Unfulfilled Promise

Evaluating the first year of the Obama presidency
Barack Obama’s administration just celebrated its first birthday. Conservatives deem it a year of policy failures and socialistic overreaching, while liberals claim that the stimulus saved the economy from the brink of collapse and that the Republicans are obstructionists. Obama’s first year in office was certainly eventful, but it has been dominated by the health care reform process, and its legacy will be determined by the outcome of that process. Obama deserves credit for his efforts to tackle multiple serious issues at once, but unless he is able to secure a legislative victory on health care, history will regard the opening year of the Obama administration unkindly.

BACK FROM THE BRINK
Upon taking office, President Obama went to work on plans to revive the struggling American economy. The administration successfully pushed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus, in its first month. Theda Skocpol, a Harvard government professor, credited the Obama administration with putting together an effective policy team that was able to organize the auto bailout and the turn-around of General Motors. Furthermore, Skocpol told the HPR that the stimulus will have saved or created 3.5 million jobs by the fourth quarter of 2010.
Others, however, are not so quick to praise Obama for averting economic calamity. Many argue that President Bush deserves a fair share of credit for getting the economy back on the right track. As David King, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, explained, “The Bush administration ordered the bailout of the banks with TARP when former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson brought the CEOs of the nation’s largest banks together and demanded that they accept the bailout. It saved the banking industry from collapse. It can’t just be Obama claiming credit for it.”
D.C.’S MOST DIVISIVE ISSUE
Health care reform, though, will be the determining factor in the historical memory of Obama’s first year. Skocpol believes the policies and problems of the Bush administration “put [Obama] in the position of confronting the financial crisis,” which, combined with a high unemployment rate, took steam away from the health care push. And Barbara Kellerman, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, noted that an agenda as broad as the one the Obama administration has pursued usually leads to “less effective execution and implementation” of policies.
Other experts instead attribute the tribulations of reform to a stubborn opposition bloc. Professor Jeffrey Frankel of the Harvard Kennedy School told the HPR,“It is very difficult for Obama to get a health care bill passed when 40 senators are determined to block whatever he proposes.” He added, “We have some senators in Congress that have switched their positions on issues simply to vote ‘no’ on what many movements have labeled as ‘Obamacare.’”
But Republican allies shoot right back. James Gattuso, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, thinks that the Democrats have been stubborn and overconfident. He told the HPR that the entire reform process involved “a one-way bipartisanship. Here’s our plan, you’re welcome to sign onto it if you want, but we’re not changing it.”
A FIRST LOOK AT OBAMA’S LEGACY
Regardless of who is to blame for the deadlock on Capitol Hill, the fact remains that the breadth of Obama’s agenda and his winnowing reserves of political capital have been serious obstacles to the passage of the health care bill. Furthermore, any success that Obama achieved in softening the impact of the financial crisis and in saving the American auto industry has thus far been overshadowed by this legislative boondoggle. If the legacy of the opening year of the Obama administration is to be salvaged, he will need to secure a victory on health care. And with the midterms just eight months away, time may be running out.
Adan Acevedo ’13 and Damon Meng ’13 are Contributing Writers.
Photo Credit: Wolf Gang (Flickr)