So apparently there was this guy, FDR, and he had a pretty important first hundred days in office. Obama hits the quasi-traditional milestone on Wednesday in case you haven't heard already from say, I don't know, CNN. Or Fox News. Or Time Magazine. Or the Wall Street Journal. Or the BBC. Or the Palatka Daily News. Ok, maybe not Palatka, but pretty much everyone else is offering up their respective analyses. That includes the President himself, who will be commemorating the occasion with another one of those "town-hall-style" events we've all grown so fond of.
Anyways, I didn't want to be left out of all the fun. Here's what I thought were some of the highs, lows, and in-betweens of the past one hundr- ahem, ninety-eight days:
Highs:
-The Budget. A progressive tax structure, a plan for universal health care, cuts in unnecessary defense spending... are we finally past this 'supply-side' and 'starve the beast' nonsense?
-Foreign Diplomacy. A President who commands respect abroad, keeps his cool and enunciates his words. Fuck. Yes.
-The National Service Bill. Providing incentives & funding for increased involvement of America's youth in community service projects in health care, clean energy and education? Unless you're Michelle Bachmann, you have to admit that's a good thing.
-Stem Cell Research. Duh.
Lows:
-Bank-o-philia: The heavily bank-o-centric composition of Obama's economic team has compromised the long-term effectiveness of the administration's economic plans and sticks us with zombie banks that still aren't lending and who aren't being held accountable for the taxpayer money that's keeping them afloat.
-Gun Control. Jimmy Carter's Op-Ed for the NYT today lays out why, in case common sense didn't tell you already, AK-47s should be illegal. Despite the fact that this was a campaign promise of Obama's, he's been avoiding the issue. Perhaps he's still puzzling this one over:
Question: Why does someone buy an AK-47?
A) Because they're a psychopath.
B) To shoot people.
C) To shoot lots of innocent people and then kill themselves in yet another horrifying example of why we need stricter gun control laws.
D) All of the Above.
-Laughing off a legitimate suggestion to legalize & tax marijuana as a way to significantly boost revenues for states like California that are currently facing major budget crises while, at the same time, effectively cutting out THE major source of revenue for drug cartels currently running rampant in Mexico. No, really. Time to wake up and smell the buds.
In-betweens:
Anyways, I didn't want to be left out of all the fun. Here's what I thought were some of the highs, lows, and in-betweens of the past one hundr- ahem, ninety-eight days:
Highs:
-The Budget. A progressive tax structure, a plan for universal health care, cuts in unnecessary defense spending... are we finally past this 'supply-side' and 'starve the beast' nonsense?
-Foreign Diplomacy. A President who commands respect abroad, keeps his cool and enunciates his words. Fuck. Yes.
-The National Service Bill. Providing incentives & funding for increased involvement of America's youth in community service projects in health care, clean energy and education? Unless you're Michelle Bachmann, you have to admit that's a good thing.
-Stem Cell Research. Duh.
Lows:
-Bank-o-philia: The heavily bank-o-centric composition of Obama's economic team has compromised the long-term effectiveness of the administration's economic plans and sticks us with zombie banks that still aren't lending and who aren't being held accountable for the taxpayer money that's keeping them afloat.
-Gun Control. Jimmy Carter's Op-Ed for the NYT today lays out why, in case common sense didn't tell you already, AK-47s should be illegal. Despite the fact that this was a campaign promise of Obama's, he's been avoiding the issue. Perhaps he's still puzzling this one over:
Question: Why does someone buy an AK-47?
A) Because they're a psychopath.
B) To shoot people.
C) To shoot lots of innocent people and then kill themselves in yet another horrifying example of why we need stricter gun control laws.
D) All of the Above.
-Laughing off a legitimate suggestion to legalize & tax marijuana as a way to significantly boost revenues for states like California that are currently facing major budget crises while, at the same time, effectively cutting out THE major source of revenue for drug cartels currently running rampant in Mexico. No, really. Time to wake up and smell the buds.
In-betweens:
-Foreign Policy. Positive steps taken on Cuban embargo. Finally a plan for withdrawal from Iraq. But committing 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan without any real military solution on the table? Hrm.
-Torture. Step 1: Close Gitmo, check. Step 2: Release classified memos authorizing torture, check. Step 3: Green light to initiate investigations into illegal actions of previous administration for which, by any definition of the law, they must be held accountable, ... ?
-The Stimulus Package. Good start, not enough. To quote Paul Krugman, a nobel-laureate economist who actually saw the crisis coming years before it hit, "Mr. Obama’s promise that his plan will create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 looks underwhelming, to say the least... 3.5 million jobs almost two years from now isn’t enough in the face of an economy that has already lost 4.4 million jobs, and is losing 600,000 more each month." There has been a total failure to recognize the pressing need for a comprehensive plan to restructure the banking system; most likely, largely due to the bank-centric view of his team... but I digress.
-Bo Obama. Seriously, what is that thing? Get a real dog.
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Great promise so far, especially considering what was inherited. And I don't even want to think about the alternative.
Bravo Tom! It's about time you created a blog! Kudos to you. I still can't figure out why weed is illegal and why no one seems to want to legalize it. I think America's going to have to first recognize that allowing people of the same sex to get married is not going to ruin this country before we can convince them that legalizing weed would actually be a good thing. Just tax the hell out of weed and bam you've got great revenue! Well I'm sure it'd be a bit more complicated then that, but I think it should at least be talked about.... and yes, WTF is up with Obama's bankophilia and lack of gun control? That just doesn't make any sense.....
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