How will President Obama’s second term compare with his first?
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Stepping into his second term, President Barack Obama took the oath of office Sunday in an intimate swearing-in ceremony at the White House, the leader of a nation no longer in the throes of the recession he inherited four years ago, but still deeply divided.
The president, surrounded by family in the ornate White House Blue Room, was administered the oath by Chief Justice John Roberts. With Obama’s hand resting on a Bible used for years by Michelle Obama’s family, the president vowed “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” echoing the same words spoken by the 43 men who held the office before him.
How do you think President Obama will fare in his second term? Will he be more, or less, successful than he was in his first term? What will be the factors that influence his performance?
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Im gonna say more of the same old same old! Americans lose more rights! Taxes go up! Health care gets worse with more expense! We lose more of our rights! The Constitution gets more and more shredded! More jobs are lost.More programs are cut! I could go on and on but i dont want carpal tunnel!
Just out of curiousity, Mr Hagen, what rights have you lost?
The “we lose more of our rights” statement implies we’ve lost some. I didn’t know I’d lost any and I don’t want to lose any without knowing about it ! Please (with cream an sugar on please) identify them.
The Right To Be Wrong remains inviolate.
Come on Perry. Tell us about the rights we have lost and the additional rights we are about to loose. Frankly, I don’t recall losing any of my rights. What did I miss?
I’m cautiously optimistic. The deficit has been going down steadily and I expect that to continue, perhaps at an even faster pace thanks to increased revenue. Mitch McConnell will no longer make “making our President a one term president” his number one goal. The President will be a little less naive about dealing with Congress. The war in Afghanistan will be winding down ahead of schedule. I could go on.
Rich you keep saying the deficit is going down, I’ve asked for your proof. Still waiting.
The deficit for FY 2009 (Bush’s last budget) was over 1.4 trillion. The estimated deficit for FY 2013 is about 900 billion. It’s easy to check out.
Williamson,
Are you sure you know the difference between debt and deficit?
I’m not sure you do because this question has been answered repeatedly. Why don’t you prove to us that the deficit is going up.
Obama will be aggressively smacking the cons/regressives upside the head this coming term by pushing a progressive agenda of civil rights, environmental stewardship, and enhanced public safety through reasonable gun control. What’s not to like about any of that? Unless you’re a wingnut, of course.
Sounds rather optimistic. (I used to be an optimist but I couldn’t tolerate all the disappointment.)
I can’t really see much changing with his second term. Health care costs will continue to sky rocket. Taxes will go up. Debt will continue to increase at a unprecedented pace. From Jan 20th 2009 till now the federal debt has increased $5.8 Trillion to over $16.4 trillion.
When Bush was took office Jan 20th 2001 the Federal debt was $5.8 trillion. Before Obama is done in 4 years he will have racked up more Debt then all the previous presidents before him and that is a sad sad stat.
But the REST OF THE STORY is that when Bush Jr. left office, federal debt was $10T, an increase of $4.2 T in his 8 years of tenure. This is around a 40% debt expansion under Bush Jr., fueled by an irresponsible tax cut, a necessary foreign war (Taliban wipeout), and an entirely unnecessary war(Iraq). When Bush Jr. left office in January of 2009, his two wars, massive tax cut, prescription drug benefit expansion, and the financial industry bailout his administration masterminded in its twilight days were continued and kept racking up debits to the national credit card.
Blaming Obama for increasing the federal debt singlehandedly is disingenuous. At this point, the costs of Obamacare has yet to fully kick in so the bulk of the ever-escalating deficit must be ascribed to Congress, which (1) created it and (2) has refused to deal effectively with it.
I give Bush no passes for his terrible records on the debt and the deficit.
And you are right we must put part of the blame on the Democrat controlled congress that started running up larger debts in 2007 and 2008.
I would just like to see some fiscal responsibility in Washington DC. Unfortunately that won’t happen in the next 4 years.
Lucore,
You may be claiming that you give Bush no pass, but that was a nice pivot you did. No pass for Bush but we must blame Democrats, at least in part (refocus refocus refocus) ‘cuz they controlled both the House and the Senate.
Ok, midterm election 2006 (new Congress sworn in Jan 2007), both House (233 D 202 R) and Senate (49 D 2 I 49R) were majority Democratic for the first time since ’94.
The primary drivers in the high deficits that were run up under Bush were Bush’s tax cuts and Bush’s wars. What do you suggest Democrats should have done with those? A unilateral return to the tax rates of 2000? The cuts were set to expire. Any attempt to expire them early doubtless would have been derailed by a filibuster in the Senate and/or veto by Bush. And the Iraq/Afganistan Wars? Would it have been possible for Congress to unilaterally end them? And given that the kind of domestic programs Democrats like had been stripped under Clinton, what were Democrats supposed to cut?
Bush proclaimed that he was The Decider. Why don’t we just take him at his word
Oh, and Mr Lucore, before I forget, we also had two, not one but two, recessions under Bush—March 2001 to the end of the year and Dec 2007 and still recovering.
The prosperity of the Bush years, if you want to call it that, was based primarily on a housing bubble created by what can only be called bank fraud enabled by the deregulation of our financial systems, a process that began under Reagan. Refer Savings and Loan collapse 1986
On 9-2001 the debt was (in billions, rounded to the nearest billion) $5,807.
9-2008 ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” $10,025.
9-2012 ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” $16,066
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm
I’m looking forward to another four years of President Obama. Given the unprecedented opposition from Congress, I think the President did a very good job during his first term. Hopefully, this term Congress will accept that President Obama is the honestly elected representive of the people and will stop the obstructionism that hindered progress in his first term.
a bit pre-mature on lost rights, he is seeing to possibility of a rewrite of the constitution, Forgive my brother. Mental health is what is first to be addressed…thereby lost to the congressional brainless. You know the ones, … we continue to vote them and even their children back in to office. WAKE UP Iowa!
I notice that Mr. Hagen cannot enumerate his “lost rights”. Maybe he should stop listening to Rush Limbaugh and start doing some thinking of his own. Yeah, good luck wih that.
Labor force participation will continue to shrink, terrorists will become more active, and energy costs will increase as will taxes and the national debt. Wealth will increasingly be concentrated in the hands of crony capitalists and Wall Street bankers. The number public sector employees, the number people on disability, medicare and social security will continue to increase while the number of people pulling the wagon will continue to shrink.