subject: Why The Failed Legacy Of The Obama Administration Takes Jimmy Carter Off The Hook [print this page] Before I get into my conclusions on why Jimmy Carter is now off the hook as the worst President I have ever seen, replaced by the failed legacy of President Obama, let me set the stage:
- Until the midterm elections in November, 2010 I had never voted for a Republican for national office, President or Congress, in my life.
- I have voted for very few Republicans for local, county, and state elections in my life.
- Thus, I am not a long term Republican voter or conservative.
- The reason I wrote and published my book, Love my Country, Loathe My Government was because of the insanity I witnessed during the Republican Bush administration. The waste, stupidity, and corruption of that era was something I found unacceptable in a democracy and wanted to do my part to fix our ailing democracy. It had nothing to do with the Obama administration and its failures.
- Thus, I am not out to do a hatchet job on the President, I would do a similar assessment on any other person with the same dismal track record.
- I am not saying that John McCain would have been more effective than Obama has been. We will never know, given McCain did not get elected.
- I am not enthusiastic about Romney by any stretch of the imagination and I am not saying that Romney would be more effective than Obama has been.
- My information sources for my conclusions almost never include Fox News and never conservative/Republican blogs or forums. Most of the time my sources are unbiased or liberal leaning organizations that tend to portray the Obama administration in a more favorable light than it deserves.
- I believe that in sports, politics, and life, the old saying that you are only as good as your record should be the only guide to reality. Saying you tried hard or claiming the failure was not your fault are easy to do. But results are the only things that count in the final assessment. Excuses are a sign of weakness and immaturity when it comes to leadership in life. However, they are an ongoing trait of this administration.
- Some of the points of failure listed below might be viewed as petty and unimportant in the big picture. However, this assessment is meant as a comprehensive view of the Obama Presidency and one persons view of pettiness and unimportance might be viewed as a failed opportunity at leadership by someone else. That is why everything was included.
- Harry Truman once eloquently stated: The buck stops here. He realized he was the overall boss so that anything that went wrong on his watch ultimately was his responsibility, a responsibility he was willing to accept. The Obama administration should not be held to any lower standard of excellence.
- For the first two years of his Presidency, Obamas Democratic party held a majority in the House of Representatives and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. His approval ratings were sky high. He could have done anything he wanted. He wasted that historic opportunity and as a result, he does not now get to blame Bush, the Arab Spring, the Iranians, the Japanese tsunami, ATM machines, Congress, the Republicans, or anything else for his failures. The buck stops at his desk, he accepted the job and both the glory and the blame that goes with it.
Okay, lets get started.
I am 59 years old and have always viewed the Carter administration as one of the most inept and ineffective presidencies of all time. With the exception of the Israeli/Egyptian peace accords, I cannot remember anything else positive from those years but I do remember long gas lines, high gas prices, the Iranian hostage crisis and the timid response to it, high unemployment, and sky high inflation and interest rates. Not a legacy of success or hope.
But along comes the Obama administration and the following failures across just about every dimension, in no particular order:
1) Failure to implement an economic stimulus program that lived up to its objectives, the President predicting that unless the Federal government spent about $800 billion, the unemployment rate could go as high as 8%. Over $800 billion was spent, and wasted, and the unemployment rate has not been below 8% for a record 42 straight months.
2) Failure to implement to an effective overall economic strategy, instead relying on petty, tactical, short term, and unsuccessful economic programs that accomplished nothing but wasted billions of dollars. The short list of failures includes Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, Cash For Caulkers, HAMP, General Motors bailout (currently billions of taxpayer dollars still unpaid), and a small business tax credit package.
3) Failure to reduce this high unemployment rate, with almost 13 million Americans still unemployed, millions of other Americans who are underemployed or have become to discouraged to look for work, resulting in a total unemployment/underemployment rate of an unacceptable 14.9% in September which translate into about 23 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed.
4) Failure to provide a healthy, growing economic climate, with about half of this years college graduates not able to find a position in their preferred field and more than 80% of them moving back in with their parents or relatives since they cannot afford to strike out on their own.
5) Failure to protect the nations AAA bond rating, resulting in a major credit rating agency downgrading the credit worthiness of the United States for the first time in our history and other major credit agencies warning that they could follow suit unless the Federal government gets its spending under control.
6) Failure to reduce the Federal governments annual spending deficit by 50% as promised in his 2008 Presidential campaign.
7) Failure to get Federal government spending under control, creating record annual TRILLION dollar deficits for the entire time of his Presidency, adding about $5 TRILLION to our national debt to bring it to over $16 TRILLION.
8) Failure to even consider or force Congress to consider implementing the fine work of his deficit reduction a commission, a commission he himself put together but ended up completely ignoring.
9) Failure to pressure a fellow Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to do the Majority Leaders job and produce an annual detailed Federal budget plan, a failure that has resulting in the Senate not producing a formal budget in over 1,200 days, a performance by Reid that has to be un-Constitutional and impeachable on some level.
10) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, all of which cost the American taxpayer anywhere from $110 to $150 billion a year.
11) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the Social Security program, which costs the American taxpayer at least $100 billion a year.
12) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the food stamp and unemployment benefit programs, which cost the American taxpayer about $25 billion a year.
13) Failure to streamline government functions and operations, which would save tax payers tens of billions of dollars a year, as witnessed by the fact that after three and a half years of this Presidency we are still burdened with15 different agencies overseeing food safety laws, more than 20 independent programs helping the homeless, 80 different programs to help economic development, 82 different government agencies working on improving teacher quality, 47 different government agencies working on job training, and 18 different programs working on food and nutrition assistance.
14) Failure to improve tax collection at the Internal Revenue service which estimates that it fails to collect about $380 billion a year from tax evaders, putting additional tax burdens on honest taxpayers who actually pay their taxes.
15) Failure to live up to his campaign promise to close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, a facility that annually costs the American taxpayer about $160 million to operate.
16) Failure to live up to his campaign promise to not allow lobbyists to serve in high ranking positions in his administration, an administration that currently has several dozen ex-lobbyists high up in the administration.
17) Failure to live up to his campaign promise of significantly reducing budget earmarks which are only thinly disguised schemes for incumbent politicians to finance their reelection campaigns.
18) Failure to live up to his campaign promise of not using executive privilege when he invoked executive privilege to hamper and cover up a legitimate Congressional investigation into misconduct and illegal activity relative to the fatal Fast and Furious gun walking operation.
19) Failure to live up to his statement several years ago when as Senator he boldly asserted that raising the nations debt limit was a Presidential failure of leadership, a statement he contradicted the first time he was confronted with out of control spending bumping up against the nations debt limit level.
20) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective strategy for educating our kids, who currently rank behind dozens of other countries around the world in the quality of their education despite the U.S. spending more than every other country in the world. At the Federal level, the continuing failure of the Department of Education has cost us over $200 billion since the Obama inauguration.
21) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective strategy for cost effective energy independence, with no strategy in place to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources and our carbon footprint. At the Federal level, the continuing failure of the Department of Energy has cost us over $100 billion since Obamas inauguration.
22) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective health care reform strategy to rein our escalating health care costs, with Obama Care:
- Likely to cost well over $2 TRILLION to execute.
- Likely to drain wealth out of the economy with dozens of new taxes.
- Likely curtail economic growth, likely result in tens of millions of Americans losing their current health care insurance protection.
- Likely to have millions of Americans have their working hours reduced
- Likely will leave at least twenty million Americans without health care insurance tens years after the legislation was passed.
- Likely will reduce the already strained Medicare budget by over $700 billion over the next ten years, endangering the health of the nations seniors.
-Likely have no chance to succeed since the legislation never addressed the root causes of our higher and higher health care costs.
23) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective restart of our strategy relative to our illegal drug usage problems, resulting in the enrichment of violent Mexican drug cartels, the continuing imprisonment of non-violent drug users, the continuing emphasis on law enforcement vs. drug treatment, and the continuing lost war on drugs.
24) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective restructuring of our Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs, all of which are hurdling towards fiscal insolvency.
25) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive overhaul of our 70,000 page, cumbersome, inefficient, and economy inhibiting Federal tax code, a tax code that results in hundreds of billions of dollars every year not being collected and a tax code that results in American companies keeping over a TRILLION dollars in profits overseas, sitting idly, not helping the U.S. economy to grow.
26) Failure to lead the country to an overhaul or termination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two main culprits in the creation and collapse of the housing bubble, leading directly to the Great Recession and a taxpayer bailout of the two government housing entities that has already cost the American taxpayer over $180 billion (and growing).
27) Failure to lead the country to an overhaul over the countrys financial regulation processes, claiming responsibility for the Dodd-Frank legislation that has already missed three major financial industry disasters, the collapse of MF Global, the dangerous investing and reckless style of JP Morgan, and the collapse of Peregrine Financial Group, three situations that were supposed to be impossible with the new regulations.
28) Failure to eliminate the too big to fail syndrome of Americas largest banks, with the five largest banks now larger on every banking measure than they were prior to the Great Recession.
29) Failure to terminate the ill-fated Fast and Furious gun walking campaign, a campaign that broke numerous laws and at least one international treaty while resulting in the unnecessary death of a U.S. agent and dozens of innocent Mexican civilians.
30) Failure to have his administration prepared and act promptly when the Gulf oil spill occurred, with himself taking several vacations, playing numerous rounds of golf, and making several long campaign fund raising trips while the Gulf environment and economy suffered the ravages of the multi-month oil spill.
31) Failure to provide a national energy strategy, a void that has seen the price for a gallon of gas rise about 100% since his inauguration.
32) Failure to run a tight operation when it comes to national security leaks from the highest levels of his administration, leaks that appeared in the New York Times and elsewhere that have endangered our national security and the lives of our fighting forces around the world.
33) Failure to represent the rights, integrity, and humanity of about half the women in this country when he remained silent in the face of demeaning, sexist, and disgusting comments about Republican women:
- When the campaign manager of Democrats Gerry Browns gubernatorial campaign called his female Republican opponent a whore, Obama was silent.
- When TV host Montel Williams had publicly hoped that Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachman would commit suicide by decapitating herself, Obama was silent.
- When Ed Schultz, an on air commentator for the Democratic leaning MSNBC news channel, called Laura Ingraham of Fox News a slut, Obama was silent.
- When HBO TV host Bill Maher, a major donor to Obamas 2012 Presidential Super PAC ( a $1 million donor), said on air that Republican Sarah Palin would f*** Rick Perry if he was black, Obama was silent.
- When Bill Maher called Republican Sarah Palin a disgusting and derogatory name that I will not repeat here, Obama was silent.
- When Playboy magazines online website offered a detailed analysis on why and how each of ten Republican women in politics should be hate raped, Obama was silent.
- When a rap artist gave a Minnesota concert that was billed as the F*** Michelle Bachman concert (spelling out the entire f word), a Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, Obama was silent.
- When a Democratic operative insulted Ann Romney, and millions of other American women, by slandering and demeaning her as a stay at home mother, Obama was silent.
I am not saying that Obama should have responded to all of these degradations of Republican women. However, he cannot claim he is working hard for all of the women in the country when he allows half of them, those with a differing political view, to be called sluts, whores, worthy of hate rapes, and other terms to graphic too repeat here. He should be a leader, he should be setting the tone of civil political dialog, not remaining silent.
34) Failure to represent the rights, integrity, and freedoms of millions of citizens when he remained silent when his Democratic Party allies demeaned, slandered and slammed Americans for simply expressing their freedom of speech and having a difference of opinion:
- When Democrat Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi called opponents to Obama Care unpatriotic for simply having a difference of opinion with many politicians in Washington, Obama was silent.
- When Democrat Charles Rangel slandered millions of Americans who opposed Obama Care by calling them racists for simply having an honest difference of opinion with many politicians in Washington, Obama was silent.
- When Democrat Shelia Jordan Lee slandered of Americans who opposed Obama Care by associating them with the Ku Klux Klan, Obama was silent.
When White House czar Van Jones called all Republicans a**h****s, Obama was silent.
- When Democrat Alan Grayson called all Republicans knuckle dragging Neanderthals, Obama was silent.
- When union boss and Democratic supporter Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. stated that his union was at war with the Republicans and Tea Party and that those people "need to be taken out," Obama was silent.
- When Democratic Congressmen Mike Doyle and Henry Waxman and Vice President Joe Biden slandered Americans opposed to unfettered and destructive government spending and debt by calling them terrorists (those people that bomb and kill and innocent civilians), Obama was silent.
- When ordinary Americans objected to the building of a Islamic mosque near the World Trade Center property because of the memories of 9-11 and Democrat Nancy Pelosi said they should be investigated for simply having an opinion on the mosque, Obama was silent.
- When Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen likened Republican critics of Obamacare to the Nazis and their propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Obama was silent.
- When Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Walters said all Tea Party American citizens can go to hell simply for having a difference of opinion with her, Obama was silent.
You cannot say you are the leader of the entire country when political allies attack citizens for simply having an opinion or political opponents are called terrorists, a**h****s, racists, Nazis, or Neanderthals and you remain silent. That does not celebrate our freedom and celebrate diversity.
35) Failure to respect the tenets of religious freedom in this country by forcing certain organizations to conform to government mandates that are at odds with these organizations religious tenets, not realizing that in many parts of the world when government dictates religious terms and conditions it is called the Taliban.
36) Failure to respect the Constitution and rule of law on many occasions including, but not limited to:
- Violating the Constitution and War Powers Act by unilaterally involving U.S. armed forces in the Libyan conflict in order to protect the flow of oil to Europe.
- Violating the rule of law by ignoring a judges explicit order to lift the moratorium on Gulf oil drilling.
- Violating the rule of law by unilaterally refusing to enforce DOMA requirements (a law that needs to be repealed in the name of freedom but cannot be ignored by a President until that Constitutional process is completed).
