The Obama Record

by Stuart Shapiro

Republicans have attacked the President as “not having a record to run on.”  With the Democratic convention beginning today, it is important to recognize how laughable this charge is.

This is a president who passed a health-care reform breakthrough 100 years in the making. He also imposed the most sweeping Wall Street reforms since the Great Depression. Obama also rescued the economy from collapse, rescued the American auto industry, ended the war in Iraq, decimated al Qaeda and killed bin Laden, reformed the student loan system, ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” vastly improved fuel efficiency standards, helped topple the Gaddafi regime, negotiated the New START treaty, improved food safety protections, cracked down on credit card company abuses, expanded stem-cell research, and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

You may not agree with what the President has done but to accuse him of not having a record is baseless and frivolous.  Of course it is probably a better strategy for the GOP than describing any of their policy proposals.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.