Obama's Failed Administration

_Howard wrote:

Perhaps NoCoPilot would enlighten us (without simply linking to an article) as to what the negatives were that leads him to refer to "Obama's failed administration".

Obama’s broken promises:

1. Close Guantanamo and with it end the unconstitutional extraordinary rendition and secret black sites and hidden torture of the Cheney Administration.  A moral man would have put Cheney and several others (including the so-called "lawyers") up on treason for un-American activities and violating their pledge of office to uphold the Constitution. THAT would have healed the nation, THAT would have spoken volumes to terrorists overseas, THAT would have ended the fake moral superiority of those animals.  Instead Obama brought the number of inmates down from 250 to 60, but he still hasn't brought any of them up on trial, as is their right.
   
2. Repeal the Bush tax cuts and finally bury that insane "trickle down economics" lie of wealthy people being "job creators."  They're not -- as any cursory check of history will tell you.  He SHOULD have raised taxes back to the pre-Reagan progressive era of 70% (or 94% under Truman, when the economy began booming).  Instead Obama raised taxes marginally (4.5%) on those making over $450,000 (he'd promised $250,000) and with loopholes intact.  Enter Donald Trump, net taxes: zero.  Thanks Barry.
   
3. Get troops out of Iraq - by Dec 2011 troops were gone, but leaving a leadership vacuum that led to the rise of ISIS, causing US to re-engage to the tune of over 5,000 ground troops.  Plus lots of messy skirmishes all over the region.  Mishandled, poorly timed, poorly executed.  Trump was spot-on in describing Obama's cleanup of Bush's war as a disaster.  And don't even get me STARTED on Afghanistan.
   
4. Eliminate warrantless wiretaps and bulk data collections: He TOLD us he'd done this, but Ed Snowden proved the program had actually expanded exponentially under Obama.
   
5. Stop deportations - Obama promised "a path to citizenship" for illegals but instead deported more than 2.5 million immigrants, more than any other president.  Simple caving to pressure groups on this one.  He created DACA and DAPA for minors by executive order, but President Trump can (and will) reverse those with a penstroke.
   
6. Protect whistleblowers but instead has used the Espionage Act more times than any other administration to silence his critics.  Instead of open and transparent, his administration has been one of the most closed and secretive of the modern era.  Lack of coverage on this issue is indicative of how tightly controlled information is in his administration.  
   
7. Stop the revolving door between Washington & lobbyists, okay granted, this one is systemic and embedded in Washington culture, but he DID promise to do something about it.  So far = nada.
   
8. Hold Wall Street Accountable - almost nobody has gone to jail and the hijinks continue unabated.  Obama kept the criminals behind the credit bubble in charge of the system, and failed to use the leverage he got from the bailouts to break up the TBTF institutions.  Our exposure is greater today than when he inherited the crash from Cheney.
   
9. Restore civility and integrity to government. Obama had ENORMOUS public support going in, he could have used it to force the hands of the forces openly opposing him. Instead he did a Stepin Fetchit act of contrition and compromise without even putting up a fight. He was too fucking nice. Look where it got him.
   
10. Cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gasses died in the Senate.  After 36 years there doesn't Biden have ANY influence in the Senate?
    
11. Cut insurance costs: Obamacare is, if not the disaster Trump declares, at least a very weak victory.  It's a massive giveaway to Big Pharma, it prevents Medicare from negotiating drug costs, it has raised rates on almost everybody, we were NOT able to keep our doctors in most cases and the UI sucks.  FAIL
    
12. Net Neutrality Obama has given lip service to the idea of net neutrality but he's made no moves to break up the media monopolies that make net neutrality an issue.  Without fundamental change to licensing of the public airwaves and access to the publicly-funded 'internet commons' there will be no free and unimpeded information in the post-Obama future.  A crucial turning point is turning the wrong way.
    
13. Infrstructure spending - dude, where's my jetpack?
    

On the plus side, he didn't get impeached.  That's an accomplishment for the first Black president in this environment.  At least he kept his pecker in his pants.  Let's see Trump on this in 4 years....

Aw, you shouldn't've...

I suppose if we're going to judge an administration's success or failure by checking off items on a progressive wish list we've never had a successful administration at all.

I'm more of a pragmatist. It's the economy, stupid.

But No. 5? I could argue about some of the others as well but I don't understand why anyone who enters this country illegally automatically gets to stay here. His deportations have centered on those with criminal records. In fiscal year 2015, 91 percent of people removed from inside the U.S. were previously convicted of a crime. Why is this even an issue?

Quote :

"Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day," Obama said in November 2014 when announcing his executive action on immigration.

Yes, 2015 was a model year for Obama's deportations.  91% of the 139,981 people deported had criminal records.  The trouble is, 2015 was atypical.  If Obama deported 2.5m people 2008-15, that means 2008-14 averaged 337,145½ deportations per year.  Immigrant criminality has not fallen by half, ergo those earlier deportations were at a much smaller rate of criminals.  Plus, the deportations/detentions are increasingly to meet quotas, not because they've identified bad individuals.

Quote :

   The policy [bed mandate] requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep an average of 34,000 detainees per day in its custody, a quota that has steadily risen since it was established in 2006 by conservative lawmakers who insisted that the agency wasn’t doing enough to deport unlawful immigrants.

   But as illegal crossings from Mexico have fallen to near their lowest levels since the early 1970s, ICE has been meeting Congress’s immigration detention goals by reaching deeper into the criminal justice system to vacuum up foreign-born, legal U.S. residents convicted of any crimes that could render them eligible for deportation. The agency also has greatly expanded the number of undocumented immigrants it takes into custody after traffic stops by local police.

Source

kilo wrote:

items on a progressive wish list

I consider the first couple of items matters of principle and constitutionality -- not "a progressive wish list."

Sorry, but I'm not one of those people who believe that people who enter the country illegally automatically deserve to stay here.

NoCoPilot wrote:

kilo wrote:

items on a progressive wish list

I consider the first couple of items matters of principle and constitutionality -- not "a progressive wish list."

Yeah, well just how was the guy going to close Guantanamo given the legislation passed by the cowardly congress? "Home of the brave", my ass.

And the recovery period was no time to be repealing tax cuts. Which wouldn't have gotten through Congress anyway.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Educate yourself

Buy me a violin.

There's no question that our immigration laws need to be reformed. But, as I said, I'm not one of those people who believe that people who enter the country illegally automatically deserve to stay here.

NoCoPilot wrote:

kilo wrote:

items on a progressive wish list

I consider the first couple of items matters of principle and constitutionality -- not "a progressive wish list."

Within days of taking office, Obama began efforts to close Gitmo. The Congress would not allow it. Several of your items are the fault of Congress. Put blame where it belongs.

On your criticism of the ACA, you wrote, "it prevents Medicare from negotiating drug costs." That is part of Medicate Part D, a gift from Bush.

Restore civility and integrity to government? As long as we have a Republican Party such as it is today, that will not happen. Again, put blame where it belongs.

You made some good points, but they do not amount to a "failed administration".

kilo wrote:

Which wouldn't have gotten through Congress anyway.

Ah yes, the "it's all Congress's fault" argument.

That's why I said earlier that Barry needed the stones of LBJ, and the gravitas his electoral mandate gave him, to make Congress sit up and play ball. By the 2010 elections he'd already shown he wasn't capable, which is why the mid-terms buried his agenda.

_Howard wrote:

On your criticism of the ACA, you wrote, "it prevents Medicare from negotiating drug costs." That is part of Medicate Part D, a gift from Bush.

You're probably right. Why wasn't that addressed in the ACA?

kilo wrote:

And the recovery period was no time to be repealing tax cuts.

This is a curious statement.

Right after the 2008 crash, Obama had a sweeping mandate to correct the systemic excesses that led us to financial collapse.  One of those line items certainly was to rein in the people who personally profited from the financial collapse.

Instead what did he do?  He allowed Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner to use the opportunity to eliminate Goldman Sach's competition.

kilo wrote:

I'm more of a pragmatist. It's the economy, stupid.

I'm one of those who believes record territory for the DJIA is not a sign of financial health in the economy. Look at the fundamentals.

I agree with you that the market doesn't necessarily reflect the health of the real economy. But remember that the country was losing jobs at the rate of 800,000 per month when Obama took office. That number has changed by about a million; we're creating around 200,000 per month.

Yes, there is no doubt the worst of the Bush Crash Years (BCY, as they'll be come to known in the future) have been overcome. However, this is only partially attributable to the Obama Administration. Most of the boom-and-bust cycle is, well, cyclical and recovery is inevitable. People in a position to, will take out their profit and then the market slowly recovers.

If you look at the fundamentals, the economy is still very weak and very prone to the the next B&B cycle, and the Obama Administration has done very little to alleviate that. In fact, by many standards, we are more vulnerable now than we've ever been.

Do you think Trump and his dark money masters will feel any urge to fix it? No. No, they won't.

NoCoPilot wrote:

kilo wrote:

I'm more of a pragmatist. It's the economy, stupid.

I'm one of those who believes record territory for the DJIA is not a sign of financial health in the economy. Look at the fundamentals.

Where did I tie the health of the economy to the DJIA? Our anemic 2% growth is the envy other advanced economies.

NoCoPilot wrote:

That's why I said earlier that Barry needed the stones of LBJ, and the gravitas his electoral mandate gave him, to make Congress sit up and play ball.  By the 2010 elections he'd already shown he wasn't capable, which is why the mid-terms buried his agenda.

That's why I said earlier that "LBJ would have faced widespread and severe criticism, if not articles of impeachment, if he tried his strong-arm tactics today." And yes, I think you can blame congress — the GOP decided, correctly, that the party had more to gain by not playing ball. Only the country suffered.

You seem to think that presidential power and authority just accrues naturally to the man in the Oval Office but LBJ had decades of experience, lots of dirt on legislators, and lots of favors owed to him. Obama had none of that.

All that is true but Obama had an unprecedented (or as Trump spells it, "unpresidented ") mandate of public support to act boldly after the Bush failures. He did not capitalize.

Do you not understand that the President is not the emperor? Without the cooperation of Congress, little can be done. And this Congress is like not we've seen before. Their sole purpose was to fuck Obama. For example, the Republicans introduced a bill which Obama then said he supported. Because of that support, the Republicans killed their own legislation. How is anyone supposed to accomplish anything under those conditions?

Leadership is about finding a way.

Defeat is for losers.

I think you've lost your mind.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Leadership is about finding a way.

Defeat is for losers.

Clichés are for ... well ... pick something (something simple, of course).

It's not a surprise that Trump supporters believe the Obama administration failed. But that is because they are unacquainted with reality.

40 percent of Trump voters insist that he won the national popular vote.
60 percent of Trump voters think that Hillary Clinton received millions of illegal votes.
73 percent of Trump voters believe that George Soros is paying anti-Trump protesters.
29 percent of Trump voters don’t think California votes should be allowed to count in the national popular vote.
67 percent of Trump voters think the unemployment rate went up under President Barack Obama. Only 20 percent accurately believe it went down.
39 percent of Trump voters think the stock market went down under Obama. And 19 percent are unsure.
14 percent of Trump voters think Hillary Clinton is connected to a child sex ring run out of a Washington pizzeria. Another 32 percent aren’t sure one way or another. Only 54 percent are certain that Pizzagate is a myth.

(These numbers from a December poll).

For anyone who knows what actually happened during the past 8 years, the Obama administration isn't a failure. It just isn't.

Would you accept "crashing disappointment" instead of "failure"?

No. Disappointment, maybe. But I do put significant blame on the Republicans for that. The one area that I attach unqualified disapproval to Obama is the obscene drone wars. A major crime of the Bush administration was to adopt a foreign policy of aggressive war. Obama has not stepped away from that. He has continued and arguably made it worse. He has (maybe) reduced boots on the ground, but the ongoing murder of civilians by drone in the name of hopefully, maybe, once in a while, killing an actual enemy on his home ground is abhorrent in principle and in practice.