American Politics

[D Cups]

worthless.

Sums it quite nicely, 2041. Cry some more. Eventually some other democrap will change your the-I-a-p-e-are for you.

[D Cups]

Funny stuff. ].

Meanwhile, check out the crime in the ex-president's hometown of Chicago. That's real funny, too. Who you going to blame for that, GE? Al Capone? Lawlessness and disrespect for people and property blossumed under obummer. Real funny.

[Member #2041]

Waaaaa waaaa waaaaa more excuses from the crybabies. Get your mama to change your

You can join the substantive part of the discussion which people on both sides are engaged in, or you can continue to act like the worthless douchebag you are. We know what we're expecting.

[D Cups]

Sorry Natty, .

Waaaaa waaaa waaaaa more excuses from the crybabies. Get your mama to change your [CodeWord132].

[D Cups]

You guys and the entire democrapic party are chock full of excuses. You'd rather blame than take responsibility. That is your party line MO. That's what the American people finally realized and voted in opposition. Cry and whine all you want, it is all moot now.

Obama not having even the bare minimum 60 Democratic seats.

.

[EihTooms]

It just blows my mind when progressives say Obama did good vis a vis the economy or foreign affairs. The truth is he presided over the worst economic expansion in modern US history. The economy under Obama never grew at 3%. Furthermore, it is economic history that the more severe a downturn, the faster and more robust the economic recovery will be.

I'll take a slower than usual Democratic / Obama economic recovery over your typical Republican Great Depression / Recession any day. This one was slower because Republican Party leadership in Congress agreed among themselves and pledged on the night of Obama's first inauguration not to help the incoming President pass anything or do anything to pull us out of the worst economic downturn their own Republican Party policies produced, figuring they could blame the slow recovery on Obama and the Dems in the minds of dimwits who likely have no idea what a cloture vote is and ride that lie back to congressional wins in subsequent elections. Shrewd move. They were right.

Obama not having even the bare minimum 60 Democratic seats in the Senate generally required to pass anything of significance for even a single day of his presidency (he only had a bare minimum 60 seat Democratic majority "caucus", which is not the same as having all 60 seats being Democratic Party seats, for about 12 unpredictable, sporadic weeks during his first year in office), meant the Republican Senate minority could slow walk, delay, obfuscate, obstruct or outright block all the known and well-tested methods for pulling the USA Economy out of those patented Great Republican Depressions / Recessions. And that is exactly what they did.

There was no counterpart to that kind of political party leadership pledge to obstruction in the aftermath of the previous Great Republican Depressions / Recessions. The Republican Party presence in the House and Senate was too paltry during the FDR years to block his Dem recovery measures. The Democratic Party majorities in the House and Senate under Reagan weren't about to make the country suffer longer than necessary for purely political reasons when they were faced with pulling us out of Reagan's Great Recession. The Republican Party congressional minorities were not about to dig in too much to block what G. W. Bush had to do under duress and at the last minute to pull us out of his Great Crash / Recession at the end of his presidency because, hey, he was one of their own.

Of course, a handful of House Republicans still managed to trigger the biggest panic stock market sell-off Crash since the Stock Market Crash of October 1929 when they pulled their "yes" votes at the last minute on that first TARP vote on September 29, 2008, contrary to what G.W. Bush asked of them. That was horrifically damaging enough for our economy and those of many other countries around the planet, particularly on an important psychological level. But otherwise they at least went along with it on the second go around the following month. Too late to "unpanic" the stock market sell-off by then though.

[Member #2041]

Perhaps. One thing to consider is that in the Congressional elections of 2010, 2012, and 2014 Obama lost his majority in the House (2010) and then the Senate (2014). This all happened after Obama Care became law. Further, the Democrats saw their party lose many state governor houses and legislatures. Much of this was due to the Tea Party, which I doubt would have been receptive to Obama-esque anything, and the inability of the Democrats to get out the vote during mid-term elections. I think this limited Romney's flexibility. Obama's charisma wasn't transitive to others in his party. Reagan's was.

Not only did Reagan win more than 50% of the vote with a strongish third-party candidate participating, he then built on that by winning almost 59% in '84 - Obama's numbers went down by about 3m votes in '12. Reagan set up Bush the elder for victory in '88, and I think Bush could have won in '92 had it not been for the economic contraction, Perot, and "Read my lips, no new taxes. " (Yes, I've read the articles saying Perot didn't take votes away from Bush, but I'm unconvinced.) Clinton bashed Bush for breaking that tax pledge, which is kind of a remarkable event that a Democrat would use opposition to increased tax as a strategy. That's how far to the right the Democrats swung, all due to Reagan. Even Obama could hardly be called at Roosevelt, Truman, or LBJ Democrat.

Economic recovery was both Bush and Obama. TARP was enacted in Oct 2008, so that's Bush (and Congress). A set of mixed measures, such as TALF and CPP, shored up the banks, which at least brought stability back in a time of panic. I understand all the banks minus AIG repaid their rescue packages with interest. The automakers were also rescued by TARP because GM's and Chrysler's bankruptcies were orderly and millions were not tossed out of the factories. This is no comfort to those whose pensions were affected.

Though $100B was budgeted, TARP did little to ease the foreclosure crisis because only $21B was spent. The result was about 10m homes were foreclosed. That's on both Bush and Obama, but I think Obama's share of the blame is larger since he had 8 years to redress this. Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program had the Treasury Department alone decide to run it through mortgage companies that had financial incentives to foreclose rather than modify loans. In 2010 it was revealed the mortgage companies were still perpetrating fraud to squeeze the borrowers, yet little was done to punish those involved. The borrowers were used to "foam the runway", allowing mortgage companies time to absorb inevitable foreclosures more slowly. Homeowners were the foam being crushed by a jumbo jet in that scenario, squeezed for as many payments as possible before ultimately losing their homes. You may read Neil Barofsky's book Bailout: An Inside Account Of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street - Barofsky was the congressionally appointed watchdog of TARP. "Treasury's bungling of HAMP and its refusal to heed our warnings and those of other TARP oversight bodies resulted in the program harming many of the people it was supposed to help. " This happened under Geithner's Treasury Department, and that's Obama.

I think Romney should have attacked Obama on home foreclosures, yet he's a traditional Republican and challenging business interests isn't in their DNA.

Looking at the 2016 election, I think anger at Wall St, i.e. banks, figured prominently. Look how Sanders eviscerated Clinton for her series of $250 k speeches to it. Much as been made about sexism, racism, "fake news", the FBI, and Russian hackers, but I think a lot of voters were deeply upset, if not enraged, that Wall St was bailed out and homeowners weren't. They learnt of Clinton pocketing cheque after cheque, and people justifiably saw that as their tax dollars going into her bank account. If I were a voter I wouldn't gave voted for her just for that. Collect your reward once you're finished with public service entirely. It's astonishing how unaware she was of public sentiment. Maybe she thought the public wouldn't learn of these since these were private speeches, yet she should have learnt from her Bosnia under-sniper-fire incident and other episodes that these tend to blow up in one's face. For a person who was supposedly very intelligent and highly experienced, she sure was amazingly adroit in charging into problems of her own making.

TARP version 1 passed under Bush in October of 2008, but frankly, Tim Geithner created the program for Paulson, and Obama was instrumental in getting it passed, because he strongly endorsed it, when McCain's campaign was flailing without any coherent strategy to deal with the financial crisis. Frankly, TARP was initially half-baked until Geithner fully baked it, and was appointed Obama's Treasury Secretary to carry it out. There also was a follow-on TARP II which passed during Obama's first month in office. Both TARP laws were Tim Geithner's creations, and he was all along going to be Obama's Treasury Secretary even when he was working for Paulson during the last months of the Bush Presidency. In fact, Geithner had some improprieties in his personal taxes, and his nomination would have sunk because of those improprieties, except that Obama stood hard by him because he knew that Geithner was far and away the key expert on what the program needed to do and how to do it.

BTW, I agree that Clinton has several shady dealings with Wall Street, but they actually pale into insignificance compared to Trump's shady dealings with Wall Street. But Trump's supporters refused to hold him accountable in the way that they held Clinton accountable for shady dealings that were 1-2 orders of magnitude smaller than Trump's shady deals. Trump was actually telling the truth when he stated that he could murder someone on 5th Avenue and the voters would give him a pass for it. That was actually the most truthful statement he made during his entire campaign.

[Hutsori]

If Romney had actually take CREDIT for Obamacare, instead of contorting himself into claiming it was so evil, when he himself had implemented a virtually identical plan in Massachussetts that was a success, he might well have won -

Perhaps. One thing to consider is that in the Congressional elections of 2010, 2012, and 2014 Obama lost his majority in the House (2010) and then the Senate (2014). This all happened after Obama Care became law. Further, the Democrats saw their party lose many state governor houses and legislatures. Much of this was due to the Tea Party, which I doubt would have been receptive to Obama-esque anything, and the inability of the Democrats to get out the vote during mid-term elections. I think this limited Romney's flexibility. Obama's charisma wasn't transitive to others in his party. Reagan's was.

Not only did Reagan win more than 50% of the vote with a strongish third-party candidate participating, he then built on that by winning almost 59% in '84 - Obama's numbers went down by about 3m votes in '12. Reagan set up Bush the elder for victory in '88, and I think Bush could have won in '92 had it not been for the economic contraction, Perot, and "Read my lips, no new taxes. " (Yes, I've read the articles saying Perot didn't take votes away from Bush, but I'm unconvinced.) Clinton bashed Bush for breaking that tax pledge, which is kind of a remarkable event that a Democrat would use opposition to increased tax as a strategy. That's how far to the right the Democrats swung, all due to Reagan. Even Obama could hardly be called at Roosevelt, Truman, or LBJ Democrat.

Economic recovery was both Bush and Obama. TARP was enacted in Oct 2008, so that's Bush (and Congress). A set of mixed measures, such as TALF and CPP, shored up the banks, which at least brought stability back in a time of panic. I understand all the banks minus AIG repaid their rescue packages with interest. The automakers were also rescued by TARP because GM's and Chrysler's bankruptcies were orderly and millions were not tossed out of the factories. This is no comfort to those whose pensions were affected.

Though $100B was budgeted to remedy it, TARP did little to ease the foreclosure crisis because only $21B was spent. The result was about 10m homes were foreclosed. That's on both Bush and Obama, but I think Obama's share of the blame is larger since he had 8 years to redress this. Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program had the Treasury Department alone decide to run it through mortgage companies that had financial incentives to foreclose rather than modify loans. In 2010 it was revealed the mortgage companies were still perpetrating fraud to squeeze the borrowers, yet little was done to punish those involved. The borrowers were used to "foam the runway", allowing mortgage companies time to absorb inevitable foreclosures more slowly. Homeowners were the foam being crushed by a jumbo jet in that scenario, squeezed for as many payments as possible before ultimately losing their homes. You may read Neil Barofsky's book Bailout: An Inside Account Of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street - Barofsky was the congressionally appointed watchdog of TARP. "Treasury's bungling of HAMP and its refusal to heed our warnings and those of other TARP oversight bodies resulted in the program harming many of the people it was supposed to help. " This happened under Geithner's Treasury Department, and that's Obama.

I think Romney should have attacked Obama on home foreclosures, yet he's a traditional Republican and challenging business interests isn't in their DNA.

Looking at the 2016 election, I think anger at Wall St, i.e. banks, figured prominently. Look how Sanders eviscerated Clinton for her series of $250 k speeches to it. Much as been made about sexism, racism, "fake news", the FBI, and Russian hackers, but I think a lot of voters were deeply upset, if not enraged, that Wall St was bailed out and homeowners weren't. They learnt of Clinton pocketing cheque after cheque, and people justifiably saw that as their tax dollars going into her bank account. If I were a voter I wouldn't have voted for her just for that alone. Collect your reward once you're finished with public service entirely. It's astonishing how unaware she was of public sentiment. Maybe she thought the public wouldn't learn of these since these were private speeches, yet she should have learnt from her Bosnia under-sniper-fire incident and other episodes that these tend to blow up in one's face. For a person who was supposedly very intelligent and highly experienced, she sure was amazingly adroit in charging into problems of her own making.

[GoodEnough]

Funny stuff. http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borow...ings-to-idiots.

[Member #2041]

Member #2041, I appreciate the effort it took to write your response. I am further heartened by the fact that you do consider Obama a great president. "I did not say Obama was a "great President". He was, in point of fact, an just a somewhat above average President. He didn't accomplish anywhere near enough after his first 2 years in office to be considered great, because he never figured out how to overcome Congressional obstruction." Maybe he didn't accomplish anything with Congress because he lacked the ability or confidence to negotiate and to compromise to get what he wanted. Other Presidents faced great hurtles in dealing with the opposition party in Congress too, but they overcome those problems for the good of the country. Example: Ron Reagan and Bill Clinton. Obama couldn't or wouldn't. He wasn't up to the job.

Anyway, you asserted a lot of points in your post. Perhaps I can agree on some; I know I disagree on many. But I will give you the respect you deserve to look it over carefully and respond in due course. I do note that the economy expanded during the Obama presidency. My point is the recovery could have been stronger and real wages should have gone up, which they did not. I have attached a chart from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve that shows GDP growth in the quarters following every recession since WW2. Clearly you can see that Obama's recovery is the weakest. Briefly on the Great Depression, I am sure you are aware, that there was a 2nd recesson in 1937-38 that compounded the problem, but provided evidence that Keynesian fiscal economics policies were a failure. Governments just can't spend their way out of recessions. I am sorry. It just doesn't work that way.

Natty, I appreciate the fact that, unlike D Cups, you were at least willing to have a discussion on the actual merits of Obama's Presidency, rather than just resorting to the parroting of mindless blather and meritless slurs. Which is why I gave you the respect of a reply on the merits as well.

Whether or not I agree with you about why Obama was unable to overcome Congressional obstruction, it's somewhat of a moot point. It was Obama's job to martial public opinion behind his policies, and have the public force the Congress to acede to the will of the public, and it's apparent that he was unable to do that. That being said, it certainly is true that no President other than Roosevelt ever had to deal with as badly collapsed an economy as Obama, and frankly, the recovery under Obama was more robust than the recovery under Roosevelt for the first 8 years. As I said, it really took WWII for the USA To grow it's way out of the Great Depression. And it is also the case that Obama did not JUST inherit a shrinking economy, he also inherited a collapsed financial infrastructure, and situation where over half of all aggregated wealth in the economy had vanished. Frankly, if one looks impartially at the degree to which the engines of economic growth had been destroyed in 2008 prior to Obama taking office, the fact that he got the USA From rapid contraction to admittedly tepid growth as quickly as he did, is actually unprecedented. The fact is, ALL of the growth that was occurring in the economy up to 2008 had been fueled by an explosion of credit based upon stock market appreciation and increased home equity. Those underpinnings were completely blown away during the financial collapse from 2006-2009. Before Obama could even hope to see economic growth, he had to restore the credit markets back to viability. And that took the better part of 2 years to happen, and even now, credit is much tighter than it was in the early 2000's. That's the main reason that growth coming out of that recession has been less than robust. People were sitting on mounds of debt, and had to pay a substantial amount of that back before they could even begin to consume actual goods with their partially restored wealth. I'm quite sure that, a rigorous analysis of the recovery under Obama will actually show that it was as robust as could reasonably be hoped for, given the structural failure that brought about the recession. If anything, I believe that the failure of Obama's 2009 stimulus package was that it was too small, rather than it was too aggressive. Frankly, that was the time that the USA Infrastructure deficiencies should have been addressed, with a MASSIVE infusion of government construction projects, probably double the size of what was actually done. If not for the significant government spending that did happen, growth would have been more anemic than the 1-2% that we DID see in the out years of Obama's Presidency. The reason that real wages have not gone up is a function of globalization - the WORLD's wages are going up, but since we are at the leading edge of those wages, the constant drive to outsource production is what keeps U.S. wages from rising. The fact is, with ubiquitous broadband communication, there is an inexorable leveling of wage rates around the world. Donald Trump's push toward protectionism and wall-building won't stop it - it's fundamentally unstoppable as a trend.

I'll also go on record that the Affordable Care Act is actually doing as well as any alternative program could have, other than a national expansion of Medicare / Medicaid into a single-payer program. The fact is, the existing system had fully failed prior to Obamacare. Mitt Romney recognized it, and went against Republican orthodoxy to implement essentially the same program as Obamacare in Massachussetts. And it worked. And if given another 3 years, Obamacare would have accomplished near universality of coverage AND cost containment. But the simple fact is, true cost containment could never be achieved while more and more sicker people were being brought into the system. Nonetheless, the cost increases have been brought down from what they were prior to Obamacare, while at the same time, bringing nearly 20 million more people into the ranks of the insured. Once those folks had been brought into the system, from that point forward, the productivity gains could be applied to cost containment for a relatively fixed level of service, rather than expansion of service to more sicker patients, which is what we've been observing so far.

That being said, I emphasize again, that there is a world of difference between claiming that Obama was a great President, and the really unassailable case that he was a far better President than his predecessor, George W. Bush. It may be a low bar to clear, but at least if we're being honest, it is a bar that Obama EASILY DID CLEAR. It's frankly impossible to have a conversation on the merits when someone starts out with the extreme and indefensible position that Obama was the worst President EVER, when there is no plausible way to make the case that his immediate predecessor was not FAR worse, and that the catastrophic scenario that Obama inherited has to be taken into consideration when he is evaluated for posterity. The simple fact is, in 2016, we were in FAR better shape than we were in 2008. And I take issue with your premise that the depths of the 2008 recession should have made the Obama recovery more robust, when quite clearly, the severity of the crisis, along with the collapse of financial infrastructure and all available credit, represented an ongoing boat-anchor to the recovery, which NO policies or person would have been able to fully overcome in a more rapid timeframe.

[Member #4698]

Member #2041, I appreciate the effort it took to write your response. I am further heartened by the fact that you do consider Obama a great president. "I did not say Obama was a "great President". He was, in point of fact, an just a somewhat above average President. He didn't accomplish anywhere near enough after his first 2 years in office to be considered great, because he never figured out how to overcome Congressional obstruction." Maybe he didn't accomplish anything with Congress because he lacked the ability or confidence to negotiate and or compromise to get what he wanted. Other Presidents faced great hurtles in dealing with the opposition party in Congress too, but they overcome those problems for the good of the country. Example: Ron Reagan and Bill Clinton. Obama couldn't or wouldn't. He just was not up to the job.

Anyway, you asserted a lot of points in your post. Perhaps I can agree on some; I know I disagree on many. But I will give you the respect you deserve to look it over carefully and respond in due course. I do note that the economy expanded during the Obama presidency. My point is the recovery could have been stronger and real wages should have gone up, which they did not. And to get what little Obama got he doubled the National Debt to 20 Trillion Dollars by borrowing more money than all other Presidents combined. If nothing is done to reduce this debt it will one day destroy us.

I have attached a chart from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve that shows GDP growth in the quarters following every recession since WW2. Clearly you can see that Obama's recovery is the weakest. Briefly on the Great Depression, I am sure you are aware, that there was a 2nd recesson in 1937-38 that compounded the problem, but provided evidence that Keynesian fiscal economic policies were a failure. Governments just can't spend their way out of recessions. I am sorry. It just doesn't work that way.

[Dg8787]

Seems like the division is getting even greater. I will continue to maintain civility here.

A friend of mine just hates President Trump and posts non stop crap about him on FB almost daily for the past 6 months. Opposes every Presidential cabinet appointment just because it is a Trump appointment. Today, LOL today he likes a post praising Trump's team for listening to the Pilots Union request to overturn Obama's decision to allow Norwegian Airlines to operate in US. Of course he is a SW pilot that would be greatly affected by the foreign carrier. Now he doesn't mind this exclusion to save American jobs (his own), but deporting illegals or a 90 day travel ban? Hell no!

As I stated before, the problem is we all have our own self interest as a priority which will cause our own demise. When we vote we vote for a platform of issues, not just our singular ones. Some we like some we don't. Over all are we better off or not? If not we vote again.

[GoodEnough]

The claim that more severe downturns are typically followed by more rapid upturns is, quite simply as flat out wrong as it could be. That claim is utter nonsense. More severe downturns have always been followed by LESS robust recoveries.

BTW, the comparison with Venezuela is delusional, Obama never put forth anything remotely like the controlled state-run economy that exists there. A much more relevant comparison for Obama's desired programs - most of which were never implemented due to Republican obstruction in Congress, except for healthcare, would be with the Democratic Socialist safety net approach that exists in Scandanavian countries, and New Zealand. Which, BTW, are the most prosperous countries in the world per capita. And frankly the claim that Obamacare is a death-spiral failed program is a fiction. The simple fact is, it was a two phased approach. Phase 1 was to provide near universality of coverage with containment of cost increases, and AFTER near universality would be achieved, only then could cost-containment start to kick in. The fact is, we're still not out of phase 1 yet. But even so, healthcare costs under the ACA have still gone up LESS rapidly than they were increasing under the pre-Obamacare world. Even as the healthcare industry was extending coverage to 10-20 million additional citizens who happen to be the ones with the highest costs to serve because of pre-existing conditions. The fact is, Obamacare WAS working, and was doing what it was designed to do. One of Obama's great failures as President was that he didn't successfully make that case to the American people, and they only began to discover it on their own - several years into the program. So NOW, ironically, when Republicans and Trump are hell-bent to get rid of it, only now has a majority of the American population come to realize how much that they are BENEFITTING from it.

I did not say Obama was a "great President". He was, in point of fact, an just a somewhat above average President - he ddin't accomplish anywhere near enough after his first 2 years in office to be considered great, because he never figured out how to overcome Congressional obstruction. But, quite simply, only a completely brainwashed moron with total amnesia concerning the disastrous period from 2001 to 2008, during which time we were successfully invaded by 15 guys with boxcutters, and proceeded to embark on two of the four most disastrous wars in American history, and only THEN presided over the 2nd worst economic collapse in American history would suggest that he wasn't a better President than George W. Bush, however.

Thanks for presenting such a logical, fact-based argument. When the other side of the debate relies less of verifiable fact and argues from the "Never mind, I know what I know," perspective however, logic flies out the window.

There's another admittedly intangible feature called grace and dignity that the Obamas bought to the White House; factors that stand in stark contrast to the tasteless clown who currently occupies the dwelling.

GE.

[Member #2041]

Sorry Natty, that's complete fiction. In actual fact there has NEVER been a STRONGER economic recovery from as deep a chasm as the one Obama inherited in 2009. That's because there has only been ONE economic downturn that bad in the past 150 years, and that was the one that Roosevelt inherited from Herbert Hoover. And in point of fact, the recovery from the Great Depression was weaker than the recovery Obama oversaw, for more than 9 years. The only thing that actually got the USA Economy moving again after the Great Depression was the buildup for WWII, a solid 11 years after the Great Depression and Stock Market crash happened in 1929. No other economic downturn in USA History is comparable to those two, because they both combined massive contractions in economic activity, and the failures of the financial infrastructure itself in both instances. When Obama took over, we were literally losing 700,000 jobs a month. Obama's stimulus put an end to that within a year (which, BTW, is what ANY economic policy requires to affect job growth. Unemployment lags the actual economic conditions by at least 9, and more typically 12 months). The fact is, the asymptote in the employment curve took place 11 months after Obama's stimulus package was approved. Under Obama, after that first year catastrophe he inherited, the economy has been adding over 200 K jobs per year, consistently for over 6 years. The fact is, Obama DID preside over economic expansion. That didn't just magically happen, it took strong measures to pull the economy out of the complete collapse that it was in during 2008, and it took over a year and a half just to end the nosedive. But that nosedive caused major systemic problems that still are a drag today, but they are FAR less serious than they were.

The claim that more severe downturns are typically followed by more rapid upturns is, quite simply as flat out wrong as it could be. That claim is utter nonsense. More severe downturns have always been followed by LESS robust recoveries.

BTW, the comparison with Venezuela is delusional, Obama never put forth anything remotely like the controlled state-run economy that exists there. A much more relevant comparison for Obama's desired programs - most of which were never implemented due to Republican obstruction in Congress, except for healthcare, would be with the Democratic Socialist safety net approach that exists in Scandanavian countries, and New Zealand. Which, BTW, are the most prosperous countries in the world per capita. And frankly the claim that Obamacare is a death-spiral failed program is a fiction. The simple fact is, it was a two phased approach. Phase 1 was to provide near universality of coverage with containment of cost increases, and AFTER near universality would be achieved, only then could cost-containment start to kick in. The fact is, we're still not out of phase 1 yet. But even so, healthcare costs under the ACA have still gone up LESS rapidly than they were increasing under the pre-Obamacare world. Even as the healthcare industry was extending coverage to 10-20 million additional citizens who happen to be the ones with the highest costs to serve because of pre-existing conditions. The fact is, Obamacare WAS working, and was doing what it was designed to do. One of Obama's great failures as President was that he didn't successfully make that case to the American people, and they only began to discover it on their own - several years into the program. So NOW, ironically, when Republicans and Trump are hell-bent to get rid of it, only now has a majority of the American population come to realize how much that they are BENEFITTING from it.

As for foreign affairs, Obama's record is mixed, certainly not great, but it is still VASTLY superior to the disastrous record of George W. Bush, who failed to defend against a successful massive attack on USA Soil, and started two disastrous wars, one of which spawned what is now ISIS, and the other of which we are still not completely extracted from.

I did not say Obama was a "great President". He was, in point of fact, an just a somewhat above average President - he ddin't accomplish anywhere near enough after his first 2 years in office to be considered great, because he never figured out how to overcome Congressional obstruction. But, quite simply, only a completely brainwashed moron with total amnesia concerning the disastrous period from 2001 to 2008, during which time we were successfully invaded by 15 guys with boxcutters, and proceeded to embark on two of the four most disastrous wars in American history, and only THEN presided over the 2nd worst economic collapse in American history would suggest that he wasn't a better President than George W. Bush, however.

And if you want to know why Obama defeated Mitt Romney in 2012, I'll explain it: It's because Romney never articulated any economic platform that differed in any way from that of George W. Bush - and a strong majority of the American public did NOT have amnesia about just how disastrous the Bush Presidency was. Romney even let political rancor cause him to disavow his own creation - the healthcare plan in Massachussetts that WORKS, and which is the entire basis for Obamacare. If Romney had actually take CREDIT for Obamacare, instead of contorting himself into claiming it was so evil, when he himself had implemented a virtually identical plan in Massachussetts that was a success, he might well have won - instead, HE is the one who played identity politics and claimed that half of all Americans were just lazy bums. That's why Obama spanked Romney (who, I admit, would be a FAR more capable President than Trump will be) because Romney wouldn't embrace his own beliefs and policies, because they weren't radically conservative enough for the rest of the Republican party.

It just blows my mind when progressives say Obama did good vis a vis the economy or foreign affairs. The truth is he presided over the worst economic expansion in modern US history. The economy under Obama never grew at 3%. Furthermore, it is economic history that the more severe a downturn, the faster and more robust the economic recovery will be.

Now the question inquiring minds might want to ask is why didn't the US economy grow in a robust way during the Obama years? The answer that I am sure most of you progressives' do not want to hear is simple:

No democratically elected government presiding over a modern economy in the last 150 years has spent, borrowed and regulated its economy into prosperity. WOW! Amazing but true, because this is just not the way modern economies work and to advocate such a policy indicates a basic misunderstanding of economics or a desire to accomplish something else like wealth redistribution which never works either. Just look at Venezuela or the history of Argentina for starters. The simple truth is lower taxes and less regulation is the only way to stimulate an modern economy in order to achieve real, I say REAL, lasting results. I do not fault Obama for what he initially did in 2008. He was a neophyte and did not know any better. But by 2010 it was clear that his economic policies were not working. Only a zealot would have stuck by such failed policies and put the country through the last 6 years.

Note: in 2012 Obama did not run on his record because he could not. Instead he ran on racial identity politics and a phony "war on women" campaign that falsely painted Romney as an insensitive, racist (Progressives love to call anybody who disagrees with their religion racist), misogynist, rich man. And somehow, he pulled it off and won an undeserved 2nd term.

Hey its 2016 and you progressive believers now have an inkling of how we felt when the "amateur" was re-elected in 2012. But we did not go screwy in the head the way the left is behaving now. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome. I think a few of you guys are suffering from it right now. Relax and calm down. Everything will be ok. The sky is not falling. But don't forget this important point: TRUMP IS OBAMA's LEGACY. If there had been no 2nd term Obama, there would be no President Trump. Under a President Romney the economy would be humming at 3 to 4%, the Syria refugee crises would never have happened, and there would not have been the disasterous shameful Iran nuke deal that guarantees Iran nuclear weapons in 10 years or so. Yeah, Obama was a great president. If you believe that you have swallowed the Kool Aid and lost your rational mind.

[Member #4698]

It just blows my mind when progressives say Obama did good vis a vis the economy or foreign affairs. The truth is he presided over the worst economic expansion in modern US history. The economy under Obama never grew at 3%. Furthermore, it is economic history that the more severe a downturn, the faster and more robust the economic recovery will be.

Now the question inquiring minds might want to ask is why didn't the US economy grow in a robust way during the Obama years? The answer that I am sure most of you progressives' do not want to hear is simple:

No democratically elected government presiding over a modern economy in the last 150 years has spent, borrowed and regulated its economy into prosperity. WOW! Amazing but true, because this is just not the way modern economies work and to advocate such a policy indicates a basic misunderstanding of economics or a desire to accomplish something else like wealth redistribution which never works either. Just look at Venezuela or the history of Argentina for starters. The simple truth is lower taxes and less regulation is the only way to stimulate an modern economy in order to achieve real, I say REAL, lasting results. I do not fault Obama for what he initially did in 2008. He was a neophyte and did not know any better. But by 2010 it was clear that his economic policies were not working. Only a zealot would have stuck by such failed policies and put the country through the last 6 years.

Note: in 2012 Obama did not run on his record because he could not. Instead he ran on racial identity politics and a phony "war on women" campaign that falsely painted Romney as an insensitive, racist (Progressives love to call anybody who disagrees with their religion racist), misogynist, rich man. And somehow, he pulled it off and won an undeserved 2nd term.

Hey its 2016 and you progressive believers now have an inkling of how we felt when the "amateur" was re-elected in 2012. But we did not go screwy in the head the way the left is behaving now. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome. I think a few of you guys are suffering from it right now. Relax and calm down. Everything will be ok. The sky is not falling. But don't forget this important point: TRUMP IS OBAMA's LEGACY. If there had been no 2nd term Obama, there would be no President Trump. Under a President Romney the economy would be humming at 3 to 4%, the Syria refugee crises would never have happened, and there would not have been the disasterous shameful Iran nuke deal that guarantees Iran nuclear weapons in 10 years or so. Yeah, Obama was a great president. If you believe that you have swallowed the Kool Aid and lost your rational mind.