Obama’s “Accomplishments”

A discussion on the prompted a discussion over the following question: Has Barack Obama accomplished much?

His supporters say yes. Since 2009 Obamabot Democrats have been sending out lists of the president’s progressive bonafides–things he’s done that the left should be happy about and stop whining. To me these lists merely confirm what I’ve thought all along, that he has done nothing significant—indeed, that he is nothing more than a right-wing Republican in libbie clothing. A poster named “Whimsical” cites this latest list of Obama’s STFU liberal accomplishments from Daily Kos to support his claim that childish lefties shouldn’t whine so much.

Let’s take a look at these so-called “liberal/progressive accomplishments.” I have classified them into their appropriate categories:

Normal font = Actual Liberal Accomplishment
Bold = Really a Republican Policy
Italics = Not Actually Accomplished

A comprehensive list of Obama’s Accomplishments
by joelgp

As I continue debating progressives and conservatives about Obama’s many accomplishments, I’ve decided to classify and list just a few of them. He made 500 promises, 78% of them are at different stages of completion and 11% have been broken. I’ve listed only the “titles” of the policies and you can read the fuller explanations on Politifact. I’ve grouped them in policy categories with “my” headings. The titles you see are taken directly from Politifact—verbatim.

Many of these policies have been on the progressive wish-list for decades and we need to make sure Obama can finish the job. Remember, he has accomplished much more than is indicated on this list:

On Taxes:

1. Extend Require economic justification for tax changes
2. Child tax credits and marriage-penalty fixes – GOP has long railed against the marriage penalty
3. Extend the Bush tax cuts for lower incomes – Misleading. Also extended the Bush tax cuts for the super wealthy, who received the lion’s share of the benefits
4. Extend and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch – GOP platform plank

Small Businesses Policy:

1. Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes – Why should liberals care?
2. Expand loan programs for small businesses
3. Raise the small business investment expensing limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009

On Civil Rights/Social Policy:

1. Increase minority access to capital
2. Implement “Women Owned Business” contracting program – Great, quotas come to business
3. Reinstate executive order to hire an additional 100,000 federal employees with disabilities within five years. – More than eclipsed by federal layoffs
4. Grant Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba – Attempt to undermine Cuban socialist government
5. Promote cultural diplomacy
6. Appoint an American Indian policy adviser
7. Work to overturn Ledbetter vs. Goodyear _ Work to does not equal successful overturn
8. Increase the Veterans Administration budget to recruit and retain more mental health professionals – Increased military spending
9. Appoint a special adviser to the president on violence against women
10. Fully fund the Violence Against Women Act

For the Poor:

1. Expand the Nurse-Family Partnership to all low-income, first-time mothers
2. Give tax credits to those who need help to pay health premiums – 47 million Americans remain uninsured, have received no such help
3. Expand eligibility for Medicaid – Worked with Republicans to undermine Medicaid as part of debt-ceiling deal
4. Provide affordable, high-quality child care – Unaccomplished, as any parent can tell you
5. Expand Pell grants for low-income students – Unaccomplished, as any college student can tell you
6. Establish ‘Promise Neighborhoods’ for areas of concentrated poverty
7. Extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits – Didn’t happen, 99ers still shit out of luck

Technology/Internet:

1. Change standards for determining broadband access – I don’t even know what this means, much less why we should give a damn
2. Support network neutrality on the Internet – Support is just words, network neutrality no closer to becoming law
3. Appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer – This is something liberals should care about why?

Consumer Protection:

1. Establish a credit card bill of rights – By all accounts this reform was toothless and did nothing to address outrageous fees and interest rates charged by the big banks
2. Create new financial regulations – No investigation of Wall Street, new regulations totally toothless and without effect
3. Create new criminal penalties for mortgage fraud – By all accounts insignificant and meaningless
4. Health Policy – Giant taxpayer giveaway to corporate insurers forcing poor Americans to buy health insurance from for-profit companies at inflated prices
5. Reverse restrictions on stem cell research
6. Close the “doughnut hole” in Medicare prescription drug plan
7. Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions
8. Expand the Senior Corps volunteer program – Not accomplished
9. Require large employers to contribute to a national health plan – See #4 above
10. Require children to have health insurance coverage – See #4 above
11. Expand eligibility for State Children’s Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP) – Not actually accomplished
12. Require health plans to disclose how much of the premium goes to patient care – Dunno about you, my insurer hasn’t complied if this is true
13. Establish an independent health institute to provide accurate and objective information – Fine, but how is this liberal?
14. In non-competitive markets, force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care – But all markets are defined as competitive
15. Eliminate the higher subsidies to Medicare Advantage plans
16. Expand funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners
17. Increase funding to expand community based prevention programs
18. Sign a “universal” health care bill – Didn’t happen. ObamaCare is corporate welfare to the tune of billions of dollars

Veterans Affairs:

ALL VA SPENDING IS MILITARY SPENDING. MILITARY SPENDING IS NOT NOW, NOR WILL IT EVER BE, A PROGRESSIVE ACCOMPLISHMENT.
1. Fully fund the Veterans Administration
2. Assure that the Veterans Administration budget is prepared as ‘must-pass’
legislation
3. Expand the Veterans Administration’s number of “centers of excellence” in
specialty care
4. Create a military families advisory board

As Commander in Chief:

1. Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq – War ongoing, unlikely to end soon
2. Begin removing combat brigades from Iraq – Combat troops remain, mercenaries replacing withdrawn units
3. No permanent bases in Iraq – Define “permanent”
4. Send two additional brigades to Afghanistan
5. Strengthen and expand military exchange programs with other countries
6. Make greater investment in advanced military air technology
7. End the abuse of supplemental budgets for war – OK, but honest accounting is hardly a liberal accomplishment.

National Security and International Affairs:

ALL MILITARY SPENDING IS PRO-WAR, THUS NOT PROGRESSIVE:
1. Bolster the military’s ability to speak different languages
2. Make U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional on anti-terror efforts
3. Open “America Houses” in Islamic cities around the globe
4. Give a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administration
5. Allocate Homeland Security funding according to risk
6. Create a real National Infrastructure Protection Plan
7. Increase funding for local emergency planning
8. Stop the development of new nuclear weapons
9. Seek verifiable reductions in nuclear stockpiles
10. Extend monitoring and verification provisions of the START I Treaty
11. Stand down nuclear forces to be reduced under the Moscow Treaty
12. Organize successful Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in 2010
13. Appoint a White House Coordinator for Nuclear Security
14. Initiate a grant and training program for law enforcement to deter cyber crime
15. Improve relations with Turkey, and its relations with Iraqi Kurds
16. Launch an international Add Value to Agriculture Initiative (AVTA)
17. Create a rapid response fund for emerging democracies
18. Restore funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program

Energy Policy:

1. Establish an Energy Partnership for the Americas – Why should we care?
2. Encourage farmers to use more renewable energy and be more energy efficient – Fine, but encourage is not an accomplishment, it’s just words
3. Require 10 percent renewable energy by 2012 – Didn’t happen
4. Release oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve
5. Raise fuel economy standards
6. Invest in all types of alternative energy – By all accounts, spending has been tiny and insignificant
7. Enact tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars
8. Ask people and businesses to conserve electricity – Again, how the hell is asking people to do stuff an accomplishment? By that standard I, as a pundit, have accomplished more than 100 presidents!
9. Require more energy-efficient appliances
10. Create a ‘Green Vet Initiative’ to promote environmental jobs for veterans – Military spending
11. Create job training programs for clean technologies – Didn’t happen to any significant extent
12. Require states to provide incentives for utilities to reduce energy consumption – Didn’t happen to significant extent
13. Support high-speed rail – Support does not equal accomplishment.
14. Support airline service in small towns – Again, just words, actually service to small towns is being drastically cut
15. Invest in public transportation – So why are cities all over the country cutting service?
16. Equalize tax breaks for driving and public transit
17. Consider “smart growth” in transportation funding – Consider? Really? What if I consider saying that considering something is not an accomplishment?
18. Will seek more accommodations of bicycles and pedestrians – Will is not an accomplishment. So far, nothing
19. Help states and localities address sprawl – How? Where? Hasn’t happened
20. Share environmental technology with other countries
21. Double federal spending for research on clean fuels – 2 times zero = 0
22. Provide grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes – Trivial
23. Increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency – So why’d their budget get cut?

Transparency and Personal Promises:

1. Release presidential records – Ha! Obama Administration set new level for paranoid secrecy
2. Require new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions. – How is this liberal? And how would signing a form actually ensure that such political affiliation didn’t come into play! Answer: does not.
3. Ban lobbyist gifts to executive employees
4. Create a national declassification center – Yet Obama keeps more documents classified than ever
5. Get his daughters a puppy – WHAT?!?
6. Appoint at least one Republican to the cabinet – WTF?

Education:

1. Recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession – Hasn’t happened
2. Create an artist corps for schools – Hasn’t happened
3. Increase funding for land-grant colleges
4. Champion the importance of arts education – Talking isn’t accomplishment
5. Support increased funding for the NEA – Support isn’t accomplishment
6. Reduce subsidies to private student lenders and protect student borrowers – Hasn’t happened
7. Provide grants to early-career researchers
8. Environment – What about it? Keep it? Throw it away?
9. Encourage water-conservation efforts in the West – Encourage doesn’t equal accomplishment.
10. Increase funding for national parks and forests – Why has their budget been cut, then?
11. Increase funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
12. Create a community college partnership program
13. Pursue a wildfire management plan – This is liberal how?
14. Remove more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires
15. More controlled burns to reduce wildfires – Actually, environmentalists oppose them
16. Expand access to places to hunt and fish

LGBT Issues:

1. Push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors – Push for doesn’t equal accomplishment
2. Repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy – Sure, but only after courts legalized gay marriage

Urban Policy:

1. Restore funding to the EEOC and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
2. Reform mandatory minimum sentences
3. Create a White House Office on Urban Policy
4. Fully fund the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)
5. Establish program to convert manufacturing centers into clean technology leaders
6. Establish special crime programs for the New Orleans area
6. Rebuild schools in New Orleans
7. Fund a major expansion of AmeriCorps – Anti-teachers union program
8. Create a Social Investment Fund Network

NASA:

1. Add another Space Shuttle flight – Didn’t happen
2. Use the private sector to improve spaceflight
3. Work with international allies on space station
4. Partner to enhance the potential of the International Space Station
5. Use the International Space Station for fundamental biological and physical research
6. Explore whether International Space Station can operate after 2016 – Explore doesn’t equal accomplishment
7. Conduct robust research and development on future space missions
8. Increase spending to prepare for longer space missions
9. Work toward deploying a global climate change research and monitoring system

Science and Technology:

1. Enhance earth mapping
2. Appoint an assistant to the president for science and technology policy
3. Support commercial access to space
4. Establish school programs to highlight space and science achievements

Regarding Bin Laden:

We will kill bin Laden

Regarding jobs and the Stimulus Plan:

No attempted policies