I personally don’t favor the Health Care reform, but this has been a repeating issue for nearly 50 years that the democrats have pushed. Again I don’t agree that it is the correct decision for our economy, and government. But to be able to get legislature of such stature and great opposition to pass is a rather great accomplishment in itself.
In addition, President Obama was able to pull us away from another Great Depression. According to Independent estimates its said his stimulus plans were able to create around 3 million jobs. Regardless of my political views I think that this was a huge success for the United States. Still though this increase in jobs hasn’t helped our housing market much.
Many mortgages are still under water, and little has been done to revive the market. According to Nicholas D. Kristof in Obama’s First-Term Report Card: “Obama dropped the ball on housing, betraying struggling homeowners.” Due to this many families have lost their homes to foreclosure. The housing market is still struggling to make any sort of break.Which leads me to my last point regarding to the economy. The business sector. Many of the corporations that were bailed out could have been given much stricter regulations after being given funding. Many of the CEO’s for these companies were making way more money than they needed to. Money that could have saved the corporations without weighing on our government, and putting America into an even greater debt.
Back to Obama’s legislative actions, I would say his performance has been mediocre after the Healthcare Reform. This is rather outstanding considering his poor relationships with Congress. It’s believed that his relationship with Congress is seen as being an overlord. His communication with Congress seems to be more in terms of demands than cooperative requests. Many see his decision to send troops to Libya as overstepping and breaking the 1973 War Powers Act. With this action he also ignored congressional requests to ask for approval. Which was seen by congress to be a blatant and rude action.
His relationship with congress is so bad that many are questioning what he will do in his second term to repair the relationship. It’s possible that this was the least productive term of congress since 1947, 61 of over 3,000 proposed laws have passed. That means 98% of the bills are getting shut down. You could no doubt take these numbers and argue that nothing is getting done in Washington. If Obama’s relationship doesn’t improve in his next term this could be one of the least productive, consecutive presidencies in the history of the United States.
On the contrary president Obama has done a really good job in his relationships with foreign countries. I believe he has done a good job repairing many of our relationships with foreign powers. And although his intervention in Libya was seen as crossing a boundary, I feel the situation was handled pretty well.
Overall though I believe he won both elections due to his charisma and likability. His legislative record aside from his big win with Healthcare Reform has been poor. And besides increasing our debt to pull us out of our economic hole, not much else has been done for the economy. But I cannot, in a good conscience, discount those successes of his which is why I believe President Obama has done a fair job. After all, these last four years haven't been the easiest to lead in.
Sources:
“Foreign Policy”. The White House. 12/12/2012
Kristoff, Nicholas D. “Obama’s First-Term Report Card”. 9/5/12. 12/11/2012
Dupree, Jamie. “Getting Things Done”. 10/12/11. 12/11/2012
http://blogs.ajc.com/jamie-dupree-washington-insider/2011/10/12/getting-things-done/
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