The Falcon | Volume 81, Issue 26 |
Published 6/02/10 | Log In |
Obama administration making steady progress
Eighteen months under Democratic Party's rule
By CHRISTO LUTE, Opinions Writer
Published: June 2, 2010
In November 2008, we brought into office a president faced with an economic crisis, a continuing war in the Middle East and a nation whose reputation overseas was one of aggressor and tyrant. In a year and a half, the Obama administration, combined with the Democrats in the Senate and the House of Representatives, have accomplished a tremendous amount of good in a short amount of time.
Beginning with the economic crisis, the stimulus package that was doomed to failure by Republicans has succeeded in turning what was potentially an enormous recession into a market that is steadily climbing upward.
During the presidential election, The New York Times quoted Mark Zandi, economic advisor for Sen. John McCain, as saying, "In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P. would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent. And there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus."
The stimulus has already created or saved 1.1 million jobs, with the likelihood of creating at least a million more. The Bush administration left a mess to clean up. However, President Barack Obama's stimulus package is doing much to meet the ever present problem of unemployment in the recession.
When history looks back at the Obama administration, they will praise the move to universal health care as one of the most important government takeovers in U.S. history. Until this bill was passed, countless Americans could not afford the medical treatment they needed. Millions of people were suddenly able to access health care, and millions more have had their current dependant insurance raised to 26 years of age as of this October. This health care bill finally affords the moral treatment of the sick to those who are in need, regardless of their socio-economic status. The "big government" argument made by Republicans against this bill might be an issue, but it is far less an issue than a government that fails to provide medicine for its sick and dying.
Among the more controversial changes, the Obama administration has reopened research in stem cells that was severely limited by executive action during the Bush administration.
On March 9, 2009, the Obama administration released an executive order stating, "Research involving human embryonic stem cells and human non-embryonic stem cells has the potential to lead to better understanding and treatment of many disabling diseases and conditions. Advances over the past decade in this promising scientific field have been encouraging, leading to broad agreement in the scientific community that the research should be supported by federal funds."
In addition to allowing scientific discoveries to be made in stem cell research, this order also supports the goals of the health care bill, lending support to better medical benefits for U.S. citizens.
United States' relationships across the world are improving dramatically as time goes on. Obama's policy regarding other countries differs from the gung-ho, guns-blazing approach of the previous administration.
The Obama administration's Web site states, "Finally, while there are instances and individuals who can be met only by force, the United States will be prepared to listen to and talk with our adversaries in order to advance our interests." (http://whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy)
A foreign policy that includes the possibility of wrongness on our part is a policy of humility compared to other more arrogant foreign policies in U.S. history. Take, for example, the recent situation in the Israel-Palestine conflict. When Vice President Joe Biden responded poorly to Israel's announcement of more housing for Jews in East Jerusalem in April, The Huffington Post reported that the housing plan was rescinded and "on May 2, there were indications that Israel-Palestine peace talks were about to restart."
In light of these accomplishments and a handful of others, (prohibiting Guantanamo "interrogation" techniques that strongly resemble torture, allowing emission standards to change in California, and the highly successful "Cash for Clunkers" campaign), the evidence is shockingly clear: We have a president and an administration that is looking out for the United States and its people, instead of fighting their father's wars and promoting big business corporations with toxic assets. Three cheers for Democrats!
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This is beyond ridiculous. Where does this come from? What possible metric can he use? Where in the last 18 months could he have possibly derived a theme that the US has better foreign relations?
The public perception of the United States (measured by polls) improved immediately after the election of Obama. But that only measures the opinion of foreign populations with regards to our celebrity President. It has nothing to do with actual relationships between our government and other nations.
In terms of those relationships, US stock has decreased. We have alienated Honduras (one of allies in Latin America) because the Supreme Court there tried to uphold their Constitution! We have degraded the special relationship with Great Britain, notably in the shocking lack of courtesy shown to former PM Gordon Brown. The White House publicly humiliated Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel when he visited several months ago, weakening Israel's position relative to other nations (including Turkey). Meanwhile, as we seem to distance ourselves from our allies, we do not seem to be making much progress against those who hate us. For instance, Iran is on track to gain nuclear weapons soon -- is there a more terrifying prospect? -- and the recent UN resolution on nuclear disarmament singled out Israel (!) for its nuclear arsenal, and hardly mentioned Iran! Our relationships in Africa have suffered (Bush was actually VERY well received in Africa, and worked quite extensively on the AIDS issue), and while our relationship with China is stable, we have consistently shrugged our shoulders at human rights abuses there.
It's not enough to rely on public opinion polls. In what quantifiable ways has our relationship with the rest of the world improved?