations or the formulation of a treaty, says US plans for a sea-based missile shield could be problematic for Russia’s security, going forward. The treaty would halve the nuclear arsenals of the two most prolific nuclear-armed powers.

Establishing a global nuclear test ban treaty and moving toward a global strategic arms reduction treaty, which would provide the framework for total denuclearization, some time in the future, once strict verification regimes are in place. Incremental denuclearization is, ultimately, a necessity, as evidenced by emerging conflicts within and near nuclear-armed states in the Middle East and Asia. As we reported in late April:

What we are seeing now in Pakistan is a good example: there is no guarantee that selective non-proliferation will not lead to cooperative black-market mechanisms that facilitate the spread of nuclear-weapons technology. Pakistan acquired the technology this way, and some of its black-marketeers may have further spread the technology they purchased. Pakistan is now experiencing severe political destabilization and the Taliban has taken over areas just 100 km from the capital.

Pres. Obama’a security policy, with regard to Pakistan, has done more to focus on safeguarding Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal against Taliban takeover or infiltration than any previous president. And we are now seeing a close integration of nuclear-weapons containment diplomacy with counter-terrorism efforts and pro-democracy development. This is the smartest way forward and a fulfillment of Pres. Obama’s promise of a more collaborative, hands-on foreign policy.

Key among the reform process initiated in Pres. Obama’s first months in office was the process of examining, overhauling and preserving major elements of the banking sector. This was uncomfortable for many in the financial industry, but as promised, Obama got involved, did not nationalize the banks, used government leverage to “stress test” the banks’ books and to implement reforms aimed at preventing their collapse. On 29 April, we reported:

Obama has challenged the entire banking system to reform in the interests of survival, not only aiming to prevent major bank failures and individual home foreclosures, but pressuring banks to lend again, and to cease accounting practices that lead to over-leveraging and phony claims about capital in reserve. With banks reeling from incomprehensible losses, and a credit freeze gripping the nation’s consumer markets, Obama did not relent in applying financial-analysis “stress tests” to banks’ books, to see what they could withstand and what real fiscal stability or resilience they had.

The New Republic is now calling those stress tests the “most underrated move of the year”. The magazine says the stress tests were “Obama’s best economic policy of 2009″ and notes that they “cost us … exactly nothing”. The stress tests allowed the government to understand the true scope of the financial crisis, steer the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) toward viable long-term thinking, and re-orient the markets to understand the nature of the banks’ capital shortfalls and adapt.

The New Republic praises the Obama administration for expanding transparency through the stress-testing process, helping to demonstrate that big banks could not simply bury their problems in dizzying mash-ups of manipulative accounting methods and that transparency itself actually has a market value, a positive influence on public confidence and willingness to invest. All of this was just a beginning, but the major news was: not one single major bank, no matter how troubled, collapsed during 2009, and the majority of projected bank failures were averted, despite over 100 smaller institutions taken over by the FDIC.

A similarly collaborative, pragmatist approach has won Obama favor for concrete, albeit sometimes hard to define, steps toward peacemaking around the world. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley has classed Obama as the United States’ “first global president”. Considering the rapid overhaul of the United States’ security and detention policies, to bring them in line with both domestic and international law, his aggressive outreach to leaders in the Middle East and across Asia, and his determined stance on nuclear disarmament, Pres. Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, much to the chagrin of his critics, who wish to paint him as an idealist who has “done nothing” while governing.

The award was controversial, because many believe his presidency is too near the beginning to speak of contributions to global peace and stability, but the award is often given to political figures whose goals are not yet achieved, some of whom have unsavory pasts, to say the least, and whose actions on the global stage have been less globally influential than Obama’s. His efforts throughout 2009 to establish an international climate of cooperation and dialogue have been vital to creating new opportunities for peace, and the Nobel Committee recognized this as the most important achievement of its kind for 2009.

The false controversy over whether Pres. Obama “deserved” the award obscured very substantial diplomatic achievements, some of which have already been named. On the occasion of the award, we noted:

UN SC Res. 1887 is one of the most important documents ever produced by the UN system, in that it lays the groundwork for a world free of nuclear weapons, however long it may take to achieve that goal. In the entire history of the nuclear arms race, no one has achieved that level of consensus on disarmament. This was done by aggressive, forthright and successful diplomacy, in the span of just 8 months’ worth of work. That is a major accomplishment.

On the question of peace and diplomacy, Barack Obama managed to deal with two “hostage” situations, with enemy “rogue states”, Roxana Saberi in Iran and Euna Lee and Laura Ling in North Korea, without escalating tensions in either region, without making threats or being weak; in each case, the art of diplomacy was practiced in such a way that it would lead to both success and non-escalation.

On Iran, the nuclear program is worrying, but for the first time in 30 years, the US has actually met with Iranian diplomats to discuss these issues directly, and the result is that Iran is in theory, agreeing to allow inspectors in, and even to ship uranium out of the country for processing. If this happens, the bomb will not be obtained by Iran.

Again: ambitious, successful nuclear diplomacy, enhanced credibility, peace before war, multilateralism, and just 8 months in office. I think the prize is not premature, because there are in fact real effects to all of this. There is a new climate favoring international cooperation to reduce or eliminate the world’s worst weapons, to raise awareness about and fight against brutalization and repression of women, and to achieve consensus on the most favorable ways to deal with climate-destabilizing emissions.

Pres. Obama’s pragmatic reform politics has revolutionized the way the United States deals with international crises and its prospects for winning support for major diplomatic endeavors, even among onetime rivals. And, in collaboration with Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, part of Obama’s own “team of rivals”, both domestic and international social policy has been shifted toward a broader focus on the status of women and girls.

Pres. Obama established, by executive order, the White House Council on Women and Girls, comprised of the heads of every Cabinet-level agency and led by his close aide Valerie Jarrett. The promotion of women’s rights and standing in society is not merely an issue of civil rights and equal pay in advanced democracies, but can be the single most important vehicle for building peace and prosperity in war-torn, impoverished and failing states.

As we reported on 2 January 2010:

The US Department of Defense has taken direct interest in the status of women’s rights around the world, especially in conflict zones, and is collaborating with the Obama administration’s initiative to promote the rights of women and girls. Pres. Obama has established a panel on which every Cabinet-level department head must report on the status of women and girls as relating to their purview. And women’s rights in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other key nations, is now a focus of Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s assertive “3D diplomacy”: diplomacy, development, defense.

Promoting the rights and the needs of women and girls will help to create a more educated, more civil and cooperative population, and should help to speed development to remote areas where improvements to basic infrastructure and economic cohesion cannot take root without active, sustained participation, and even leadership, on the part of women. More secure family environments and more advanced educational resources should also mean a reduced risk of armed conflict, factionalism and the collapse of basic services. The rights of women and girls are linked to all efforts to prevent or to combat the proliferation of failed states.

Pres. Bill Clinton used to talk about “building a bridge to the 21st century”, and as we sit back and survey the wide array of accomplishments of Pres. Obama’s first year in office, alongside the withering criticism and the many frustrations, it’s worth noting that one of the key features of this first year has been a refocusing of national resources, political and material, toward building a better future, both domestically and abroad. Many of the initiatives we have cited will be integral to shaping positive outcomes in facing the major challenges of this decade.
 

Wavex

Lazy Mod :D
Moderator
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
5,124
Reaction score
119
Points
0
Location
Long Beach, CA
Visit site
here is the end of the article:

Millions of people disagree with Pres. Obama, either for ideological or partisan reasons, or because something about his unique cultural heritage is unsettling to their tastes, or biases. But his leadership has been principled and consistent, he has been true to his word, following through on hundreds of promises, and his has already been, after just 11 months, the most engaged and open presidency in modern times. His Open Government Initiative will take this process further in 2010 and in years to come, giving citizens a voice and creating an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability in American government.

As far as his signature initiatives go: both houses of Congress passed comprehensive healthcare reform legislation for the first time since Medicare, and he will likely sign a bill into law in January. The new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia is said to be nearing agreement. And a solution for how to close down the extra-judicial detention facility at Guantánamo Bay is within reach, with a new prison being established in Illinois and federal criminal trials ready to begin.

Obama has also made important strides toward one of the most daunting challenges of the 21st century: responsible stewardship of the world’s oceans. He is praised by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) for “a remarkable number of actions to address a wide variety of environmental challenges” [PDF], including two key moves to restore and sustain the global ocean system. The oceans are under threat from rising mercury levels, rampant infestation from non-biodegradable plastics and numerous toxic pollutants, not to mention increased sea traffic and military exercises.

The scope of the oceanic degradation is only now beginning to be understood, and environmentalists argue it may well be the most complex of all environmental challenges going forward. Greenhouse gases, for instance, can be phased out, but all chemical residues of all kinds eventually wind up in the ocean, threatening marine life, habitat, water quality, human health and climate stability. Obama is praised for naming world-renowned marine ecologist Dr. Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and for beginning the process of crafting a national ocean policy.

The NRDC evaluation also specifically praises Pres. Obama’s efforts to help move the US toward a clean energy economy, citing concrete advances in each of the following:

Boosting Investment in Clean Energy Jobs
Upgrading Efficiency Standards
Prioritizing Sustainability
Confirming the Threat of Global Warming Pollution
Adopting Stringent National Vehicle Standards for Carbon Pollution and Fuel Economy
Curbing Carbon Pollution
Accelerating Development of High-Speed Intercity Rail
Improving the Livability of Communities
Scientifically Assessing Role of Biofuels
While critics on the right and the left claim the Obama presidency has been marked by compromise and a strict partisan divide in the Congress, it has been remarkably productive so far. In an atmosphere of crisis and deep public malaise, with hostile opposition to any substantive innovations in policy or principled, compromise, Pres. Obama has found a way to achieve real breakthroughs that will benefit the nation over the long-term, consistently taking a pragmatic approach to solving intensely complex problems.

Pres. Obama has had the privilege, or perhaps the burden, of being the most inspiring political figure in recent memory in US politics, yet he is also the most frequently threatened. The number of alleged plots to assassinate him has been truly worrying, and some of his adversaries have been willing to speak of armed rebellion in the national media. But that vitriol and hatred should not be allowed to detract from what has been an historic and accomplished first year in office, showing real progress on issues of vital long-term relevance to the well-being of the American people.
 

Oscar54

Senior Member
Elite Member
Joined
May 25, 2008
Messages
585
Reaction score
10
Points
0
Location
Florida
Visit site
Bit of a Fruedian slip there huh? :D

It figures that would be the extent of your response, considering that that over 90% of the National Debt is from Republican Trickle Down Free Market Economics (that you and the Republicans continue to advocate) and has resulted in our current economic collapse, but the Right Wing Media would have us believe it was all ACORN's fault.:BLAA:

PS: You misspelled Freudian.
 
Top