WAS 2013 AS BAD AS THE MEDIA IS TRYING TO SELL?



…The U.S. Congress. 

The place where they are supposed to be working for all of us.........Right!

Well, last week, a Ms. Julie Pace of the Associated Press (AP) actually had the gall, or perhaps the guts, to directly ask the president, “Has this [2013] been the worst year of your presidency?”

As with every good politician, the president’s answer was not really an answer as he stated, “I think this room has probably recorded at least 15 near-death experiences and what I’ve been focused on each and every day is are we moving the ball in helping the American people, families, have more opportunity and have a little more security, to feel as if, if they work hard can they get ahead.”

As I said, his response did not answer Ms. Pace’s question, but he was correct in saying, in his own way, “The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”

In fact, as compared to back in 2011, when the GOP was beaming after scoring very big in the 2010 mid-term elections.  After the Tea Party was then walking around with big smiles and in the process of telling the new House Speaker Boehner what to do and when.  After the Republicans almost sent the nation into default on the debt limit and after we were given the dreaded “Sequester” that we are forced to still live with today.

After all this, I don’t think this year was Obama’s worst year.

Let’s not forget that this year was the year when the Republicans and their Texas Senator Ted Cruz, both took a giant approval hit for shutting down the government in trying to defund a health care law that could not be defunded with a shut-down.  (And by the way, a shutdown blamed on the GOP that unnecessarily cost the US Government an additional 24 Billion dollars!)  Plus, a year that the Republican Congressional approval was the worst ever in US history and a mainly Republican Congress that is now known as the most do-nothing Congress in history.

No, with the new Affordable Care Act (ACA) web-site now up and working and with almost 2 million Americans signed up for health care, this is not Obama’s worst year.

But with all this, the Republicans feel that “Obamacare” will still be super unpopular with the public by the November elections. However, as more and more people get health care for the very first time, if there are no serious “back-end” problems with those that have already signed up for health care so far, Obama has only one direction from here on in, and that’s straight up.

So, this has definitely not been the worst year for the first black American, “Commander-in-Chief”.

Yes, I am aware that the president’s job approval rating is at its lowest point to date.  But the GOP is also seeing a civil war within its own ranks as their party’s “middle-of-the-roaders” are slowly starting to push back at their extreme right’s Tea Party members.

Along with all of this, the less-than-honest House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman, Darrell Issa, (R-CA), still keeps spinning his wheels in trying to find something bad that he can "stick it to the president".  But as it was with their “Teflon President”, Ronald Reagan, nothing from Chairman Issa ever sticks to President Obama. Even when Issa continues to make a fool of himself as he fails with his bare-faced lies against the president.

On another positive side, the Senate finally made the move that allowed President Obama to get his nominations for federal judges and federal agency heads installed. 

Back under President “Dubya” Bush, the Democrats had agreed that they may have hated and disagreed with this Republican president, but he did deserve to have his team’s nominations approved.  The Republicans  today however would prefer to not agree with the way our democracy is supposed to work.  The Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell did everything he could to stop President Obama’s nominations by over-abusing the senate filibuster. 

 

It may later come back and bite the Senate Democrats in the butt, but for now, by Majority Leader Reid’s use of the senate’s “Nuclear Option”, the Democrats are finally getting their due and the president’s nominations are being approved.

And due to the pressure that came from the American public after the GOP’s government shut-down, and after many years without a federal budget, the nation finally has a budget.  This budget deal was championed by a Democrat, Senator Patty Murray of Washington state, and despite his own Tea Party’s opposition, House Budget Chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) who agreed to the budget.  (You know, the same Rep. Ryan that previously wanted a budget that cut all social programs including Social Security and Medicare, while his proposal still increased the bloated Defense budget.)

In this new budget, some, but not all of the “Sequester” cuts have been reversed, and the budget passed with only 62 House Republicans voting “no”.  This budget will now stop any government shut-down attempts for the next two years.  But those “no-votes” by the Republicans were mainly just window decorations for their own Tea Party constituents for avoiding an election primary challenge by an even more conservative Red-State Republican back home this coming November.

As stated, this is not the president’s worst year to date.  Hopefully, it’s the beginning of the US Congress finally getting back to doing the business of the American people.  And also in doing that business with the welfare of the American people truly in mind.  Not just taking care of the top 2%, and all the mindless nonsense that has been offered up by those, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” idiots in their miss-directed Tea Party demonstrations

 

But in any case, Happy New Year Everyone!!!

 

Copyright G.Ater  2014