NASA was done long before Obama showed up on the scene. In fact, NASA manned space flight dug its own hole with the shuttle and the ISS. The manned program was on the downhill slope from that time on. Allowing the private sector to participate in manned space flight was the best thing that’s happened to our space program in the last 40 years.
But whether or not the private sector can save manned flight remains to be seen. There has to be a profit made doing it, and it can't wait a generation or two for the technology to mature. Investors want ROI within a human-scale timeline. The jury is still out, IMHO.