Retro 5: President Obama's Checklist of Accomplishments To Date - Making Jimmy Carter Proud

Note: Given the Thanksgiving holiday this week and the resultant preparations, family visitors, and other commitments, we will be rerunning the top rated and most popular blog posts from the past five years. These posts cover a wide variety of political class insanity, wasteful spending, inane quotes, and other idiocy and are the discussions that most resonated with our readers. We will be back next week with fresh material, starting with our monthly update on "Political Class Insanity."

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2012

President Obama's Checklist Of Accomplishments To Date - Making Jimmy Carter Proud

About a week ago, a Facebook friend posted a short Facebook blurb that listed out the accomplishments of the Obama administration. It was meant to be complimentary of the administration but it had two major faults. First, it was not a very long list, comprising only about a half dozen points or accomplishments. Second, while this Facebook friend listed some of this administration's actions as successes, many Americans would consider these same activities as failures.

For example, this short list of successes included the passage of Obama Care. However, we would view this is an abject failure rather than a success to be proud of since:

1. Obama Care will likely cause tens of millions of Americans to lose their company health care insurance coverage since the legislation was written so poorly that it made it less expensive for companies to pay a relatively small Obama Care fine than continue health care insurance for their employees and retirees, the exact opposite of what the law was supposed to do.
2. Obama Care will add numerous new taxes to the economy, further depressing the economic recovery from the Great Recession.
3. Obama Care will implement almost 2,000 new Federal government guidelines and restrictions on Americans, further reducing our already shrinking freedoms and liberty.
4. The head actuary for Medicare and Medicaid has recently estimated that Obama Care will add over $300 billion to our already disgusting national debt over the next ten years, the exact opposite it was supposed to do.
5. The legislation will never solve the problem of ever escalating health care costs because it never took the time to understand the root causes of the increasing costs.
6. The legislation will have major, difficult, and unnecessary impacts on Americans' life choices including retirement, marriage, and careers.

One person's perception of accomplishment is another's perception of complete failure. Interesting political times we live in. 

Thus, as a rebuttal to my friend's meager six or so Obama administration accomplishments, and to expand on the above list of six Obama Care failures, allow me to present a much longer checklist of administration failures, a list so long it evokes the sour and failure memories of the Carter administration:

• Implement the largest failed economic stimulus program in the history of the country, costing over $800 billion and delivering very little economic growth. Check.
• Implement a series of failed economic tactics including Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, and Cash for Caulkers. Check.
• Campaign on a promise to close the terrorist prison at Guantanamo and then fail to actually close the facility. Check.
• Campaign on a promise to not place former lobbyists in high positions in this administration and then proceed to install former lobbyists in high level positions in this administration. Check.
• Campaign on a promise to significantly reduce the number of earmarks in the Federal government and then proceed to allow billions of dollars a year to be diverted into political earmarks. Check.
• Randomly blame bush. Check.
• Promise to quickly extract U.S. troops out of Iraq and then proceed to use the extended Bush exit plan. Check.
• Renew the freedom destroying Patriot Act with virtually no changes from the Bush administration version and continue not to staff the civil liberty oversight panel required by the law. Check.
• Randomly blame Bush. Check.
• Oversee an incredibly botched and illegal gun running sting operation called Fast and Furious that allowed thousands of military grade weapons to fall into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels, weapons that have led to the death of an American immigration agent and dozens of innocent Mexicans, weapons that have further destabilized the central Mexican government, and weapons whose sale violated both U.S. law and international treaties. Check.
• Fail to have an effective contingency plan and operations plan in place, reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina, when the Gulf of Mexico oil rig accident happened, resulting in widespread ecological damage and economic damage. Check.
• While oil leaked into the Gulf waters from the leaking oil rig, embark on at least two vacations, take two cross country trips for political fund raising, and play numerous rounds of golf. Check.
• Oversee the average cost of a gallon of gasoline go from $1.79 at inauguration to $3.40 in January, a 90% increase (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics). Check.
• Establish a record for average February gasoline prices at $3.53 a gallon. Experts quoted in an Associated Press article forecast the average price will hit $4.50 by April. Check. 
• Oversee the average price of a gallon of fuel oil go from $2.51 a gallon at inauguration to $3.70 in January, a 47% increase. Check.
• Oversee the cost of a pound of ground beef go from $2.97 at inauguration to $3.29 in January, an 11% increase. Check.
• Preside over the first ever downgrade of the United States government credit rating. Check.
• Add TRILLIONS of dollars to the national debt, more than every other President from Washington through Clinton added COMBINED. Check.
• Randomly blame Bush. Check.
• Give out hundreds of millions of dollars to political friends' alternative energy endeavors (Solyndra, Ener1, Beacon, Evergreen, Spectra) and watch them all go bankrupt, taking taxpayer wealth down the drain with them. Check.
• Set records for the most Americans ever on food stamp rolls. Check.
• Endorse and sign legislation to reform the financial services industry, legislation that promptly fell on its face by not foreseeing the 8th largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, the collapse of financial services firm MF Global and the possible criminal destruction of over $1 billion in client assets, the exact type of behavior the legislation was supposed to prevent. Check.
• Break the oath of the Presidency taken at inauguration by not enforcing the laws of the land such as DOMA. Check.
• Break the oath of the Presidency taken at inauguration by blatantly ignoring judicial rulings such as the Gulf oil moratorium judicial ruling. Check.
• Randomly blame Bush.
• Break a campaign oath by trampling on the checks and balances tenets of the Constitution by making high level government appointments without Congressional oversight and approval. Check.
• Trample on freedom of speech and freedom of religion rights by forcing religious organizations to forego their religious beliefs in light of secular government mandates. Check.
• Support the repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy only after a national Republican organization successfully fought for the repeal through the court system. Check.
• Randomly blame Bush.
• Preside over the worse economic recovery from a recession since the Depression. Check.
• Allow Iran to get three years closer to having nuclear weapons. Check.
• Allow North Korea to get three years closer to having nuclear weapons. Check.
• Fail to foresee or be prepared for the Arab spring and the opportunities and risks inherent in the movement for freedom in the Middle East. Check.
• Trample on the Constitution and the War Powers Act by illegally  involving the U.S. in military in significant military action in Libya without Congressional approval. Check.
• Hold dozens of photo ops with professional and amateur athletic teams, including the Texas Christian University rifle team, but hold few, if any photo ops with inspirational teachers, brave policemen and women, or heroic war veterans. Check.
• Do not develop a workable and coherent national energy policy and strategy that helps the economy and reduces our dependence on foreign energy sources. Check.
• Do not develop a workable and coherent education reform strategy and policy so that we can start educating our kids as well as the rest of the world educates theirs. Check.
• Do not develop a workable, coherent, and compassionate illegal immigration policy that protects and seals our borders and fairly  leverages the contributions of existing illegal immigrants within the country. Check.
• Do not develop a workable and compassionate alternative to our lost war on drugs, threatening to shut down existing marijuana clinics that provide pain relief to untold number of Americans suffering from highly painful diseases and maladies. Check.
• Remain silent and do not try to unite a divided country when political allies slander ordinary Americans having a difference of opinion, allowing these American citizens to be called racists, Ku Klux Klan members, knuckle dragging Neanderthals, a__h___s, terrorists, barbarians, gerbils, and un-American. Check.
• Randomly blame Bush, the Japanese tsunami, ATM machines, and a host of other factors for many of the above failures. Check.
• Manipulate the calculation of the unemployment rate to falsely make it look like the unemployment situation is improving. Check.
• Allow over $500 billion of taxpayer wealth a year to continue to be lost annually to waste, inefficiencies ands criminal activity in major and minor government programs including, but not limited to, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and unemployment insurance. Check.
• Wage class warfare of rich Americans against poorer Americans by falsely implying that Warren Buffet's Federal income tax rate is typical of those Americans earning over $100,000 a year. Check.
• Ignore the pending financial meltdown of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to not alienate a few voters in November. Check.
• Fail to write the regulations and guidelines needed to implement legislation that was passed in 2008 that cracked down on food stamp fraud.
• Fail to come up with a reorganization plan or termination plan for the dysfunctional and expensive Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA entities. Check.
• Approve the first ever, government sanctioned assassination of an American citizen without due process and institute an official government committee to review and recommend subsequent assassinations of Americans without due process.

I may be wrong but I do not remember Carter coming anywhere close to this number of failures during his entire four years as President. I do not think he set anywhere near the number of records that the Obama administration has set as far as the weakest economic recovery ever, the most failed economic programs, the most Americans ever on food stamps, etc. 

I do not think Carter had nearly as many firsts as Obama such as the first government sanctioned American citizen assassination, the first ever U.S. credit downgrade, the first ever TRILLION dollar annual government deficit, etc.

I do not think Carter had nearly as much disdain for individual Constitutional rights, Constitutional tenets. or the rule of law. 

So, no disrespect to my Facebook friend who thinks that her list of a half dozen Obama accomplishments is noteworthy. My above list of over four dozen reasons why the Obama accomplishment checklist of failure trumps that list in my mind. When a President's accomplishment checklist falls below the accomplishment checklist of Jimmy Carter, it is about time to try another President.

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Post note: This list was put together two years ago. Unfortunately, things have not gotten any better under this administration. Unemployment and under employment, while somewhat better, are still bad, 45 million American STILL need government food assistance, ISIS is running amok in the Middle Wast with no plan in place to contain them, overall economic growth is still tepid, Obama Care nightmares are worse than expected, Guantanamo is still open, Americans' electronic communications are still being intercepted by the Federal government without warrants, politicians still hold regular Americans in contempt, the plans to contain Ebola seemed to change daily, this administration and Congress continue to shred the Constitution, our borders still leak, ........

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