Obama’s legacy one of success

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President Obama on his recent visit to Cuba. (whitehouse.gov)

Corey Mykel, Editor

Rebutting accusations, insults, doubt, and unnecessary resentment for 8 years straight, President Barack Obama has proven that he was not a mistake the people voted for but in fact, has actually been a good president. He has pushed through personal strife, a broken country left to him, persistent republicans doing everything in their power to make sure he does not get re-elected and that his laws rejected. He has made tremendous accomplishments while in power, and profoundly proven to all of those who doubted him.

Obama inherited a country that was in economic shambles. The rate of poverty was extremely high. The unemployment rate was high. The amount of debt people were in and the amount of homeless people living in America was tremendous. It was at the point to where people couldn’t even afford medical care. Before Senator Barack Obama became the 43rd President of the United States of America, America was in serious financial trouble.

Obama, like a true Democrat, devised plans on helping the people and addressed many domestic issues the country was facing. One being the inability to afford life. Literally. Many people were so poor that they could not afford medical care and attention. Obama addressed this issue with one of his most famous accomplishments, the Affordable Care Act, or Obama Care. With Obama Care, Obama was able to increase access to health care for the United States citizens. This is something that 5 presidents have attempted and failed. This is something that has been longed for decades and for the first time is not becoming a reality with Obama being president of the United States.

When Obama became the 43rd president, the employment rate was 7.8 percent. The headline rate peaked at 10.0 percent in the first year he was president as he was still trying to get policies passed. As of now, Obama has secured the severe issue of unemployment America is facing and brought down the unemployment rate to 5 percent by 2016. The praise can most certainly be aimed towards one of Obama’s most successful accomplishments which was passing the stimulus.  In fact, what can be arguably Obama’s biggest accomplishment and addition to his legacy is his improvement of the economy. Obama has since created 13.7 million new jobs in 69 months of presidency. Obama has brought the unemployment rate down to 5 percent. Obama brought us out of recession that was occurring in 2008. Obama has helped the economy and some even compare his economic success to that of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s.

Obama has made many other great accomplishments during his time in office. Not only has he made astonishing domestic accomplishments but, he has also made a few global accomplishments as well. On December 18th, 2011, Obama pulled most troops out of Iraq, re-uniting soldiers with their families and making a great step towards ending the Iraq war. Obama has also ensured enhanced safety by achieving a nuclear deal with Iran. With this deal, Obama was successfully able to end the manufacturing of nuclear weapons in Iran and remove all nuclear weapons from their possession. Not only this, but Obama has supported people in other countries achieving more freedom for themselves.

Even after going into other countries and acting as a global police for the world, Obama has also secured the reputation of the United States. Obama, since coming into office, has done a great thing by increasing the perception of the United States and overall making it more positive. In fact, Obama has been able to raise countries perception of America to be that of a positive one according to the Global Attitudes Project. This is a great difference from the perception of America when former President Bill Clinton office where the perception was more negative and more low.

Obama has also made two more great domestic changes. One of which a significant amount of Americans are happy with and that is that discrimination against homosexuality is being diminished. Obama ended the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy which finally allowed homosexual people to serve openly in the United States military. He also supported same-sex marriage and thanks to the Supreme Court, a law that has been sought after for years has been put into effect and that marriage equality has come to all 50 states of the United States of America.

President Barack Obama has proven to be a president that was great for our domestic issues and even some foreign ones too. Rebutting the harsh and radical words people spewed at him, the doubt of his policies’ effectiveness by almost a quarter of America, and fighting the Republicans in Congress every step of the way to get his ideas passed, Obama has put forth a lot of effort to get America to where it is now. He is humble and does not want to accept much credit but he accepts some and these are the accomplishments that he is most proud of. Obama may not have been a Franklin D. Roosevelt but he surely was still a great president and is above many of the critical perceptions from people aimed at him.