Well, as it turns out, not a whole heck of a lot. Obama and his administration have certainly "accomplished" a lot on their legislative agenda, but most of the measures they have gotten through have ended up being total disasters.
*One of the biggest initiatives so far was the massive Wall Street bailouts that Obama backed. Trillions were pumped into the U.S. economy and all we have to show for it is 2% growth. Oh, and a massively expanding national debt that our children and grandchildren will never, ever be able to pay off.
*So what about working Americans? Has Obama helped them like he said that he would do? No. In fact, the number of unemployed Americans per job opening has started to increase once again, hitting 5.5 in February. Unemployment is at the highest levels in recent memories, and millions of American workers are desperate for answers. Many of those who do manage to find employment have only been able to get part-time work. Gallup's underemployment measure hit 20.0% on March 15th. This was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year. Instead of helping American workers, things keep getting worse under Obama and there seems to be no end in sight to all the misery.
*The IMF is forecasting that unemployment will remain high for at least the next two years. This will mean that millions upon millions of American workers will still be extremely pissed off when the 2012 election season comes rolling around.
*Close to the beginning of his term, Obama announced a huge foreclosure assistance program that was supposed to help millions of Americans keep their homes instead of getting foreclosed on. Well, it turns out that only 168,708 U.S. homeowners have received long-term mortgage modifications under Barack Obama's plan as of the end of February. This represents less than 3 percent of the 6 million borrowers who are currently more than 60 days behind on their mortgages. But even those who have been "helped" are still failing. The number of American homeowners who defaulted on their mortgages even after receiving better terms through Obama's modification program nearly doubled in March.
*And things are expected to get even worse for the U.S. real estate market. RealtyTrac projects that there will be 4.5 million home foreclosures in the United States before the end of the year. If there are approximately 4 people per household, that is another 18 million people that will be forced out of their homes by the end of the year. So what in the world is Barack Obama going to do about that?
*Perhaps Barack Obama's biggest "achievement" was the health care bill that he was able to ram down the throats of the American people. In fact, over the past year health care has become one of the most hotly debated political issues of this generation. Poll after poll said that the American people did not like it, but Obama pushed it through anyway. So are we all going to get cheaper health insurance now? No. Even the Los Angeles Times, which is radically pro-Obama, is openly admitting that the new health care law will not prevent health care premiums from increasing dramatically. So while we all may not save money, it turns out that we will be coughing up a whole lot more, because the new health care bill is actually the biggest tax increase in U.S. history.
*So will Obama's much-balleyhooed health care law end up providing us all with more hospitals and better health care? Well, no. It turns out that the new health care law discriminates against physician-owned hospitals. According to the executive director of Physician Hospitals of America, more than 60 doctor-owned hospitals across the United States that were in the development stage will now be canceled. So why will these badly needed hospitals be canceled? Well, the new health care law singles out doctor-owned hospitals, making new doctor-owned projects ineligible to receive payments for Medicare and Medicaid patients. Without such payments the hospitals are not feasible. Now who in the world came up with that bright idea?
*Not only that, but the United States will shortly be facing a devastating shortage of doctors. The U.S. health care system was already projected to experience a shortage of about 150,000 doctors over the next decade or so, but thanks to the health care bill passed by Congress, that number is estimated to grow by several hundred thousand more. Talk about a mess!
*Obama's foreign policy has been a complete and total disaster as well. Not only is he recklessly dismantling America's nuclear arsenal, he is also playing games with Iran and his anti-Israel positions have brought the entire Middle East dangerously close to war.
So is there anything that Obama is doing right?
Not really.
The best thing that he could do for America would be to take a lot of vacations for the rest of his term and do as little as possible. That way there would be less damage to be undone when the next president takes over.
No comments:
Post a Comment