[A] lot of the Obama administration's accomplishments were pipe dreams.Near universal care health care system? Okay, I'm no expert on health care reform, as compared to Ezra, but we're now to believe that what got passed is "near universal care"? Seriously?
A near-universal health-care system? Why would Obama and the Democrats succeed when Truman, Nixon, Carter, and Clinton had all failed, and politicians as adept as FDR and LBJ refused to even make the attempt? They've seen the numbers, right? The health-care industry is bigger now, and richer, and there are no more liberal Republicans. There's no way.
A $787 billion stimulus? Yes, it was too small. But everything Washington does is always too small. And within the confines of that stimulus, the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress managed to make a host of long-term investments that would've been considered huge accomplishments in any other context, but are largely unknown inside this one. Huge investments in green energy, in health information technology, in high-speed rail, in universal broadband, in medical research, in infrastructure. The Making Work Pay tax cut. The Race to the Top education reform program. No recent president has invested in the country on anything like that level.
And as for the stimulus, the fact that this "accomplishment" was far too small may have just cost us control of the US House, let alone a few million jobs. How is not even trying for the amount of stimulus that the President knew we needed an accomplishment? He was at 70% in the polls, had huge majorities in the House and Senate, and the GOP was in ruins. And he asked for half of what was needed, and then gave 35% of that amount away in useless (stimulus-wise) tax cuts to woo only 3 GOP votes in the entire Congress.
The President, and the Congress, have done some good things. But they had the potential to do great things - we handed them the potential to do great things - and they chickened out (or in the case of the President, his desire to be liked and avoid controversy overrode his desire to do good, and what he promised). And now we're all suffering as a result. Let's not encourage this kind of behavior in the future by calling this an accomplishment.
