Obama is one of our great presidents
When I was recently asked what I was researching, I said the Obama legacy. My friend said that should be easy because all he's done is destroy the Democratic Party and the nation. I said I thought there was a bit more to it than that.
I mentioned a little bit of Obama's foreign policy that has lived up to his Nobel Peace Prize by not starting any more wars. He has recognized the interconnected nature of nations and the world, and he's met with leaders of every country to work together in bringing about sound economic, health and environmental conditions that will offer all of us a future.
He has not been suckered into another war on the other side of the world, as previous administrations have unfortunately done. Obama has recognized that any of our troops on the ground, even in Syria, would add to the problem. He has built relationships with Arab countries who also hate ISIS, offering them advisers to help them attack on the ground, and has given them bombing support.
Our horrible mistakes in invading Afghanistan and Iraq have been lessened by Obama's careful foreign policy.
He has recognized the danger of Israel's prime minister, who has consistently tried to end peace efforts. He has also seen the threat of Vladimir Putin, who has destroyed democracy in Russia and wants to expand Russia's power by making Crimea a part of Russia, invading Ukraine, and siding with the Syrian president; each of them should be tried for international war crimes.
Obama traveled more than a million miles while uniting leaders around the world. That’s in addition to his two secretaries of state traveling another 2 million miles searching for security and peace.
He is best known for the Affordable Care Act, which covered millions and has provisions to rein in soaring health care costs. Original provisions to limit the greed of the giant insurance and health care companies were taken out of the bill, and that needs to be corrected, but to do away with the whole thing is unthinkable. Also in this bill was a student loan overhaul to benefit low-income undergraduates.
Obama has changed the way we produce and consume energy, academic standards, the way gays are treated in the military, the way insurers deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and the way credit card companies imposed hidden fees. He has boosted solar energy installations by 2,000 percent, dropped carbon pollution even as the economy has dramatically grown, killed the expensive F-22 fighter jet, the presidential helicopter, and many others.
Of course he bailed out U.S. automakers, enacted the stimulus package, rewrote the financial rules to prevent another recession, killed the Keystone XL pipeline, issued new carbon regulations to fight climate change, and cracked down on for-profit diploma mills, inefficient motors and investment advisers with conflicts of interest. The economy under Obama has gone from bleeding 800,000 jobs a month to a record streak of monthly job growth. The deficit has shrunk $1 trillion and Medicare has been stabilized for another 13 years. He has policed unscrupulous mortgage brokers, payday lenders and other rip-off artists.
I must stop here even though I have only touched the surface. It is clear that the Obama Legacy is an amazingly good one, even in the face of an angry, negative congress. He is one of our great presidents. If it wasn't for the color of his skin, or his obvious brilliance, many others in the face of the obvious evidence would have agreed.
The writer lives in Murrells Inlet.
This story was originally published January 24, 2017 at 10:58 AM with the headline "Obama is one of our great presidents."