Discuss the Domestic Accomplishments and Failures of the Obama Administration

President Obama is seen as a successful President according to the website Politifact.com, out of the 502 promises he made during the 2008 election campaign he has so far kept 134, compromised on 41, broken 40, stalled on 69 and still has 220 in the works. He may, therefore, be seen to be a successful President. However, this was not reflected in the mid-term elections where the Democrats lost a considerable number of seats within the Senate and lost their majority within the House

In this essay I will assess the successes and failures of the Obama presidency against what he promised during his election campaign of 2008 and during his subsequent State of the Union address.

Since 1933, when the 20th Amendment to the Constitution moved up the date of the president’s inauguration from March 4 to January 20, new presidents-elect have had about eleven weeks to make the transition from candidate to president. Several important tasks must be accomplished in this period if the transition is to be successful

None is politically more important than appointing the White House staff and the cabinet. None is personally more important than preparing the new president's family for life in the White House. During the summer of 2008, Obama appointed John Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, and former chief of staff in the Clinton White House to begin preparing for the transition that would occur if Obama won the election. In October, President George W. Bush appointed a transition team to work cooperatively with whichever candidate was elected. As a result, Obama could get started as soon as the results were in on November 4. Just two days later, Obama announced that Representative Rahm Emanuel of Chicago would be his White House chief of staff. The Obama transition team announced further high-ranking staff appointments in short order, with most of them going to friends and personal loyalists of the new president. As senior presidential advisers, Obama appointed David Axelrod, his chief campaign adviser, Pete Rouse, his Senate chief of staff, and Valerie Jarrett, his longtime Chicago friend and supporter.

While the Americans waited for policies that would change America to meet their expectations, the administration enacted anti-growth policies, which only enhanced increment in taxations (Crotty, William, 2012). Such increments ensure that money and hence power of control fall in the hands of the federal governments.The erosion of power from the public is enhanced through an explosion of government-enacted regulations across all industries. Such regulations are implemented through the federal governments. The booming economy forms the pillar of increased wages for middle-class and the poor. Borrowing from Reagan and President Kennedy’s approaches for reviving the economy, such an economy can only surface from a reduction of marginal taxes, but not through President Obama’s way (increasing taxes to fund a seemingly failed programme, such as Obamacare). Nevertheless, he promised to alter the US presumably during his first four years in office so that the US had more whiners than producers by the time he sought for re-election. The whiners re-elected him successfully in a bid to maintain their status quo. Therefore, President Obama has definitely changed America (Ferrara, Peter).

Generally speaking, faced with the prospect of Trump, Obama chose to speak of optimism instead of anxiety, and yes, of hope rather than fear. In one of the most inspiring speeches of his entire public life, Obama held true to the themes of his 2008 campaign

“Each of us leaders, each nation, can choose to reject those who appeal to our worst impulses and embrace those who appeal to our best.” This perspective was the message he offered the nation as he became president. It was the ideal that guided his time in office. And it is the foundation of the legacy.

Abrajano, Marisa, and Michael Alvarez. ‘‘The Hispanic Vote in the 2004 Presidential Election: Insecurity and Moral Concerns.’’ Journal of Politics 70, no. 2 (2008): 368–82.

Crotty, William. The Obama Presidency: Promise and Performance. New Jersey: Lexington Books, 2012.

Ferrara, Peter. Barack Obama’s Presidency is A Complete Failure by his own, Self-imposed Standards. Web.