The Sweeping, Historic Changes Of The Obama Presidency
"On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the 906-page health care reform law known as Obamacare. It was, as a live microphone caught Vice President Joe Biden exclaiming to his boss, a big deal, with Biden memorably inserting an extra word for emphasis—and for history—between “big” and “deal.”
Obamacare would cover millions of the uninsured, a giant step toward the Democratic dream of health care for all. It also included dozens of less prominent provisions to rein in the soaring cost and transform the dysfunctional delivery of American medicine."
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another big thing which is also explained in the article was the changes to trillion dollar student loan program:
"it yanked the program away from Sallie Mae and other private lenders that had raked in enormous fees without taking much risk. The bill then diverted the budget savings into a $36 billion expansion of Pell Grants for low-income undergraduates, plus an unheralded but extraordinary student-debt relief effort that is now quietly transferring the burden of college loans from struggling borrowers to taxpayers. It all added up to a revolution in how America finances higher education, completely overshadowed by the health care hoopla and drama."
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"the Obama era has produced much more sweeping change than most of his supporters or detractors realize."
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"As a candidate, Obama was often dismissed as a talker, a silver-tongued political savant with no real record of achievement. But ever since he took office during a raging economic crisis, he’s turned out to be much more of a doer, an action-oriented policy grind who has often failed to communicate what he’s done."
"What he’s done is changing the way we produce and consume energy, the way doctors and hospitals treat us, the academic standards in our schools and the long-term fiscal trajectory of the nation. Gays can now serve openly in the military, insurers can no longer deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, credit card companies can no longer impose hidden fees and markets no longer believe the biggest banks are too big to fail. Solar energy installations are up nearly 2,000 percent, and carbon emissions have dropped even though the economy is growing. Even Republicans like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who hope to succeed Obama and undo his achievements, have been complaining on the campaign trail that he’s accomplished most of his agenda.
“The change is real,” says Ron Klain, who served as Biden’s White House chief of staff, and later as Obama’s Ebola czar. “It would be nice if more people understood the change.”
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" Obama bailed out U.S. automakers, enacted an enormous economic stimulus package, signed the most sweeping rewrite of financial rules since the Great Depression, killed the Keystone XL pipeline and issued historic carbon regulations to fight climate change. But how many Americans are aware of his administration’s harsh regulations cracking down on for-profit diploma mills, inefficient industrial motors and investment advisers with conflicts of interest? Everyone knows the Obamacare website was a disaster, but few realize that Obama got some of the Silicon Valley techies who fixed it to stick around and start up a U.S. Digital Service, a groundbreaking effort to bring government tech into the 21st century."
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" The economy was bleeding 800,000 jobs a month when Obama took office; it has now enjoyed a record 69 straight months of private-sector job growth, though economists disagree about how much credit Obama deserves for the recovery, and in any case wage growth has been tepid. The deficit has shrunk by nearly $1 trillion, and Medicare’s long-term solvency has been extended by 13 years. The resuscitated auto industry produced 11 million vehicles in 2014. Federal contractors can no longer discriminate against gays, women can now serve in combat and the rich are paying higher taxes. A new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is policing unscrupulous mortgage brokers, payday lenders and other rip-off artists, and the financial system has much less risky leverage.
Before Obama, Americans were using more energy every year; now we use less energy overall, and more of that energy is clean. Oil imports are down 60 percent from 2008 levels, more than a third of America’s coal plants are shutting down and sales of LED bulbs have increased 50-fold. Health care inflation and the uninsured rate have fallen to their lowest levels in half a century, and doctors now use iPads instead of clipboards. Student borrowers can now ratchet down their monthly payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income and get their loans forgiven after 20 years, rules that are gradually and almost silently easing the student debt crisis. Nine of 13 federal appeals courts now have a majority of Democratic-appointed judges; in 2009, it was one of 13."
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/obama-biggest-achievements-213487
It is a long article, but well worth the read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Don't foget Obama's work on monarch's, pollinators, micro beads, CO2, and protection of
Bristol Bay, Alaska
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014967416
