Only 10 Months and A Lot Accomplished

It is 10 months since President Obama stepped into office as U.S. President, promising to bring a change from the previous administration.  I have heard some pundits arguing that in the past 10 months little if anything at all has changed.  So, with the help of Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, I thought I might take a look at what has accomplished in less than 300 days. 

The most important accomplishment of the Obama Administration has been to save the American economy from a total collapse.  We went to the brink of a new great depression, but now the economy in on the mend.  We’re not completely back yes, but take note of a 3.5 percent economic growth in the third quarter, this growth following over a year of economic shrinking.  One problem is that unemployment is much too high and still may not have peaked.  However, the rate of new job losses has decreased steadily for the last several months and is seems clear now that jobs will start to come back next year. 

Another problem is America’s growing deficit.  We recently learned that the deficit has reached the dumbfounding figure of $12 trillion.  Without doubt the deficit must be brought under control and reduced, but, most economists will tell you that bringing the economy back from the brink was the first priority.  If the economy was allowed to fall over the brink, there would be no way of reducing the deficit.  Now, as the economy starts to grow, we should begin to slow and even reverse the growth of our deficit. 

Although, economic concerns have occupied most of the President’s efforts, there have been other accomplishments.  Obama took steps to absolutely renounce the use of torture as a means of interrogation.  Doing this has begun to rehabilitate America’s national honor, which was shredded by the practices of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  He also ordered the close the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison, which was (and still is) another stain on American national honor. 

Obama obtained the conformation of the first Hispanic to the U.S. Supreme Court and made a trip to Egypt in order to speak directly to the Muslim world, telling them that America’s foreign policy would change from conflict to multilateralism and cooperation.  Obama has taken steps toward investment in “green” jobs and education reform. 

Now we come to health-care reform.  I, personally, hoped that Obama would have exerted a bit more forceful leadership in pushing this reform.  Nevertheless, we are now at the brink of erasing a 100 year blot on the American system.  President Theodore Roosevelt first brought up the idea of universal health care for Americas, in 1909.  In 2009, under the leadership of President Obama we will finally make that promise come true.  There may be a public option or there may not be one, but either way the principle that every American in entitled to adequate health care is about to become law. 

The one thing that most of us who supported Obama did not see coming was the degree to which many Republicans would go to obstruct the Obama agenda.  Surely, as the loyal opposition, we would expect Republicans to raise objections and try to push changes in areas they feel are important, but the extent to which many Republicans were willing to go in order to kill every change the Obama Administration tried to bring about was far beyond anything most of us anticipated. 

Now there is still a lot of work to do and a lot of opposition to overcome, but it is time to give credit where credit is due.  Obama has accomplished a great deal in only 10 months.