I don’t think anyone, regardless of ideology, would pick the so-called stimulus. Advocates of small government say it was a waste of money based ondeeply flawed Keynesian theory. Posted on 12/20/2013 6:09:22 AM PST by Kaslin
After nearly five years in office, what’s President Obama’s most significant accomplishment?
This is a serious question, so no jokes about the Nobel Prize he received for not being Bush. And no partisan GOP answers about the 2010 election, either.
Put yourself in the position of a future historian and think about what you would put in a book to describe Obama’s biggest accomplishment.
I don’t think anyone, regardless of ideology, would pick the so-called stimulus. Advocates of small government say it was a waste of money based ondeeply flawed Keynesian theory.
Proponents of big government, by contrast, also aren’t big fans of the stimulus, though they’re dissatisfied because they think Obama should have wasted even more money.
Another potential answer is Obamacare. Libertarians and conservatives, needless to say, would say it was a significant accomplishment in the same sense that the Titanic had a significant maiden voyage.
Leftists, by contrast, obviously can’t be pleased by the way Obamacare is imploding in the short run, but they nonetheless may think that it will be worth it in the medium run because more people will be dependent on government (though they may regret their choice in the long run).
Killing Osama bin Laden is probably a good answer, but if terrorism and conflict with the Islamic world are still big issues in the future, then I suspect the achievements of Seal Team Six won’t be seen as making that much of a difference.
For what it’s worth, I think the change in public opinion may be the President’s most long-lasting and significant accomplishment. Take a look at these remarkable results just published by Gallup. A record share of the population now say that big government is the biggest threat to the nation’s future.
Wow. I’m tempted to say that this is strong evidence of the effectiveness of the Cato Institute (and there is independent data to support that position), but I feel compelled to admit that Obama also deserves a good bit of the credit.
Even more amazing, President Obama has done something that is probably beyond even the ability of Cato. He’s convinced partisan Democrats that big government is a serious threat. Look at how the numbers have dramatically changed since 2008.
What’s particularly amazing about the shift among Democrats isn’t that 56 percent now view big government as the major threat today, compared to 32 percent about five years ago. What’s shocking is that this change happened with a Democrat in the White House.
This is newsworthy because partisan Republicans and Democrats have a tendency to say things are good or bad depending on whether “their team” is in charge.
While these numbers are remarkable, I suppose it’s too early to say the growing concern about big government is the most significant accomplishment of the Obama presidency.
That being said, anxiety about big government may lead to big political changes in 2014 and 2016, and those political changes may then lead to big policy changes such as entitlement reform and tax reform.
And if that happens, then the shift in public opinion during the Obama years may turn out to be profoundly important. In other words, Obama may turn out to be another Herbert Hoover – a politician whose statist policies set the stage for dramatic changes in public policy.
And if that happens, Obama truly will deserve to be named “libertarian of the year.”
P.S. While big government is the biggest threat to the country’s future, big business and big labor can be very dangerous to liberty when they get in bed with big government.
That he is still in office!
It's much worse than that...there isn't a single person on the list of the first 17 possible successors who would be an improvement on the present occupant, with the possible exception of Speaker Boehner--but I would not expect him to roll back any of the wrong moves of the present administration, so we would not be better off if by some dint of coincidence the President and Vice President were to leave office simultaneously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_line_of_succession
IIRC, Jimmah Carter got a Nobel for the same reason.
Best all around gun salesman of all time.
He set race relations back several generations. In my lifetime, I have never seen this level of hatred between races.
He most certainly has overplayed his hand.
Unlike Cuba, Venezuela, and other countries in the past that have experienced Marxist takeovers, The USA has had 270 years of freedom. There is a reaction afoot, and the Dem party is beginning to see that it may be an existential issue for them. Obamacare has given a tremendous black eye to liberal governance, merely by being put into practice.
It may be that we won't be able to take Obama down before 2016, but the Dem party and liberalism is being severely weakened, IMHO.
You think guilty white liberals and racist blacks voted for the part-black guy because they didn’t want to discriminate based on race?
I still pick LBJ (for the same reasons you pick Andrew Johnson). His policies drastically changed this country. Of course, it didn't happen overnight. These things take time and nearly 50 years later, we are finally and truly reaping the destruction that LBJ set into motion --and it's compounding.
Obama’s greatest accomplishment will be the return of control of the Senate and increased control of the House by REPUBLICANS. Obama’s coat tails are toxic!
He got elected. In spite of all his deep, cavernous flaws, he got elected. I don’t know if it is as much his accomplishment or the “journalist” and other powerful backers, but he got elected even though he should never even win a position of dog catcher.
Barry learned two things:
1. How to destroy a nation and the morale of a once decent society.
2. The proper use of toilet paper.
I expected to see a bare screen after reading the headline.
It’s hard to write anything when there isn’t anything.
By overplaying his hand, Obama has awakened American to the erosion of their rights.
The government has slowly been eating away at the constitution and the bill of rights since FDR and now Obama in his arrogance has made even the low information voters aware of it.
He has done us a great favor with his snooping NSA, his outlaw AG and homeland security, his foreign policy of supporting Marxist dictators and abandoning our former allies, his global warming lunacy, his disastrous mismanagement of the economy.
Who else has done so much to refocus the public attention in their government?
By far: Obama is the greatest salesman of Guns and Ammo President ever. No one could have marketed all kinds of weapons with greater effect, with merely a few words, than this man.
I think he will outshine gun salesman for generations to come.
Gun Sales.
Neither have I
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