Obama's Achievements

Obama's supporters list his achievements such health care reform and financial reform as monumental reforms that place him second only to Johnson and some say FDR. Financial reform, "the most comprehensive since FDR," is largely a minor reform that leaves the potential for crisis and abuse about where they were without reform. Health care reform, despite being rather limited, is a monumental achievement.

Health care reform has sucked all the energy Obama and congress had for more than a year and prevented the administration from attending to the real catastrophe we are experiencing, namely 10% unemployment. Before health care reform was even attempted, Obama tended to the banking system collapse.

There were several alternative solutions to the banking problem. One was to temporarily nationalize banks such as Citibank and Bank of America and tighten the screws on the other big banks by forcing firing of the responsible management teams. Without nationalization, Obama could have demanded huge reforms in exchange for support. Management teams could have forced out, several CEO should have brought on charges. Instead of these options, Obama showered money on the banks without any promise to reform of replace responsible managers. Obama went way over the TARP he inherited from Bush, the FED supplies that banks with cheap money to this day while the banks immediately went back to their gambling and useless trading.

The unemployed have not been help except for the limited amount of money available in the stimulus program. Even if the stimulus has prevented another 1-2 million workers from joining the unemployed, the 1/10 of the workforce still unemployed were unaffected by Obama. All they saw is a president who doesn’t even spend time of their problem while he finds plenty of time and money for the banks. Beyond the devastating effect on the unemployed, Obama has practically devastated the Democratic Party. For the American people Obama is the banks president; he clearly has done nothing for everybody else. Why would anyone vote for a Democrat?

Obama’s neglect of the common person is not limited to jobs. Many thousands of Americans have lost their homes unable to pay mortgage due to unemployment. Sign of this devastation peppers many previously prosperous neighborhoods. Rows upon rows of house stand empty and blight on society. The foreclosure of properties by banks and letting those properties deteriorate does no one any good. Yet, Obama did very little to prevent this devastation. The money he allocated for that purpose is way too short and talking sense into the banks owning the mortgages wasn’t attempted.

The recovery from the current unemployment will take at least a decade. Resuscitating the dying neighborhoods, if at all possible, will take 15-20 years. Obama could have done a lot for almost two years to lower unemployment and leave people in their home, instead he tended to health care and minor financial reform. Why would anyone support him?