Depending on where you live, what you do for a living, and what kind of person you are, how do you think your individual life be affected if whoever you do NOT want to become president were to become president?
This is just a hypothetical exercise. There has been no shortage of political discussion and criticism here, but try to think about it: how would you be personally affected by the political administration of whichever candidate you vehemently oppose?
If you’re against Obama and hoped that he would lose the election, how has your life actually changed since he became president? If you were against John McCain, how do you think you would have been personally affected if he had become president instead of Obama? If you are against Sarah Palin (and I know a lot of us are) how would your life actually be different if she became president in 2012?
That, and if there are electoral coat-tails that change the nature of Congress. More than anything, that is what has changed my individual life since Obama’s election.
As an overseas expat, having an American administration with a jingoistic bent certainly earns me a lot of teasing and occasional open scorn in the UK (as it did during the Bush years). On the other hand, if Palin (or whoever) weakens the dollar it’ll make it easier to pay my student loans from here.
On that subject, Obama’s restructuring of the student loan system made an appreciable difference in my ability to pay the loans back by adding more flexibility to the system. This is probably the first time something a president has done has had a direct and material impact on my life.
It’s impossible to answer this with anything but speculation. I can’t know what McCain, Palin, or Kodos would do other than general guessing. Add an additional layer of guessing on how those policies-by-guess would affect me, and I may as well use a Tarot deck.
I have read w/o TARP, the auto bailouts, the stimulus, etc. the unemployment rate would be closer to 15% and the deficit closer to 2 trillion. TARP was supported by both sides but I have no idea what would’ve happened with the auto bailouts. The stimulus would’ve died. So maybe I’d still be unemployed right now.
I was unemployed for a long period around 2009 (employed again now, thank god). And the stimulus had several provisions that helped me (bonuses, tax deductions, payroll tax cuts). So I probably got $1000-2000 in all from this administration from the various tax deductions when I was working and/or bonuses to UI. Granted we are in a shitty recession so I feel somewhat guilty about getting money when the system is going bankrupt. But if/when the economy recovers and the deficit goes back down to 2-4% of GDP I will pay it back in taxes (hopefully I will have a better job then, but who knows. This countries trajectory doesn’t give me much economic hope).
Also starting in 2011 the high deductible pre-existing condition plan will supposedly lower their rates 20%. So I am looking to join that. So I will finally have health insurance. That wouldn’t be the case with McCain.
I am financially in better shape than I would’ve been under McCain.
Does the embarrassment of “President” Palin count?
Mostly, for me, it’s the SCOTUS thing. Governments do very little to affect the economy, regardless of their policies, so social issues are a much more pressing concern for me.
Although I’m a strong Democrat, and would be unhappy if the Republicans, especially Palin (God forbid) got into the White House, it’s hard to see how anything anyone in the federal government could do would affect my life in any deep way, at least in the short run.
Although I live and work in California, the company I work for is a multi-national based in the Netherlands, and they actually do most of their business in Europe. So politics and business conditions in the U.S. affect them only peripherally, and so too, my job. I’m far more concerned about the economy of Germany, which the U.S. president can do little about.
Now of course if the president’s policies were so disastrous as to create a worldwide depression, or a world war, that would affect me. That would affect everybody.
As an expat, having a president who is loathed by the people among whom I live was not much fun. It was great when people would drop by prior to the last election and say “I assume you’re voting for Obama - don’t forget to send in your ballot”.
There’s a lot of people I don’t want to be president, but I’ll admit that most of them would have little impact on me, personally. Such are the privileges of being a married, white, male, vaguely Christian heterosexual who doesn’t plan on owning a home for some time and works in a sphere that isn’t as affected by economic ups-and-downs as others.
I like President Obama, but right now all I can say I have gotten from his presidency is slightly lower taxes. I work for an organization that represents part of an industry helped by the stimulus, but is still in pretty bad shape. Maybe my job, which I got in March 2010, wouldn’t have been open without the stimulus, but I highly doubt it. My position isn’t exactly expendable.
I don’t think this situation would change too much if most of the GOP contenders actually became president. The exception is Sarah Palin, who I think would be a disaster of epic proportions that would hurt almost every American whose last name isn’t “Palin.” But President Romney (or Daniels, or Pawlenty, or Barbour, or Huckabee, or even Gingrich) would probably affect my life very little.
Of course, it’s the height of selfishness to vote based purely on the impact of my life and no one else’s, so this isn’t a factor in deciding how I vote.
It would be pretty embarrassing, but more importantly I think it would take us one step closer to Idiocracy. I’m also concerned about Christian version of “sharia law” becoming acceptable.
President Obama is the first President in my lifetime to do something that could actually affect my life: Health care reform. Assuming I don’t get a job that offers health insurance by 2014, I can enroll in Medicaid. I couldn’t do that before. Child free poor people are left out in the cold under the present system. I’m currently healthy and in my mid twenties, but this has been a concern for me as long as I’ve been an adult living on my own and it’ll be nice to have a little extra peace of mind.
President Palin might very well repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, denying me of the opportunity to get affordable health insurance. Assuming that she takes office in 2012 instead of 2016. But if it’s actually allowed to go into full effect (in 2014), I think it’ll become just as untouchable as Medicare currently is, and will eventually get the GOP’s full throated support. I can easiily imagine in 2030 a new President trying to change it to Single Payer, we’ll be seeing townhall protesters shouting “get your government hands off my Obamacare!”
Bingo. I’ve got a kid who might live to see the year 2100, and I’d like the world that he lives in to be a world of growth and opportunity, and not one of floods, famine, and economic collapse.
When Bush came in we had a surplus, no deficit. We were not at war. We had almost full employment.
After Bush, foreclosure everywhere, huge unemployment and a fear of losing your job, two wars with soldiers lives and treasure being wasted, civil rights are under assault, the deficit is enormous, we had a huge financial crisis, and everybody in the world hates and fears us. Bush cost us peace of mind .
Of course governments affect their economies. If they didn’t then you are saying there is no difference between the (formerly) Communist Soviet Union and Capitalist United States as far as their economies are concerned because governments have no impact on that.
One thing Obama is responsible for that will shortly start making a direct difference in my life is the gradual filling of the ‘donut hole’ in the Medicare prescription drug benefit. I won’t be on Medicare for another 8+ years, but my in-laws are, and we’ve been helping them out, moneywise. Less drug costs mean that we won’t have to help them out quite as much, and next year, Medicare beneficiaries will only have to pay 50% of their ‘donut hole’ drug costs, as opposed to 100% last year, and 100% - $250 this year.
Obviously, this wouldn’t have happened under President McCain.