A Look at Some Positive Changes During President Obama's First Year

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from the Cap Times: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/dave_zweifel/article_aa653aba-692c-5bbe-855d-080f8472a67a.html


"Much good amid disappointments of President Obama’s first year"

Monday, January 4, 2010

___ With thanks to West Coast writer Dan Benbow, let’s take a look at some of the changes that President Obama’s administration has made during his first year in office.

In his first month, the president signed equal-pay-for-equal-work legislation to counteract a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that placed severe restrictions on a woman taking legal action over unequal treatment. A couple of weeks later, he signed into law a bill extending health coverage to 4 million uninsured children that the previous administration and Congress had blocked.

The president ordered his new attorney general to take action against people who avoid income taxes by laundering their money in foreign countries. At the same time, he proposed that the government quit the practice of having banks make student loans and then having the U.S. guarantee their repayment. Rather, Obama declared, the government should eliminate the middle man and loan the money itself.

He reversed the Bush administration’s restrictions on the use of stem cells for medical research, clearing the way for federal help for experiments being conducted in places like the University of Wisconsin. He reversed the Bush administration’s crackdown on medical use of marijuana even in states that had legalized the sales. He ordered the Food and Drug Administration to ease access to the “morning after” pill.

Obama began overturning the Bush administration’s “midnight” rules that OK’d mountain mining operations and dumping waste into streams. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the Bush rule that limits the role of science in Endangered Species Act decisions was being rescinded and he placed a million acres of public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon off limits to uranium claims and exploration.

Obama made more aid available to the still-Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and ordered the antitrust division of the Justice Department to scrutinize monopolies in agriculture that may be harming family farm businesses. He unshackled AIDS programs from restrictions that prevented their use for family planning.

The president urged Congress to pass new restrictions on onerous bank overdraft fees and pushed the passage of a credit card consumer act to counter high fees and interest rates. He ordered the Pentagon to allow photographs of soldiers’ coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and he opened the White House visitors’ log to public scrutiny.

All that plus dealing with an obstinate Congress on health care legislation, a massive federal stimulus program to help get the economy moving again, money for the first time ever to build high-speed passenger rail, fostering a new international climate of cooperation, progress with Russia on a new nuclear arms treaty and much more.


read: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/dave_zweifel/article_aa653aba-692c-5bbe-855d-080f8472a67a.html

[Lost4words]

1. I would liked to have seen some job creation

those who needed the most have gotten the least.

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2. jobs are a big problem

. . . where would you invest money to help 'create' jobs if you could choose?


President Obama outlined his own job-creation ideas in December: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120802016_pf.html

___ Obama's job-creation ideas build largely on elements of the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed this year, including tax cuts for small businesses, incentives to hire new workers and a fresh round of infrastructure spending.

The president also recommended that Congress pass a "cash for caulkers" plan that would offer financial incentives for home weatherization. Senior administration officials said the program, based on the popular "cash for clunkers" automobile rebate program, would leverage hiring in construction and manufacturing -- sectors especially hard hit by the recession -- while promoting energy efficiency, resulting in long-term savings for homeowners.

Obama, who has been under pressure to lay out a specific jobs strategy, also called on Congress to extend unemployment insurance, emergency aid to cash-starved states and cities, aid to senior citizens, and health-care help for the jobless -- aid he called essential as his administration grapples with ways to reduce the nation's highest unemployment rate in more than a quarter-century.

"Even though we have reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who've been swept up in the flood," the president said at a speech at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan research organization. "There are more than 7 million fewer Americans with jobs today than when this recession began. That's a staggering figure and one that reflects not only the depths of the hole from which we must ascend, but also a continuing human tragedy."

White House officials did not put a price tag on the president's jobs package, saying the cost would be determined by the scale of programs Congress passes. In his speech, Obama called it "false" to suggest that the government must choose between reducing the deficit and investing in job creation when the nation is dealing with a 10 percent unemployment rate.

transcript as prepared for delivery, President Obama delivers remarks on job creation and the economy: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120801695.html

from the White House, President Obama Announces Proposals to Accelerate Job Growth and Lay the Foundation for Robust Economic Growth: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-proposals-accelerate-job-growth-and-lay-foundation-robust

[Lost4words]

4. At this point , WPA or CCC, invest in the country and her people

there is no single industry that can solve this problem.

[LiberalAndProud]

9. It's good unemployment benefits have been extended.

Otherwise, where would you be?

[Winterblues]

11. Well I know of a few jobs created just for me

I applied for Weatherization projects (Stimulas Bill) and currently have a crew of six doing major upgrades to my house. They just finished putting on a new metal roof and will begin today installing six new windows, after that they are going to re-insulate the floor and in the attic. They will then seal every crack and crevice throughout my home. I expect them to spend about two weeks on all the upgrades and it is costing me nothing. My last fuel fill-up was almost eighteen hundred dollars and I would like very much to cut that by two thirds....

[bigtree]

14. .

:thumbsup:

[ProgressOnTheMove]

3. He is on the case when you look at his overall objective the GOP smashed things to nothing...

Pres. Obama is relaying the foundation for a better tomorrow. Once the foundation is solid everything can grow and build form their, education is everything the kids are the future.

[Lost4words]

5. I'll be dead by then and wont need a job.

[Lost4words]

6. Oh if it only worked that way.

If I am drowning, I dont have time to wait for you to build a boat.

[Coyote_Bandit]

10. Ummmm......

If I don't personally experience some positive change before I see Obama's name on a ballot then he ain't getting my vote again. Same is true of other incumbents. Like others here I don't have the luxury of waiting.....

[Don Caballero]

7. Nice to see good reporting on our President and not reactionary sliming

done not only by the Repugs but also members within our Party.

[Lost4words]

16. I dont consider you a member of the party!

[LiberalAndProud]

8. k&r

[bvar22]

12. YES!!!

The Obama Administration has been busy, with MANY accomplishments:

*WARS fully funded and EXPANDING. Bill sent to our children…...Mission Accomplished !

*Trillion Dollars given to friends and campaign contributors on Wall Street. No Strings Attached...Mission Accomplished!

*Military Spending INCREASED....Mission Accomplished!

*Trillion+ Dollars given to the Health Insurance Industry. Easily Avoidable, symbolic only strings attached....Mission almost Accomplished!

*Force all Americans to buy invisible products from For Profit Corporations who produce nothing tangible and create no wealth.....Mission almost Accomplished!

*Kill the possibility for a REAL "Public Option" or REAL Universal Health Care for at least another generation, and begin the “Entitlement Reform” defunding of Medicare (-$500 Billion)....Mission almost Accomplished!

*Block ANY REAL re-regulation of BIG BANKS and Credit Cards....Mission Accomplished!

*Protect the Bush War Criminals and Torturers from JUSTICE....Mission Accomplished.

*Throw the GBLTs under the bus and expand "faith based" initiatives....Mission Accomplished!

*Reinforce the worst Police State provisions of the Patriot Act....Mission Accomplished!

*Protect the very richest. Tell the Working Class that they CAN WILL compete with 3rd World Slave Labor for their jobs.....Mission Accomplished!

*EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) killed in the crib....Mission Accomplished!

*More Anti-LABOR "Free Trade"....Mission almost Accomplished!

*Jobless Recovery....Mission Accomplished

*The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party SHUT OUT of the Obama Administration…...Mission Accomplished!

*Accelerate the destruction of Public Education...Mission Accomplished!

*Bury next generation under such a debt burden that they will never be able to afford any social or economic programs that will benefit their Working Class....Mission Accomplished.

Where DID they find the time?

[leftstreet]

13. +1

[Blue Owl]

15. Don't stop

Let's keep on REVERSING Dimson's damage, please!