The A List - Obama: The Accomplishment President

 

Recently, comedians have been having a nice laugh over President Obama's supposed lack of accomplishments. SNL, Conan, even Jon Stewart have taken their licks.  His supporters can't be too thinned skinned after dishing jokes out to George Bush for so many years.  While we can have a laugh over the jokes, we must also remember that the digs have no merit.

I'm not sure how the "lack of accomplishments" impression got formed. Maybe it is because the President is faced with problems that simply can't be solved quickly. The economy is not going to turnaround quickly from a two year recession no matter what steps are taken. Similarly, peace in the the middle east and a reduction global warming are goals that will not, and cannot, be completed in a few months or even a few years. The very nature of the challenges the President has taken on are ones that can only be partially met 9 months into office. Maybe it was that the President dared to enunciate lofty goals, even when he knew they could not be easily achieved. Maybe opponents decried "he's done nothing" so many times that people just started believing it. 

Whatever the reason, the President deserves credit for tackling the major problems of our day and making real progress on many fronts. Below is a short list of accomplishments. Suffice to say, I could have gone on much longer but there are enough bullet points to show clearly and concisely that the guys done a lot.

Economy

Here's a simple summation– “He saved the economy from economic collapse.” How about a slightly longer one - “After a nearly a two year recession, and two years of total inaction, Obama steered the economy back to growth in only 9 months.” Here are the particulars:

· Developed and passed the  American Recovery and Reinvestment Act..  Even the Wall-Street Journal admits that the Recovery Act worked and independent audits suggest there is little or no fraud. Most Americans got a tax break. If you or know someone who is getting extended unemployment insurance or COBRA, you can thank this Act. See all that construction on the streets? Thank the Recover Act for that as well. You can debate how well the Act worked, but you can't debate that it did. You can debate how many jobs the Act created, buy you can't debate that it created or saved many, many jobs. As important is the fact that the projects funded by the Recovery Act will have a multiplier effect. For example, the investment in computerizing medical records creates jobs now and reduced medical costs long term.

·  The "Making Home Affordable" home refinancing plan allows people in trouble with their mortgage to refinance at lower payments and rates. 500,000 people have refinanced.

·  The President signed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, expanding on the Making Home Affordable Program to help millions of Americans avoid preventable foreclosures, providing $2.2 billion to help combat homelessness , and helping to stabilize the housing market for everybody. 

·  The President launched a $15 billion plan to boost lending to small businesses.

 The President sighed the first time homeowner tax credit and cash for clunkers. 

·  The President signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act to protect Americans from unfair and deceptive credit card practices.

 

Civil Rights

• The President signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, restoring basic protections against pay discrimination for women and other workers.

Health Care

• Reform bills have passed every committee in both houses of Congress. No other President has pushed reform this far.
• The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act, which provides quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured.
• The Recover Act:
• Protects health coverage for 7 million Americans who lose their jobs through a 65 percent COBRA subsidy to make coverage affordable.
• Invests $19 billion in computerized medical records that will help to reduce costs and improve quality while ensuring patients’ privacy.
• Provides $1 billion for prevention and wellness to improve America’s health and help to reduce health care costs;
• Provides $1.1 billion for research to give doctors tools to make the best treatment decisions for their patients by providing objective information on the relative benefits of treatments; and
• Provides $500 million for health workforce to help train the next generation of doctors and nurses.

 

Foreign Policy:

• Won the Nobel Peace Prize for putting diplomacy back on the table.
• First U.S. President to address the Muslim/Arab world directly
  
• Appointed Special Envoys for Climate Change, Southwest Asia, the Middle East, Sudan, and a Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Improved relationships with China and Russia
• Won commitments from Russia on tougher sanctions with Iran.
• Ended the expensive, ineffective and diplomatically disastrous missile program in Europe.
• Re-started nuclear non-proliferation talks
• Re-started talks between Israel and Palestine
• Had the U.S. join the U.N. Human Rights Commission
• Helped save the Turkey/Armenia peace agreement.
  

 

Hiring the Most Qualified Senior Staff that is Also the Most Diverse Group

Obama’s senior staff is generally acknowledged to be one of the most impressive, smartest, and qualified groups in presidential history. Here’s a fact – they are also the most diverse. He’s picked more women and minorities than any other president.    

Jerry Brown - Again

Early today I sent a glib Facebook update from a house party fundraiser for Attorney General Jerry Brown (not Gerry as I wrote in the post). So here are my thoughts on Jerry.

• The guy is really smart and has an incredible, detailed knowledge of the issues that face our state.
• He's thought a lot about these issues, and without downplaying the complexity of the problems, actually has some solutions. I left feeling somewhat optimistic about our state for the first time in a while. When he didn't have an solution, he'd tell you.
• Ideas get him excited.
• He came across as tough, funny, self-effacing, acerbic, smart, and genuine. I usually think the most genuine candidates wins.
• At 71, he looks great. Trim, athletic, and energetic
• Hasn't come up with an overarching idea or message for his campaign. OK, he hasn't announced yet, but an overarching idea of what his campaign is about and why he should be governor is crucial. Meg Whitman already has a theme.

Jim Carrol - Now Among the People Who Died

My brother just told me that Jim Carrol died today. The Jim Carrol Band was my first club show in Boston. I drove my mothers car in with a friend from high-school who ended up dating Mellisa Gilbert years later. When we came out of the show, my mom's car was stolen. We had to take the bus back to Worcester and my parents had to pick us up. Now that's punk rock. It was a great show and some of those songs on Catholic Boy are still among my favorites.

Sen. Kennedy - Personal Reflections

In my last blog post, I wrote that healthcare reform "may be the last bill that Sen. Kennedy ever votes for before the ravages of cancer catch him." As you know by now, that projection turned to be optimistic. Growing up in Massachusetts, Sen. Kennedy dominated our political lives, and I met him many times. As a young boy, I campaigned for Ted Kennedy during his presidential run in 1980 -- one of my first political memories. I was at the Democratic National Convention (my mother was a delegate) when he made his concession speech. Although spoken in defeat, it may have been the Senator's finest moment of oration.

In that speech, the Senator asked us "to renew the commitment of the Democratic Party to economic justice." I recalled these words often and they have been a light to me whenever it seemed that the cause of justice was hidden in darkness.

That speach also contained an impassed plea for healthcare reform.

[W]e cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance. We must -- We must not surrender -- We must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real controls over what doctors and hospitals can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of a family's wealth.

These seem like dark times for the Senator's dream of healthcare reform, but "we must not surrender."
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/tedkennedy1980dnc.htm.

On the Verge of History

What do Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, LBJ, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton have in common? They all attempted to provide comprehensive health insurance for Americans but failed. Ted Kennedy is one the most effective Senators in modern history, having helped passed the Voting Rights Act and scores of other landmark legislation. However, even he has failed, despite having been promoting health insurance reform since the late '60s.

As Jews, our desire for comprehensive health care goes back quite a bit longer than the 1960s. Maimonides, the great rabbi, philosopher and codifier of Jewish law from the 1100s, listed health care first on his list of the 10 most important communal services that a city had to offer to its residents (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De'ot IV: 23). The Reform Movement has brought Maimonides' spirit to the modern era, having endorsed comprehensive reform since the mid-'70s.

America is now on the verge of meeting this basic moral obligation and fulfilling the dreams of so many. Most major committees in the House and the Senate have passed a version of a national insurance act. Indeed, the act may be the last bill that Sen. Kennedy ever votes for before the ravages of cancer catch him. We are closer to comprehensive health care than we have ever been in the history of our nation.

Those who have supported health insurance reform for decades should be ecstatic and motivated. Instead, the passion and energy seems to be on the side of those opposing reform. I'm not just talking about the tea bagging crowd trying shout down discussion.

Polls show those opposing reform are following the health care debate more closely than those who support reform.

So why the enthusiasm deficit? There are several likely suspects. Reforming a full sixth of our economy is truly difficult, and crafting legislative solutions is messy. The process by necessity involves compromises that can sap our most idealistic aspirations.

Maybe the focus on political horse-trading and technical aspects of legislation has made us forget the very citizens we're suppose to be helping. Sure, we can trot out statistics - such as the fact that 46.6 million U.S. citizens don't have health insurance and that premiums for the insured have doubled in recent years - but have the images of the people behind those numbers faded with the increasingly rancorous debate?

Let's remember who the health care fight is for. Take a look at one of the many sites dedicated to telling the stories of those who the current system has failed. On MyAmericanHealthcareStory.org, for example, you can listen to John and Sara explain how their insurance failed to cover the swine flu test for their 4 year old. Or to Sookie tell the story of his 18-year-old daughter, who has to choose between college and paying off her medical bills. Or to Trisha tell how her brother was without insurance after he returned from Iraq, after 15 years of military service, because he was "only" a reservist. Or to Chi-Wei, the retired cancer researcher whose insurance covers only a fraction of his Parkinson's medication.

These are the stories that should not happen in a caring, just society. Yet happen every day to folks at nearly every socio-economic bracket of society.

We owe it to these people to put any partisan feelings about the proposed health insurance reforms aside and increase our devotion to the legislation's passage. Remember, every major step forward from The Bill of Rights to Social Security to the Civil Rights Act was criticized at the time for being too tepid. Yet these laws are now seen as the bedrock of our civil society. The current health insurance legislation is the next step in creating a more perfect union. Now is time for us to make history together. http://blogs.rj.org/rac/2009/08/on_the_verge_of_history_wheres.html

Contact Sen Feinstein About Reform

On Sunday’s CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senator Diane Feinstein stated that healthcare reform should wait until “President Obama’s efforts to repair the economy and overhaul the financial-regulatory system [can] be measured.” We can certainly engage in good faith arguments about the best way to achieve comprehensive health care reform. (Taxing certain benefits? Government competition?) Yet, the goal of achieving such reform this year should be non-negotiable: healthcare reform is necessary part of the economy’s recovery, not a burden on it. Passing reform will become harder, if not impossible, in upcoming years, as Senator Dole recently pointed out as part of his argument to pass reform now. Having such a prominent Democratic as Senator Feinstein urging that healthcare reform be delayed, is unacceptable. If a former Republican presidential candidate is behind immediate reform, then Senator Feinstein should be as well. Please contact Senator Feinstein and urge her to publicly support comprehensive healthcare reform this year.

Contact Feinstein

Getting beyond old paradigms.

“[I]n the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground.” With these words former VP Dick Cheney laid out an uncompromising justification for using any means to stop potential acts against the U.S. While the left ridiculed his statement, progressives have shown their own brand of rigidity when responding to President Obama’s recent national security decisions. (See e.g., “The president wrapped himself in the Constitution and then proceeded to violate it.” (CCR President Michael Ratner; “The Obama administration [is] adopt[ing] … the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration (ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romono)). Both Cheney and these progressive groups use a similar strategy – portray those who disagree with you in the most extreme terms and react to any variance in ideology as if it were a major betrayal.

Putting aside the merits on the arguments, both sides are showing that they are mired in the tradition left/right debate that has paralyzed American policies for decades. The major intellectual thrust of Obama’s presidency has been to transcend this standard divide. It is the idea behind his inauguration speech and The Audacity of Hope.

Obama himself seems to recognize that the real problem in the debate over national security is not finding the right policies but overcoming the rigid ideology that prevents us from agreeing upon pragmatic solutions, as the following quotes indicates:

“Now, over the last several weeks, we've seen a return of the politicization of these issues that have characterized the last several years. …

Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right. The American people are not absolutist, and they don't elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems. They know that we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security, so long as we approach difficult questions with honesty and care and a dose of common sense. …. That's the challenge laid down by our Constitution. That has been the source of our strength through the ages.”

Focusing on solutions rather than ideology does not mean that we simply have to accept Obama at his word. (I disagree with several of the President’s positions.) But when disagreeing, we must do so without resorting to absolutes, without exaggeration, and without the labels that stigmatize the other side. Instead, we must use the same careful analysis that the President uses when he lays out his arguments. In short, we have to treat each other like adults.

As President Obama said “Now let me be blunt. There are no neat or easy answers here.” Both sides of the debate would do well to remember this.