Tag: Obama Presidency

Pres. Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishments

Jon Ponder

The fact that Washington Note writers Paul Glastris, Ryan Cooper, and Siyu Hu felt it was important to come up with a list of Pres. Obama’s top 50 accomplishments is emblematic of two countervailing political factors in the Obama era.

Taxes are the lowest they have been in 30 years, and the rate of spending growth is radically slower under Obama than it was under Big Government Republicans like Reagan and the Bushes.

First, it is demonstrates how adept the right wing message machine has become at rewriting history in real time as it happens. For example, Fox viewers are outraged at the “fact” that Obama has raised taxes while simultaneously accelerating government spending at a rate unparalleled in history.

Both of these two seemingly indisputable Fox News talking points are false. In fact, taxes are the lowest they have been in 30 years and spending growth is radically slower under Obama than it was under Big Government Republicans like the Bushes and Reagan. (Politifact: Obama has overseen “the lowest annual increases in spending of any president in 60 years.”)

But some of the responsibility for Republican propagandists’ success in distorting the president’s record lies with Obama, his top aides and, especially, the White House political shop. If Team Obama had been telling their story effectively all along, there would be no need for this list.

In any case, you’ll find the list of the president’s top 50 accomplishments at the Washington Note website. Here are the top 10:

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Obama Thwarts GOP Political Hostage-Taking with Recess Appointment of Richard Cordray to Head Consumer Watchdog Agency

Jon Ponder
Pres. Obama announces nomination of Richard Cordray, right, with Elizabeth Warren, left, looking on
Pres. Obama announces nomination of Richard Cordray, right, with Elizabeth Warren, left, looking on

If you’re just checking in on Washington politics after the holidays and the Iowa caucuses, you’re likely hearing that Republicans in Congress and their throught-masters at Fox are in a spittle-spewing rage over Pres. Obama’s recess appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Board, or CFPB, watchdog agency.

After successfully blocking the nomination of Elizabeth Warren, the consumer advocate and Harvard professor who had been appointed to set up the CFPB — and who is now running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts — last year, Senate Republicans tried to stop Cordray’s appointment during the current recess by briefly gaveling the Senate in and out of pro forma sessions every day. Obama went around this and appointed Cordray by using a precedent set by Republican Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, who, in 1903, filled more than 160 administration positions while the Senate was on break for less than a day.

Republicans were holding the Cordray nomination hostage in order to extort a major overhaul of the laws that would, in essence, defang the watchdog agency. The Republicans’ objective was to ensure that their corporate sponsors in the financial industry would be able to continue to rip off consumers, including the constituents of these hostage-taking Republicans senators, legally, as they had been when Republicans controlled Congress, the Judiciary and Executive branches during the Bush administration.

Under the sway of their minority tea-bagger base, Republicans used political extortion multiple times last year to push the national and world economy to the brink of collapse. Their motives then were simply to create havoc. The extortion over the Warren and Cordray nominations has a different goal, says Jonathan Chait:

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Obama Reduced Federal Deficit By $103.6 Bil – Down 13% from 2009

Jon Ponder

More signs that Pres. Obama and the Democrats are succeeding in slowing or bringing the GOP-Bush Recession to an end, via Bloomberg:

The U.S. government posted a smaller budget deficit in August compared with the same month last year, helped by rising tax receipts.

The excess of spending over revenue totaled $90.5 billion last month, smaller than the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and down 13 percent from $103.6 billion in August 2009, according to a Treasury Department report issued today in Washington. The gap for the fiscal year that started in October was $1.26 trillion compared with $1.37 trillion last year at the same time.

The economic recovery has helped generate more tax revenue for the Treasury, even as the Congressional Budget Office forecasts the deficit this fiscal year will reach $1.34 trillion, the second-largest on record. The Obama administration faces the challenge of trying to limit the shortfall while stimulating an economy with joblessness close to 10 percent.

“We’re seeing the revenue coming back,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida. “The cumulative deficit for the fiscal year is a bit smaller, but still fairly wide. It doesn’t signal a lot of improvement.”

Hey, haters: Presidents get blamed when the economy goes bad, even when, as was the case here, the president is not responsible for the policies that caused the downturn. Conversely, they also get credit when things go well — especially when, as is the case here, their policies caused things to turn around.

So don’t even start.

Fox News: GOP in Congress Has Lowest Approval of D.C. Politicians – Even Among Republicans

Jon Ponder

I missed this Fox News poll from last month:

Democrats in Congress continue to garner better ratings than Republicans. Some 37 percent of voters approve of the job Democrats in Congress are doing, little changed from 36 percent about six months ago. For Congressional Republicans, 31 percent approve, up slightly from 29 percent.

Fully 70 percent of Democrats approve of the job their representatives are doing on Capitol Hill, compared to 52 percent of Republicans who approve of theirs. About twice as many Republicans (40 percent) disapprove of the job their party is doing in Congress as Democrats disapprove of their party (19 percent).

A majority of independents disapproves of Democrats (60 percent) and Republicans in Congress (66 percent).

The same poll found that Pres. Obama has a 53 percent favorable rating overall, including a 91 percent favorability among Democrats.

It’s Possible That Obama Could Create More Jobs in 2010 Than Bush Did in Eight Years

Jon Ponder

Ron Brownstein:

If the economy produces jobs over the next eight months at the same pace as it did over the past four months, the nation will have created more jobs in 2010 alone than it did over the entire eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency.

That comparison comes with many footnotes and asterisks. But it shows how the economic debate between the parties could look very different over time — perhaps by November, more likely by 2012. More important, the comparison underscores the urgency of repairing an American job-creation machine that was sputtering long before the 2008 financial meltdown.

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Because Joe Wilson is Your Pre-Existing Condition

Trish

joewilson-preexisting
I don’t know how long Rep. Joe Wilson (R-Teabagland) will be the butt of our jokes, so get Joe Wilson Is Your Preexisting Condition.com while it’s hot.

Among our favorites:

  • Joe Wilson yells Free Bird at concerts
  • Joe Wilson doesn’t respect the constitution of your United States
  • Joe Wilson woke up your baby after you just got it to sleep
  • Joe Wilson yells while adults are talking
  • Joe Wilson thinks you’re too stupid to actually read the bill

There are many more. See for yourself.

Obama’s Back: Taking Names in Health Care “Debate”

Trish

Over and over, during the 2008 election cycle, I saw Barack Obama win the long game and I learned to trust him to pretty much always come out on top. This video shows the Barack Obama I knew could get the job done.

Bring it, you paranoid, racist, uneducated mo-fos who don’t have health insurance and aren’t bright enough to recognize when you’re being helped. We’re ready for your dim-witted asses.