Obama's First Year - No Change, No Progress, No Improvement

Today marks the first anniversary of Barack Obama's swearing in as President of the United States. Back then, the nation was hopefully looking forward to a new administration and a different way of operating the Federal government. In fact, the entire Obama campaign was based on the notion of "change." At that time, President Obama's approval rating was between 70 and 80%, providing him political capital and air cover to make the positive changes he had promised. I did not vote for Obama but I did maintain my record of having never voted for a Republican for national office in my life. While skeptical of his campaign, I was willing to give him a chance to succeed.

A year later I can say without reservations that his administration's first year has been a disaster. There has been no change of consequence, no progress in addressing any of the nation's ills, and no improvement in most aspects of life affecting Americans. In fact, a case could be made that things are worse in many areas since he took office last January. Consider some of the promises he made during his campaign:

• Although he promised to get us out of Iraq, one of his biggest promises, we have seen virtually no draw down of troops so far. Major draw downs are somewhere down the road and after some major draw downs, there will still be about 50,000 troops stationed within the country. Hardly consistent with his promise to get us out of the country.
• On several occasions and on his campaign website, he vowed to cut down on the numerous earmark and pork barrel projects spending that wastes billions of dollars every year. He was explicit in his goal of keeping the number of earmarks well under 2,000, the levels last seen about eight years ago. Unfortunately, as reported several times by this blog, the number of earmarks in his recent budget came in at over 11,000. Thus, he missed his target by a factor of about eight fold.
• He promised to close down the military terrorist prison at our naval base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, citing his opinion that it was a source of propaganda for the recruitment of terrorists. While he has tried to shut it down, we are not much closer to that reality than we were a year ago. In fact, he has muddled the entire justice for terrorists argument. He is having four of the worst terrorists tried in civilian courts in NYC claiming it will prove to the world that we have a fair and honest justice system. However, both he and Attorney General Holder have already proclaimed that the four defendants will be found guilty, sort of undermining the whole principle of American justice, innocent until proven guilty. He will also try some detainees in military tribunals and some detainees will never get a trial and will be held indefinitely. Thus, whatever propaganda gain he might eventually get by closing Guantanamo, has already been destroyed by his inconsistent prosecution of other terrorist suspects.
• He promised that households making less than $250,000 a year would not see any tax increases. He fell short on this promise in two large ways. First, his administration did raise cigarette taxes significantly. Since a higher proportion of lower income households smoke than higher income households, many, many households making under $250,000 did pay higher taxes for their addiction. More importantly, his administration's first year financial management was atrocious, spending about $3.5 TRILLION on revenue of only about $2.1 TRILLION. The difference was made up with borrowing and deficit spending. His budget plans show that the country will incur about a $9 TRILLION deficit over the next decade unless changed. Thus, while taxes may not have gone up yet (with the exception of cigarette taxes), everyone, regardless of income level, will eventually have to pay extraordinary higher taxes to finance the budget deficit trend his administration has created. Thus, his promise of not raising taxes for those making under $250,000 is a complete fabrication. In fact, the taxes required to cover his deficit spending ways will affect American households for years and generations to come.
• He promised prior to his inauguration that he would reach out, in a bipartisan manner, to Republicans and unite the country under his administration. However, if anything, the country is more bitterly divided than ever. He missed several opportunities to bring us closer together but his silence spoke volumes:

1. When a Florida Democratic Congressman called all Republicans "knuckle dragging Neanderthals,", the President was silent. Not a good way to unite the country when a member of your own party is insulting other Americans.
2. When one of his czars called Republicans a#$h*&$s, the President was silent. Not a good way to unite the country when a member of your own staff is insulting other Americans.
3. When Nancy Pelosi called those expressing their opposition to the current health bill as being un-American, the President was silent. Not a good way to unite the country when those exercising their right of free speech are called un-American.
4. When Harry Reid insisted that American tourists to D.C. in the summer were bodily smelly, the President was silent. Not a good way to unite the country when a member of your own party insists that the very taxpayers that pay for government are smelly.
5. When a certain d-list Hollywood actress called all those opposed to Obama's policies as being racist, he was silent. Not a good way to unite the country when you allow honest disagreement to be called racism. His silence has allowed the bitter partisan political environment to grow and intensify, something he said he would consciously work against.

His record in international affairs shows little progress or difference with the Bush administration:

• We are no closer to reigning in the nuclear weapon intentions of Iran. While Obama has postured strongly many times with regard to Iran, his actions have not backed up his words as deadlines and ultimatums go unheeded, and a year into his administration finds us no closer to the goal of a nuclear weapon free Iran. We have given the rulers there at least another year of development time for their weapons program with no viable deterrent action imminent, giving them more time.
• We are no closer to reigning in the nuclear weapon intentions of North Korea. North Korea has alternately shown a willingness to dismantle its nuclear program and bold saber rattling, the same old, tired story from the Bush and Clinton administrations. In fact, recent news reports indicate that when the North Koreans signed the agreement in 1994 to dismantle their nuclear program, they actually intensified their efforts to develop nuclear bombs.
• Although he gave a well received speech at an Egyptian university, nothing has improved in the Mideast peace process. In fact, no one could say that matters are worse as Israel continues to expand its settlements, aggravating the situation with the Palestinians, whose poverty levels have not improved. Hamas and Hezbollah are still major terrorist organizations with uninterrupted support from Iran and Syria.
• The Obama administration ticked off the Czech and Polish governments, stout allies, by suddenly shutting down the missile defense system that the Bush administration had planned. The administration gave both governments only a one hour notice of the termination in order to cozy up to Russia. This gesture has resulted in nothing of consequence from Russia as far as cooperation.
• Protecting us from terror attacks seems to be slipshod, given the complete breakdown of the security apparatus as it applied to the Nigerian who almost brought down a Detroit bound jet with an underwear bomb.
• Other world trouble spots are still world trouble spots including Yemen and terrorists, the genocide in the Sudan, piracy off the coast of Somalia, tense relations between India and Pakistan, etc.

The Obama's administration failures in handling of the economy and the nation's financials have been analyzed many times in this blog and include the following:

• His deficit spending ways will heavily tax current households and future taxpayers for decades to come.
• His economic stimulus plans have not worked and official unemployment numbers are up to around 10% while hidden, unofficial unemployment numbers are around 18%.
• His stimulus projects included fixing bridges that did not need to be fixed and other extraneous spending that did nothing to benefit the country or the economy.
• Both the number of earmarks and value of earmarks are near an all time high.
• His administration gave away billions of bailout dollars to banks and other financial organizations in a very slipshod and untrackable manner, bailouts that most did not need since almost all of the them have paid back the bailout money just months after receiving it.
• Our trade deficits with China continue to soar unabated.
• The administration wasted billions of tax payer dollars on saving Chrysler and General Motors, rescuing them from their own incompetence, and wasted more billions of dollars on the ill run and ill conceived Cash For Clunkers program.
• The administration does not realize that when the government goes into deficit spending mode, he sucks up available capital for private industry and businesses to use to expand production, employment, and the economy. By not understanding basic economic theory, the administration has made a bad economy worse, not better.

In the matter of Afghanistan, he made several important mistakes:

• While Americans were dying on the battlefield and the Taliban were regaining the upper hand, the President was discussing his NCAA basketball tournament picks, he jetted off to Europe to plug Chicago as a host of the Summer Olympics, and he took time to film a television commerical for the George Lopez Show. It was not until ten months into his administration did he finally come up with a plan.
• And it is not a very good plan. It will cost another $30 billion of taxpayer money to deploy an additional 30,000 U.S. troops. But he put a deadline on the use of troops, 18 months, which gave the enemy a definite time frame that they need to stick it out. Rather than break the enemy spirit with the use of more forces, he undermined the entire reason for the troop increase.
• By not consenting to follow the enemy into Pakistan, he gave additional comfort to the enemy. They can rest easy knowing that the increased presence will not follow them into the safe havens across the border and they can hang out for 18 months before the withdrawal begins.

Thus, I find little to be optimistic about regarding Obama's first year. Some of his supporters would say that he inherited a mess from Bush and that is why there has been little progress. But let's not forget that the Democrats have controlled Congress and the Federal budget process for three years. Never a big fan of Bush, he did try to fix the housing problem before it exploded, as we documented in a late 2009 post, but he was constantly blocked by the Democrats. Anyway, Obama had any number of opportunities to execute some positive actions, if only to criticize those that devolved into name calling (Neanderthal, racist, un-American, etc.). Some of his supporters would claim he is close to passing the first ever national health care reform law. To that I say two things. First, passing a law for the sake of passing it when it is a horrible piece of legislation should not be counted as an accomplishment. Second, he has not passed the bill yet.

The following saying, often quoted by Jon Gruden, ex-head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, seems appropriate: "You are only as good or as bad as your record." Bad economic policy, no progress in international relations and situations, more division between groups of Americans, a faulty anti-terrorist security system, two lingering and expensive wars, high deficits, high unemployment, public schools that still are failing, a drug war that is still unwinnable, no national energy program, no viable immigration plan, etc. President Obama is only as good as his record and his record is not good. Maybe I should send him a copy of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." How much worse could he do than executing the fifty steps in the book?

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.