I put ‘‘Ok, all things considered.’’ I was very disappointed in his first year and think he could have shown better leadership, but ever since the Health Care bill passed he’s been getting an alarming rate of shit done. If the momentum continues, he could be great.
Translation: He’s doing OK, all things considered.
I have no dog in this fight, really.
What was the Federal Debt when W took office?
What was it when he left?
The Republicans arranged matters so the bills would come due after Bush left office, so that doesn’t reflect on Obama. Obama would have to be a literal miracle worker to have a lower debt after what Bush and friends did.
Maybe, but it’s been a year and a half and he hasn’t nominated anybody yet. The board doesn’t exist.
This was funny! I really had to clamp down - if the boss heard me giggling, he’d want to know what about - and he would NOT find this amusing!
Year Gross Debt in Billions undeflated[8] as % of GDP Debt Held By Public ($Billions) as % of GDP
2001 5,769.9 57.4 3,319.6 33.0
2002 6,198.4 59.7 3,540.4 34.1
2003 6,760.0 62.6 3,913.4 35.1
2004 7,354.7 63.9 4,295.5 37.3
2005 7,905.3 64.6 4,592.2 37.5
2006 8,451.4 65.0 4,829.0 37.1
2007 8,950.7 65.6 5,035.1 36.9
2008 9,985.8 70.2 5,802.7 40.8
I will assume a strictly factual answer does not make this a debate.
Regards,
Shodan
So we went from 5.7 trillion in debt to just under 10 trillion under his leadership?
More importantly, the debt grew substantially faster than our economy; so much so that the debt went from 33% of GDP to 41% of GDP.
As to Obama, I suppose there is a debate as to whether Keynesian spending in recessionary periods is valid or not.
My point is simply this: Democrats and Republicans alike, Presidents and Congress alike (including the beloved Ronald Reagan) have been spending money like sailors on leave for 3+ decades.
Sure the numbers are eye popping. But lets not pretend that Congress and the Executive branch haven’t been liquidating the future generations of this country for a long, long time.
Bush inhertited a budget surplus of over $400B from Clinton, and let office with a half trillion dollar deficit. Really Bush’s deficit is a lot more if you count his spending on Iraq (which he used creative bookkeeping to keep from showing up on the deficit, but which Obama has put back on the books) and the bank bailouts which happened on his watch. Bush’s real total deficits were in the trillions of dollars.
[Stern Moderator Note]Take the budget debate to Great Debates. If the only way to keep this poll open is to issue infractions, I’ll do so.[/Stern Moderator Note]
I think he’s doing OK. I think he’s a politician. I think the other side is in such a lather to prove him wrong in everything they are standing in the way of important things without even thinking them through. I think he could do better if the other side remembered to think down the line. I hate politics in real life. No one ever listens to the other side.
Argh, I hate being first on the second page.
I am not totally pleased, but a couple of the things that he promised to do and hasn’t (like closing Guantanamo and ending DADT) have run into some legal problems that I think a lot of people didn’t anticipate. I mean, I didn’t realize how complicated repeating DADT would be, for instance, although I think Obama could have been more forceful on the issue. (OTOH, he seems to have stepped it up lately.)
We’ll see.
On-topic GD thread here.
You’re upset that he hasn’t nominated anyone to positions which don’t exist? 
I’m sorry. I wasn’t clear. The positions exist. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is a five member board. Currently, though, all five positions are vacant. Congress has appropriated money to pay the salaries of the board members, but President Obama hasn’t nominated anyone to the board. I’m upset that he hasn’t done that.
Meh. Sounds like something the 9/11 Commission recommended just to make their conclusions look more substantial. There are plenty of people in the DoJ already doing essentially the same job.
Other than reporting to Congress each year it doesn’t look like the board has any actual power; do we really need another advisory body?
The SDMB is just So full of Win.
I think Obama is doing pretty well, all things considered. People are complaining at the costs but seem to forget you have to spend money to make money. You can’t jumpstart a dead economy when folks are afraid to do anything about it. Doing something beats doing nothing. It’s also trivially easy to hand wave the money spend in the middle east over the last 10-ish years. And the Housing Bubble. And the oil industry money-grab. And things like Enron. And Blackwater. And Halliburton.
I’d much rather sign up with someone trying to make things better than someone trying to be overly greedy.
The DoJ is the organization this board is supposed to police, though. They’re the ones who are supposed to blow the whistle when the DOJ signs off on illegal searches and other restrictions of civil liberties.
I went with “doing OK, all things considered”, but came very close to choosing “not doing as much as I hoped”.
The biggest disappointments for many progressives have been:
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Not getting a robust public option in HCR. (And, starting with Single Payer not even on the table).
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Initiating a surge in Afghanistan
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Not ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
BUT, he HAS made progress even on these 3 issues, especially in HCR (obviously), and in DADT (a kind of “half-revoking” of the policy).
As for Afghanistan, it’s hard to tell if a Republican president would have been more hawkish or not. Perhaps a Pubbie would have initiated the same sort of surge, but would not have been quite as insistent on a kind-of-timeline for eventual withdrawal.
Hmmm. I’m not sure I see the point of an oversight board for the executive branch which is also part of the executive branch, and also appointed by the Prez.
Neither did Congress, which is why they got rid of the executive branch advisory board and replaced with the current board, which is a legislative branch agency, whose members are nominated by the president and approved by congress (or would be if President Obama nominated any).