Paul Krugman’s article, “In Defense of Obama,” in Rolling Stone has caused a minor stir. In it he counters the anti-Obama currents swirling on both the left and the right by suggesting that Obama “has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history.”
– Paul Krugman
Krugman was not always a fan. “Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable,” Krugman writes. “I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right … And I wasn’t wrong. Obama was indeed naive: He faced scorched-earth Republican opposition from Day One, and it took him years to start dealing with that opposition realistically.”
Even now, Krugman writes, the president’s most historically consequential successes — healthcare reform and recovery from the 2008 financial crash and the Bush recession that ensued — come with caveats. “Health reform is imperfect, but still a huge step forward,” says Krugman,”and it’s working better than anyone expected. Financial reform fell far short of what should have happened, but it’s much more effective than you’d think. Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction, but has nonetheless been much better than in other advanced countries. And environmental policy is starting to look like it could be a major legacy.”
After presenting his case on Obama’s achievements in healthcare, financial reform, the economy, the environment and national security, Krugman sums up:
This is what a successful presidency looks like. No president gets to do everything his supporters expected him to. FDR left behind a reformed nation, but one in which the wealthy retained a lot of power and privilege. On the other side, for all his anti-government rhetoric, Reagan left the core institutions of the New Deal and the Great Society in place. I don’t care about the fact that Obama hasn’t lived up to the golden dreams of 2008, and I care even less about his approval rating. I do care that he has, when all is said and done, achieved a lot. That is, as Joe Biden didn’t quite say, a big deal.
It’s also true that history generally treats presidents kindly, in part because the ramifications of a president’s actions and policies often take years, even decades, to unfold. Republicans bitterly opposed the implementation of Social Security under Pres. Franklin Roosevelt and of Medicare under Pres. Lyndon Johnson, for example, but those programs are universally popular and capstones of those presidents’ legacies today.
And, under the right circumstances, a president’s record can be rewritten and mythologized after he leaves office. Ronald Reagan raised taxes at least seven times, including the largest corporate tax hike in history, spending rose 40 percent during his presidency and government debt increased by 91 percent during his first term — and yet the tea party GOP holds him up as an anti-tax, small-government avatar today.
Even George W. Bush, the most unpopular president in the history of presidential polling, has seen his approval numbers improve — from 23 percent in October 2008 to 47 percent earlier this year. This is, in part, because Americans are notorious amnesiacs, especially when it comes to politics, and because Bush has wisely chosen to stay out of the limelight. Still, the fact that nearly half of Americans view Bush approvingly is remarkable given the abysmal record of the eight years of his presidency:
- Bush failed to protect the nation from the attacks on 9/11.
- His invasion and occupation of Iraq caused tens of thousands of needless deaths and injuries and cost trillions of dollars in deficit spending.
- The Bush-Cheney rationale for invading Iraq was based on deliberately falsified or faulty intelligence, take your pick.
- His senior advisors — Vice Pres. Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet — wrote a torture manual in the White House, which Bush signed off on and thus, by fiat, single-handedly turned a great nation into a torture state.
- Their ill-fated war in Iraq has led directly to the rise of ISIS.
- Bush never seemed fully engaged. Six years into his presidency, he’d taken 407 full or partial vacation days, compared with 125 full or partial days off for Obama in six years. This inattentiveness had disastrous consequences during the Katrina disaster, when Bush and Cheney stayed on vacation — Cheney was fly fishing. As a result, theirs became the first administration since Madison’s in 1814 to lose an American city on its watch.
- Bush and his party rammed through a Big Government Republican Medicare expansion that was unpaid for.
- Finally, Bush presided over the worst economic collapse in memory, from which, thanks to the obstruction of Republicans in Congress, with its 14 percent approval rating, the middle and working classes have yet to recover.
Bush left office after eight years without a single positive, historic success, and yet six years later nearly half of Americans remember him fondly. Compare that with this list of accomplishments under Pres. Obama just six years into his presidency from Rolling Stone. Many of these achievements will comprise what is likely to be a great legacy in years to come:
Peak unemployment, October 2009: 10 percent
Unemployment rate now: 5.9 percent
Consecutive private sector job growth: 55 months
Private sector jobs created: 10.3 million
Federal deficit, 2009: 9.8 percent of GDP
Deficit in 2014: 2.8 percent of GDP
Average under Ronald Reagan: 4.2 percent of GDP
Average tax rate for highest earners 2008: 28.1 percent
Average tax rate for highest earners 2013: 33.6 percent
Banks regulated as too big to fail, 2009: 0
Banks regulated as “systemically important financial institutions” — a.k.a. too big to fail — 2014: 29
Billions returned to consumers by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforcement: $4.6 billion
Americans compensated for being swindled by banks, lenders and credit card companies: 15 million
Dow Jones close, inauguration day 2009: 7,949
Dow Jones yesterday: 16,719
Required MPG (miles per gallon) for cars when Obama took office: 27.5
Required MPG for light trucks/SUVs when Obama took office: 23
MPG requirement by 2016 for cars, light trucks/SUVs: 35.5
MPG required by 2025: 54.5
Gigawatts of wind power installed when Obama took office: 25
Gigawatts of wind power installed through end of 2013: 61
Peak summertime solar power generation June 2008: 128 gigawatt hours
Peak summertime solar power generation June 2014: 2,061 gigawatt hours
Coal burned in electrical generation 2008: 1 billion short tons
Coal burned in electrical generation 2013: 858 million short tons
Reduction: 14.2 percent
EPA-proposed CO2 reductions for power sector by 2030: 30 percent
Pell grant funding 2008-2009: $18 billion
Pell grant funding 2013-2014: $33 billion
Adults gaining insurance under first year of Obamacare: 10.3 million
As a percentage of the uninsured: 26
Annual cost for birth control prior to Obamacare: Up to $600
Annual cost for birth control under Obamacare-compliant policies: $0
Prescriptions now required to obtain emergency contraception: 0
2009 projection for Medicare going broke: 2017
2014 projection for Medicare going broke: 2030
Troops in Iraq, inauguration day 2009: 144,000
Troops in Iraq today: 1,600
Osama bin Ladens alive 2009: 1
Osama bin Ladens alive 2014: 0
Troops in Afghanistan, day, 2009: 34,400
Troops pledged in Afghanistan by end of 2014: 9,800
Guantánamo detainees inauguration day 2009: 242
Gitmo detainees today: 149
Crack vs. Powder cocaine-crime sentencing disparity when Obama took office: 100:1
Crack vs. Powder disparity today: 18:1
Drug offenders eligible to seek early release under new sentencing guidelines: 46,000
States with medical marijuana, 2009: 13
Jurisdictions with medical marijuana today: 23 states, plus Washington, D.C.
States with legal recreational pot 2009: 0
States with legal recreational pot today: 2
Jurisdictions with marijuana legalization on the ballot in 2014: Alaska, Oregon, Washington D.C.
States where gay marriage was legal inauguration day 2009: Massachusetts, Connecticut
States where gay marriage is legal: 24, plus Washington, D.C. (soon to be 30 plus D.C., following Supreme Court refusal to intervene)
Immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children now shielded from deportation: 800,000
