Why is obama bad

These deficit figures, however, require some context. Most importantly, part of the deficit reduction followed from aggressive spending cuts in the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession—a move commonly referred to as austerity. It made the labor market recovery harder because the government did not hire people it needed and because many programs that people relied on to make ends meet amid still-high unemployment and limited job opportunities saw sharp cuts.

As the economy has gained momentum and the deficit has declined, there is room for the president and Congress to invest efficiently in faster growth and more jobs. This will require abandoning some of the ill-advised austerity measures of the past, restoring social programs so that the most vulnerable in our society have a real safety net, and putting money into well-designed infrastructure projects that will ultimately accelerate economic growth and sustain the labor market momentum of the past few years.

If this fiscal potential is wasted on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, however, it will only serve to increase inequality without growing the economy. In the run-up to the to financial crisis, risks from predatory mortgage loans, securitization, the shadow banking sector, derivatives, and an overreliance on short-term debt all built up in the financial sector.

While these and other risks developed, banks were funding themselves with too much debt and too little of their own money. That meant that they overextended themselves, became too deeply indebted, and could not absorb the financial losses that occurred when those risks soured and their investments started to lose value. The severe stress in the banking system led to a steep drop in lending, especially for smaller companies, furthering the decline of the economy.

Essentially, worthwhile projects did not take off because firms could not get loans from their banks. The Obama administration and Congress quickly responded to the clear lessons demonstrated by the financial crisis and enacted the Dodd-Frank Act, which helped create a more stable financial system and put bank lending back on track. As a result, business loans, known as commercial and industrial loans, recovered in the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession.

By early , lending had recovered all of these losses. Bank lending continued to grow and by the end of had grown by President Trump did not inherit a perfect economy—not enough Americans have jobs, and wages are not growing quickly enough—but he did inherit an improving one that has made a great deal of progress since January The share of to year-olds with a job has been rising, as have real wages and family incomes.

Household debt has been falling, as has the budget deficit, and the share of Americans without health insurance is at an all-time low. The important policy implication here is that President Trump and his administration need to build on the successes of the past. Wholesale undoing of Obama-era consumer protections and the enactment of supply-side fiscal policies—tax cuts for the rich—that have repeatedly shown that they do not live up to their promises of faster growth and job creation are the wrong way to go.

Christian E. Brendan V. Duke is the associate director of economic policy at the Center. Michael Madowitz , Seth Hanlon. Peter Gordon Director, Government Affairs. The U. Bush in both his terms, President George H. Eisenhower in his second term.

Job growth logged its longest winning streak. The economy lost close to , jobs in January , when President Obama took office. The job market started to expand by early There has not been a consistent job market expansion on record, dating back to , that lasted longer than the current expansion of 79 months. The share of people working expanded as the economy added new jobs. Pedestrian killed in hit-and-run crash in East Village.

The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board understands the view of many Democrats that Obama would have been able to get more done in a less partisan atmosphere. Like Obama, President George W. Bush was seen by political rivals as an illegitimate pariah. Ultimately, the 44th president will be judged on what he got done and what survives Congress and the 45th president. For simplicity, our review follows in four categories.

This symbolism has a resonance that goes far beyond our shores. His patience and persistence also paid off as he presided over the recovery following the Great Recession, oversaw the operation that killed Osama bin Laden and built international support for the Paris accord on climate change , demonstrating decisive leadership, at least on these issues.

The Affordable Care Act, for all its flaws, deserves praise as well. This editorial board has long predicted the current problems Obamacare faces. The president has also been a force for criminal justice and education reform, pardoning record numbers of prisoners and persuading many states — with California an unfortunate exception — to focus on improving teacher training and metrics.

The bad: In , there were 41 people working for every American receiving Social Security benefits. By , there will be two workers for every American receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits. But Obama, like Bush and Bill Clinton before him, not only gave up on entitlement reform after grasping the political pain involved in such changes, he basically stopped talking about this gigantic problem.

On foreign policy, Obama inherited an awful mess and then — heeding the wishes of most Americans — began to disentangle our nation from its painful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was wise to end the U. And in Syria, to the disappointment of many U. It is not just self-serving for Obama to insist that his options were either a full-on ground war against the Assad regime or occasional airstrikes. It is wrong. Overall, Americans remained extremely wary of the news media. Nearly three-quarters said in a separate survey that the news media are biased. But for all the skepticism facing the media, Americans continued to value the watchdog functions of the press.

While the election may be one for the history books, looking ahead requires equal measures of caution and humility, particularly when it comes to politics and public policy. It remains to be seen, for example, whether Donald Trump will push forward on some of his highest-profile campaign priorities, such as constructing a wall on the U. On some of his priorities, Trump appears to have the support of the public; on others, he appears to be out of step with public sentiment.

Either way, history suggests that opinion can change significantly as general proposals move to concrete legislation. Still, there are certain bigger trends we know are going to continue and others that show no signs of reversing. Americans seem to expect major changes: More than six-in-ten, for example, believe that within 50 years, robots or computers will do much of the work that is currently done by humans. The demographic changes that have taken hold across the U. The nation as a whole will turn grayer and its racial and ethnic diversification is expected to continue: In less than 40 years, the U.

The foreign policy challenges facing this politically fractured nation seem endless, from Russia and China to terrorism and the environment. At home, financial prosperity — even stability — feels increasingly out of reach to many Americans: Today, far more people are pessimistic than optimistic about life for the next generation of Americans.

Yet the United States enters this uncertain new era with undeniable, if often overlooked, strengths. Republicans and Democrats, for example, differ dramatically over whether the nation has gotten more or less powerful as a global leader over the past decade, but majorities in both parties say the U.

And most Americans say that one of the hallmarks of U. It is tempting to believe that the pace of change in the U. As significant as the current moment of transition is, however, only the passage of time can reveal the trends that will truly have lasting importance. Michael Dimock is the president of Pew Research Center, where he leads a domestic and international research agenda to explain public attitudes, demographic changes and other trends over time. A political scientist by training, Dimock has been at the Center since and has co-authored several of its landmark research reports, including studies of trends in American political and social values and a groundbreaking examination of political polarization within the American public.

Fresh data delivered Saturday mornings. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions.

It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Newsletters Donate My Account. Research Topics. By Michael Dimock. January 10, Generally good. As the first African American nominee of a major political party and then as president, Obama came into the office with pressures and expectations unique to that fact.

Some people criticized him out of bigotry and others put off by the almost messianic expectations and perceived elitism of some of his followers. Obama made some missteps early on that played into the hands of his detractors from the Greek columns at his acceptance speech to what was essentially a large campaign rally in Berlin , a spot from which only sitting presidents — JFK, Reagan — had delivered memorable addresses.

But the award of a Nobel Peace Prize only months into office sent a message of hubris and elitism. Obama would have been well-advised to decline the honor with a statement that although he would hope to one day earn it, he had not done so yet.

Unfortunately, in his eight years in office, President Obama never did earn that prize. His efforts to wind down the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and to close Guantanamo were halting or dashed. Although he did seek peaceful resolutions in dealing with potential conflicts with Iran and China through a successful international nuclear accord on the former and through a pivot to Asia and a trade agreement TPP to counterbalance China both foolishly abandoned by the current administration.

His administration nevertheless committed the same mistakes from the Iraq War in the regime change brought about though force in Libya. Another error was in encouraging demonstrations in Maidan Square in Ukraine contrary to an agreement for a peaceful transition that had just been negotiated.

Most distressing, for a Nobel laureate, was not merely the continuation but the acceleration of the policy of drone warfare and targeted assassination described in the best-selling book Dirty Wars.