<p>Any opinions on this?</p>
<p>Still unclear this one… Can’t really say yet</p>
<p>What did he do so far? I don’t notice anything new.</p>
<p>someone needs to pay attention.</p>
<p>terrible imo</p>
<p>i like him</p>
<p>I think he’s doing quite well. Done more in his first hundred days than any other president. </p>
<p>He’s completely rebranded our country to the world. He’s extended a hand to former adversaries, but remained strong. </p>
<p>Economy’s starting to turn, green economy is emerging. He’s taken decisive actions against pirates / terrorists that show he’s not afraid of the tough decisions. </p>
<p>Overall, I’ve been quite impressed.</p>
<p>he’s done quite well, although it’s been more fun to watch the republican party eat itself alive</p>
<p>Done more in the first hundred days than anyone else? Are you kidding me or do you just not know history? FDR did way more than he has done in his first 100 days.</p>
<p>I think he’s done quite well so far. Sometimes I do wish he wasn’t spending quite so much, but other than that I think he’s done well. It’ll be interesting to see who he picks to replace Justice Souter.</p>
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<p>You’re right. I meant to say modern president.</p>
<p>Well, considering we live in the age of the 24-hour cable news network and every move is over-scrutinized and every difference of opinion underscored and magnified, I think he’s done exceptionally well.</p>
<p>As regards foreign affairs, he has essentially put the Cuban government in a position where, if it doesn’t reciprocate by either releasing political prisoners or removing the exorbitant tariffs (20%) they have on remittances sent by Cuban Americans to relatives on the island, it looks intransigent and unwilling to negotiate. The removal of the restrictions on travel by Cuban Americans really was masterful–it wasn’t too great a concession, but significant enough that it forces the Castro regime’s hand. On that front, at the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the official statement called for the inclusion of Cuba at the next summit (5 years from now) after its being excluded since 1962 in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis.</p>
<p>In the Middle East, he has indicated to right-wing extremist Binyamin Netanyahu, the newly (s)elected Prime Minister of Israel, that he will take a tougher stance on Israel and attempt in earnest to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli problem–not just with an Oslo-Accords-type agreement or a repeat of the failed Taba Negotiations, but with an engagement with all of Israel’s immediate neighbors, including Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, as well as a discussion about Israeli settlements in the Shebaa Farms in the south of Lebanon and the Golan Heights to the west of Syria, which has been (illegally) claimed by Israel since the Six-Day War. He has expressed, with the appointment of George Mitchell as the man in charge of negotiations, his desire to have a Camp David Accords-like agreement to settle land disputes and create parallel Israeli and Palestinian states. George Mitchell has also said that the “swiss cheese” tendency needs to be avoided and that the Palestinian state needs to be either contiguous or connected by a narrow strand of land running through Israel. It’s a start–and he’s done more in 112 days than Bush did in 2,920.</p>
<p>With Iran, he has taken a more diplomatic stance. He [recorded</a> a message](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY_utC-hrjI]recorded”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY_utC-hrjI) that aired on Iranian television speaking directly to them on the occasion of [Nowruz[/url</a>], the Iranian new year holiday. Even Ayatollah Khamenei is pressuring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to not be as combative. Now the discourse for the upcoming Iranian elections is about who will better engage the Americans… This is good and a colossal paradigm shift in Iranian-American relations. In Afghanistan, more troops have been sent to isolate the Taliban into the Swat Valley region in western Pakistan, where drone attacks are carried out routinely to prevent this extremist group from taking over Pakistan, a nuclear country. This is developing, of course, and President Zardari of Pakistan has made far too many concessions to the Taliban–the situation, in short, is liable to ‘evolve’ quickly. Stay tuned, I suppose. And, of course, withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq will begin this summer to be completely done by 2011.</p>
<p>Oh, and he took out the Somali pirates holding the Maersk Alabama captain hostage.</p>
<p>In domestic affairs: the biggest budgetary shift of priorities in the last 30 years. The 2010 budget for the next 5 years prioritizes things like education and health care, setting aside $600 billion for legislation apropos of health care later this year. It invests in clean energy and introduces a [url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading]cap-and-trade[/url”>Emissions trading - Wikipedia]cap-and-trade[/url</a>] system to curb the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Later in the year, health care legislation is going to be introduced, as I just mentioned, and the idea being put forward is to have a mechanism to keep health care premiums on co-pays and deductibles (the current set-up where you pay ~$160/month/individual for either a co-pay, where you pay a portion of your medical bill and your insurance company pays the rest, or deductibles, where you have a set amount to spend on health care per year (for instance, $5000 is common) and your medical bills are deducted from that) from increasing as meteorically as they have (in 2000, premiums were about a third of what they now are, just to give you an idea of how rapidly they’ve come up). That mechanism will be a public health insurance program–that is, a health insurance program underwritten in part by the government in accordance with the need of the individual. For instance, someone making $20k/year will receive heavy subsidies whereas someone making $75k/year can opt to instead have private insurance OR enter into the public program with fewer, less far-reaching subsidies. The idea is that the public system, kept at the same price, will force insurance companies to stay at that price to remain competitive. Please note that the quality of medical care has not increased at all over the last nine years, while the premiums have tripled and, for those with preexisting conditions, quintupled or sextupled. And with respect to those with preexisting conditions, one of the advantages of having a public program will be that those with preexisting conditions will not be denied or have to pay exorbitant prices for often skimpy coverage. It really makes no sense to have health care be least accessible to those who most need it… Which is why there are 50 million uninsured in the United States. Which is equally unacceptable.</p>
<p>With regard to the economy, the [url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009]American”>American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - Wikipedia]American</a> Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz]Nowruz[/url”>Nowruz - Wikipedia) has significantly mitigated the burden on states to cut from their swelling budgets in order to balance them, sending them money to prevent them from proceeding with the dismissal of teachers, firefighters, and policemen, among other public-sector employees at the local and state levels. Beyond that, $9 billion were set aside for school modernization and construction. The Pell Grants this year were increased to $5500 so that, in some cases, they can finance a state school education in some places for the underprivileged. Beyond that, there were also huge investments in alternative energy and highway and road construction and repair. Much of the money goes toward these and other infrastructure projects without funding. The rationale, of course, is that that will provide construction/green-collar jobs for the unemployed, who will then spend that money at a store, at which point that store will hire more people, who will then spend their income on something else, and so on…</p>
<p>There were also generous ($800/family, $400/individual) tax cuts included in that stimulus bill. These will not be sent in one check–instead, they will be sent bit by bit in the form of roughly $13/month. Now, this may seem insignificant. But consider there are 150 million people in the workforce. If all of them are spending $13 more every month… well, you do the math. That’s $23 billion in a year that is pumped into the economy. If it had been sent in one lump sum, people would’ve saved rather than spent it–which is counter-intuitive, is it not?</p>
<p>On the dreaded and much-maligned bailouts, there’s also been a shift, but not as dramatic as in other areas. The fact remains, however, that if the collateralized debt obligations that have resulted from the securitization of sub-prime variable-rate mortgages and the massive wave of defaults on those mortgages in 2006 are not bought out, the banks cannot lend, which means that businesses big and small cannot borrow to meet payroll which means more people are laid off which means there is less spending which means more businesses are forced to shut their doors which means even more layoffs. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be stopped. After that has happened, however, Obama has said we need to restore the regulations that have been systematically picked apart by presidents going back to Carter with his well-meaning but ultimately catastrophic [Community</a> Reinvestment Act](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act]Community”>Community Reinvestment Act - Wikipedia) and especially the virulent Reagan with his dismantling of some of the most important provisions of the [Glass-Steagall</a> Acts of 1933](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall]Glass-Steagall”>Glass–Steagall legislation - Wikipedia), not to mention, of course, the coup de grace that was the [Gramm-Leach-Bliley</a> Act of 1999](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act]Gramm-Leach-Bliley”>Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act - Wikipedia) under Clinton, which tore down the wall between commercial banks, or the bank you would deposit your money in, and investment firms and insurance companies (the perfect example of the results: [American</a> International Group](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIG]American”>American International Group - Wikipedia)).</p>
<p>Whether the recovery will be V-shaped or L-shaped is what we’ll find out in the coming months. I suspect it’ll be the former, but then, I’m an eternal optimist.</p>
<p>Beyond even that, though, he signed the [Lilly</a> Ledbetter Fair Pay Act](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act]Lilly”>Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 - Wikipedia) for equal pay for women. It is a piece of legislation that will allow women to take their employers to court if they are not paying them the same amount they are paying their male employees. I believe this is landmark legislation and, short of an Equal Rights Amendment, it’s the most important act in the march toward gender equality since the ratification of the 19th Amendment. He also signed, as if all of that were not enough, the [Public</a> Lands Management Act of 2009](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Public_Lands_Management_Act_of_2009]Public”>Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 - Wikipedia), the most comprehensive piece of conservation and public land management legislation in a generation, at least.</p>
<p>If I had to grade him, I’d give him a low A–low only because I thought the inaugural address was a huge missed opportunity and disappointment. Nevertheless, [67%</a> of the American people agree](<a href=“http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx]67%”>Gallup Daily: Obama Job Approval). So, no, he hasn’t done more than FDR did, but neither has he had as compliant and cooperative a Republican Conference (what the GOP calls its congressional caucus) as FDR did in the [73rd</a> Congress](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/73rd_Congress]73rd”>73rd United States Congress - Wikipedia). But he certainly has come the closest of any president since.</p>
<p>You have too much time on your hands.</p>
<p>Oh, I live for this stuff, jrt336.</p>
<p>I think he’s done pretty well, although there wasn’t a high standard to compare…</p>
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<p>quite true.</p>
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FDR was in a similar position as Mr president at the moment, fdr did alot of good, but you got to give mr president some credit for trying so hard, times are different.</p>
<p>fdr did good?? that’s why the depression lasted untill WWII, right?</p>
<p>obama IS doing the same thing that fdr did, and the consequences will be the same.</p>
<p>Actually, UnleashedFury, that’s just a right-wing myth meant to deprecate the legacy of one of, if not the, greatest president in all of American history. FDR’s public works programs put people to work and practically modernized the entire country, the Tennessee Valley Authority brought energy to towns and cities alike and revived the Tennessee Valley, his art programs funded some of the greatest art of the twentieth century, his bank holiday restored confidence in the banks and staved off even more catastrophic runs, the Glass-Steagall Acts put in place the regulatory framework to prevent another crisis (this crisis in particular), not allowing commercial banks to merge with insurance companies and investment firms. Reagan, one of the main propagators of this myth, would pick apart Glass-Steagall during his two terms and Phil Gramm, his prot</p>