Quote:I share in your distaste for bush but Obama is bush on steriods.


You had Bush destroying privacy under the patriot act well Obama doubles down with the ndaa.


You had Bush cripple education with no child left behind well Obama doubles down with common core.


You had Bush bailing out Wall Street with deficient spending once again Obama doubles down.


The two are so identical it drives me crazy people support the one and hate the other.

No, Obama hasn't done enough to roll back domestic spying, the militarization of the police, etc stemming from the Patriot Act. But he didn't start that fire either. And I'm not sure anyone is going to have the political capital or stones to go up against the military industrial corporate complex to make any real change there.


The no child left behind act was panned by educators; it was objectively bad. The pushback on common core curriculum is clearly partisan and not an argument against its effectiveness. It's equivalent to the outcry against obamacare--all partisan, all from the right, only because it's got Obama's name on it and for no other reason.


Obama saved the economy that Bush nearly destroyed.


"One year after the stimulus, several independent macroeconomic firms, including Moody's and IHS Global Insight, estimated that the stimulus saved or created 1.6 to 1.8 million jobs and forecast a total impact of 2.5 million jobs saved by the time the stimulus is completed.[80] The Congressional Budget Office considered these estimates conservative.[80] The CBO estimated according to its model 2.1 million jobs saved in the last quarter of 2009, boosting the economy by up to 3.5 percent and lowering the unemployment rate by up to 2.1 percent.[81] The CBO projected that the package would have an even greater impact in 2010.[81] The CBO also said, "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."[82] The CBO's report on the first quarter of 2010 showed a continued positive effect, with an employment gain in that quarter of up to 2.8 million and a GDP boost of up to 4.2 percent.[83]"


Furthermore,


"The CBO also revised its assessment of the long-term impact of the bill. After 2014, the stimulus is estimated to decrease output by zero to 0.2%. The stimulus is not expected to have a negative impact on employment in any period of time.[89]


In 2011, the Department of Commerce revised some of its previous estimates. Economist Dean Baker commented:


[T]he revised data ... showed that the economy was plunging even more rapidly than we had previously recognised in the two quarters following the collapse of Lehman. Yet, the plunge stopped in the second quarter of 2009 — just as the stimulus came on line. This was followed by respectable growth over the next four quarters. Growth then weakened again as the impact of the stimulus began to fade at the end of 2010 and the start of this year. In other words, the growth pattern shown by the revised data sure makes it appear that the stimulus worked. The main problem would seem to be that the stimulus was not big enough and it wasn't left in place long enough to lift the economy to anywhere near potential output.[90]"


So no, Obama is not bush on steroids. I do agree that in an ideal world he would be able to do more about our fundamental rights being eroded but I don't think he wants to be Kennedy'd and I can't blame him for that.

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