A president does not get the nation out of debt. Eight years after Obama took office with the economy crashing around his ears, people are still arguing about his accomplishments. The stimulus bill was packed with record spending on renewable energy, a modern electrical grid, computerization of health-care records, high-speed rail, and new bridges and roads. Still, there are certain bigger trends we know are going to continue and others that show no signs of reversing. Direct link to c h r i s's post Asking for everyone's opi, Posted a month ago. Education, in particular, has emerged as an important dividing line in recent years, with college graduates becoming more likely to identify as Democrats and those without a college degree becoming more likely to identify as Republicans. Barack Obama - Early Life, Education & Presidency - HISTORY Obama signed many landmark bills into law during his first two years in office. On March 23, 2010, Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as universal healthcare or Obamacare. Its goal was to give every American access to affordable healthcare by requiring everyone to have health insurance, but then providing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions (a group that was previously often denied coverage) and requiring health insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on providing actual medical services. During the Obama years, Americans were highly skeptical their personal information would remain private and secure, regardless of whether it was the government or the private sector that collected it. Note: The second paragraph of the Who we are section of this essay and its accompanying graphic were updated on May 21, 2018. Only about a fifth of Republicans and independents who lean Republican say they trust climate scientists a lot to give full and accurate information about the causes of climate change. In the new millennium, major technology revolutions have occurred in broadband connectivity, social media use and mobile adoption. Messenger and message were inseparable; he offered himself as Exhibit A in the case for hope and change. And then there is Obamacare: The presidents hugely ambitious, yet troubled, health-care reform. Get HISTORYs most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week. She had been a tremendously influential force in her grandsons life and had diligently followed his historic run for office from her home in Honolulu. Not only was Obama the first African American president, he was also the first to be born outside the continental United States. The U.S. has also long been home to more immigrants than any other country in the world, and by 2065, one-in-three Americans will be an immigrant or have immigrant parents, compared with about one-in-four today. Inaugurated before an estimated crowd of 1.8 million people, Obama proposed unprecedented federal spending to revive the economy and also hoped to renew Americas stature in the world. In 2015, seven-in-ten Americans said that the governments policies following the recession generally did little or nothing to help middle-class people. Obamas election quickly elevated Americas image abroad, especially in Europe, where George W. Bush was deeply unpopular following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The U.S. economy is in much better shape now than it was in the aftermath of the Great Recession, which cost millions of Americans their homes and jobs and led Obama to push through a roughly $800 billion stimulus package as one of his first orders of business. As he prepares to leave office, the country he led for eight years is undeniably different. Direct link to 's post Why is Obamacare still ca, Posted 3 years ago. Barack and Anns son, Barack Hussein Obama Jr., was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961. During campaign, by using social media and mobilizing the general public online, Obama was able to raise awareness and financial support of his campaign [1] through the use of over 15 social networking sites. He partnered with another Republican, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, on a bill that expanded efforts to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe and Russia. Barack Obama campaigned for the U.S. presidency on a platform of change. Obama remarked on that day: We are big and vast and diverse; a nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, different experiences and stories, but bound by our shared ideal that no matter who you are or what you look like, how you started off, or how and who you love, America is a place where you can write your own destiny.. At the onset of the crisis in October 2007, sales of cars and light trucks had been humming at about 16 million per year. Senator from Illinois 2004 election sponsored bills 44th President of the United States Presidency timeline Transition Inaugurations first second Trips foreign '09 '10 '11 '12 '13 It is tempting to believe that the pace of change in the U.S. has never been greater, or that 2016s election is of greater consequence than others. Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama - Wikipedia And that track record contains much more than his enemiesor even many of his friendshave been ready to acknowledge. With several weeks remaining, most polls showed Obama as the frontrunner. Home Politics, Law & Government World Leaders Presidents & Heads of States Barack Obama Listen to article Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Barack Obama in Baghdad For all of Obama's efforts at rapprochement with much of the world, helike George W. Bush was a wartime president. Having campaigned on the audacity of hope Obama was thrust into a contagion of fear. On November 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois defeats Senator John McCain of Arizona to become the 44th U.S. president, and the first African American elected to the White House. But history is likely to judge him by the outcome of his high-stakes bet on Iran. The main reforms include: the Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as "the ACA" or "Obamacare", the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. What's one domestic policy Barack Obama achieved that is still in place today? No Americans were lost in the operation, which gathered evidence about Al-Qaeda. The framers of the Constitution always hoped that our leadership would not be limited to Americans of wealth or family connections. If demographic changes are slow, technological changes can be swift. At the Democratic National Convention that summer, he delivered a much acclaimed keynote address. Fears of a so-called death spiral, in which rising premiums drive off all but the sickest customers, have some Democrats once again calling for a government takeover, something opponents label socialized medicine.. But after winning a second term in 2012, his achievements in office have made him one of the most transformative presidents of the past hundred years. Here are 28 of President Obama's biggest accomplishments as President of the United States. On May 2, 2011,Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 Attacks, was captured and killed by Seal Team Six. Obama doubled the number of female justices in Supreme Court history, from two to four, and appointed the first justice of Hispanic heritage, Sonia Sotomayor. Barack Obama's Presidential Legacy | Britannica Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American president, was elected over Senator John McCain of Arizona on November 4, 2008. Yet the United States enters this uncertain new era with undeniable, if often overlooked, strengths. In the last year of his second term, Obama spoke at two events that clearly moved himthe 50th anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, and the dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In the foreign policy arena, Obama opened up talks with Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela and set a withdrawal date for American troops in Iraq. And the gap has only grown wider since then: Democrats today are more than twice as likely as Republicans to say that immigrants strengthen the country. Strong growth in the number of Hispanic eligible voters, in particular U.S.-born youth, drove much of this change. Five takeaways from Barack Obama's CNN interview on Biden, Trump, 2024 Even so, the U.S. of today differs in some significant ways from the U.S. of 2008. This mortgage crisis in turn blazed through the global banking system, and only an extraordinary intervention by lame-duck president George W. Bush prevented a complete financial collapse. Obama leaves office more human than he entered it, a mere mortal with a track record and the gray hair to show for it. Opinion | Barack Obama's Biggest Mistake - The New York Times And it's one thing . Through eight years in office, Barack Obama used all the tools in a presidents kit to make significant changes: laws, rules, executive orders and the bully pulpit. How does it compare to the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration? All Rights Reserved. The post . The auto industry was facing disaster. Demographic changes dont happen quickly. David Mendell, Jeff Wallenfeldt His parents, who met as students at the University of Hawaii, were Ann Dunham, a white American from Kansas, and Barack Obama Sr., a black Kenyan studying in the United States. As the Great Recession echoed around the world, Europes economy went into reverse. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. 1 Rescued the country from the Great Recession, cutting the unemployment rate from 10% to 4.7% over six years, 2 Signed the Affordable Care Act which provided health insurance to over 20 million uninsured Americans, 4 Ordered for the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden, 5 Passed the $787 billion America Recovery and Reinvestment Act to spur economic growth during the Great Recession, 6 Supported the LGBT community's fight for marriage equality, 7 Commuted the sentences of nearly 1200 drug offenders to reverse unjust and outdated prison sentences", 9 Helped put the U.S. ontrack for energy independence by 2020, 10 Began the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, 11 Signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals allowing as many as 5 million people living in the U.S. illegally to avoid deportation and receive work permits, 12 Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to re-regulate the financial sector, 13 Dropped the veteran homeless rate by 50 percent, 15 Began the process of normalizing relations with Cuba, 16 Increased Department of Veteran Affairs funding, 17 Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, 18 Boosted fuel efficiency standards for cars, 19 Improved school nutrition with the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, 20 Repealed the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, 21 Signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, making it a federal crime to assault anyone based on sexual or gender identification, 22 Helped negotiate the landmark Iran Nuclear Deal, 23 He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to combat pay discrimination against women, 24 Nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, making her the first Hispanic ever to serve as a justice, 25 Supported veterans through a $78 billion tuition assistance GI bill, 26 Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples", 27 Launched My Brother's Keeper, a White House initiative designed to help young minorities achieve their full potential, 28 Expanded embryonic stem cell research leading to groundbreaking work in areas including spinal injury treatment and cancer, This article originally appeared on 09.12.18, 28 Of Barack Obamas Greatest Achievements As President Of The United States, Empathy: A Hard Look at a Touchy-Feely Subject, The 2014 GOOD Gift Guide to Beautiful Books, Gender In Sports: Leveling The Playing Field, Barack Obama at Las Vegas Presidential Forum, 15 Of the funniest Obama and Biden memes , Trump is refusing to unveil Obama's presidential portrait at the White House - GOOD , Obama opened up about the personal qualities that make Joe Biden such an exceptional leader - GOOD . (+1) 202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries. Barack Obama - 2004 DNC, 2008 Election, 2009 Nobel Peace Prize A candidate known for his stirring speeches struggled, as president, to sell the public on what he was doing and why he was doing it. He wasnt chosen on the basis of experience, nor for his role as leader of a party or a movement. Climate change marks another area where the parties are deeply divided. Former President Barack Obama said he had a strange recurring dream while in the White House. The demographic changes that have taken hold across the U.S. will continue their transformation of America, too. The result was historic, as Obama, a first-term U.S. senator, became, when he was inaugurated on January 20, 2009, the country's first African American president. They later divorced, and Baracks mother married a man from Indonesia, where he spent his early childhood. Nearly one-in-three eligible voters on Election Day were Hispanic, black, Asian or another racial or ethnic minority, reflecting a steady rise since 2008. When it comes to foreign policy, only time will reveal whether the baton Obama passes is stuffed with TNT. This is our moment, Obama had said on the night he won the election. Obama sought to manage a hostile Iran with a treaty that hindered its development of nuclear weapons. What is Barack Obama famous for? | Britannica He described dreams where he could just walk into a bodega and get an iced coffee. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Barack Obama, Community Organizer and Attorney, Barack Obamas Speech At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/barack-obama. In a sense, there was nowhere to go but down. Meanwhile, Obama has deflected efforts from inside his own party to halt the fracking revolutiona technological win-win that has cut carbon dioxide emissions while freeing the U.S. from dependence on foreign oil. While his popula. When it comes to the nations religious identity, the biggest trend during Obamas presidency is the rise of those who claim no religion at all. How would you characterize President Obamas foreign policy? "I'd sit on a bench and . And we look ahead to some of the trends that could define the tenure of the 45th, Donald Trump. How did the Obamacare cause those negative effects mentioned in the article to happen, "Many previously-insured Americans saw their premiums skyrocket, while others lost coverage completely. Despite tight Republican control during his years in the state senate, Obama was able to build support among both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics and health care reform. As it often does, the Supreme Court settled momentous legal battles during Obamas tenure, and in 2015, it overturned long-standing bans on same-sex marriage, effectively legalizing such unions nationwide. Oval Office Athletes: Presidents and the Sports They Played Because the worst-case scenario is a regional conflagration in which the Shia mullahs of Iran and the Sunni sheiks of Saudi Arabia pile a nuclear-arms race atop their centuries-old religious rivalry. Actually it was Pakistan who reported the presence of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Im opposed to dumb warsI know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U. S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.. Younger Americans, in particular, were more likely to turn to social media rather than more traditional platforms, with those ages 18 to 29 listing it as their most helpful source for election information in a January 2016 survey. Viewership of local TV newscasts has been flat or declining for years, depending on the time of day. Barack Obama - Afghanistan War, Iraq War, Midterm Election, and Libya He stormed into the banking, automotive and health-care industries, winning changes that had been mulled, debated and dithered over for decades. independent estimates from the non-governmental organizations New America and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggest that civilians made up between 7.27% to 15.47% of deaths in U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia from 20092016, with a broadly similar rate from 20172019. The U.S. economy is nearly $1trillion bigger today than it was before the crisis, and most other developed countries have fared worse. (Obamas successor, Donald Trump, withdrew from the deal in 2018. A political scientist by training, Dimock has been at the Center since 2000 and has co-authored several of its landmark research reports, including studies of trends in American political and social values and a groundbreaking examination of political polarization within the American public. Still others had to purchase plans that did not cover their prior healthcare providers.". Nearly three-quarters said in a separate survey that the news media are biased. @NickBryantNY. About half of Americans say the U.S. is a less powerful and important world leader than it was a decade ago, though most still believe the U.S. is the worlds leading economic and military power. In fact, by some measures Obama leaves the U.S. in a stronger position in Asia and the Pacific than it was the day he took office. But by some measures, the country faces serious economic challenges: A steady hollowing of the middle class, for example, continued during Obamas presidency, and income inequality reached its highest point since 1928. A winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Obamas presidency was marked by the landmark passage of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare; the killing of Osama bin Laden by Seal Team Six; the Iran Nuclear Deal and the legalization of gay marriage by the Supreme Court. And this points to something important about the presidency: it always has the ring of unfinished business. Direct link to Yoshiya Dayan's post Kind of. The November electorate was the countrys most racially and ethnically diverse ever. At the same time, the law is an unprecedented effort to break the fever of runaway medical costs. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. The 44th president developed a passion for basketball while he was an adolescent in Hawaii, playing pickup games every day on an outdoor court at his school, according to David . Barack Obama legacy: Did he improve US race relations? - BBC Obamas signature legislative achievement the 2010 health care law that informally bears his name has prompted some of the sharpest divisions between Democrats and Republicans. Obama chose Joseph R. Biden Jr. as his running mate. Direct link to Yoshiya Dayan's post Obama tripled the nationa, Posted a month ago. Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, and then to the U.S. Senate in 2004. In 2009, Obama became the fourth president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. After his original Republican opponent in the general election, Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race, the former presidential candidate Alan Keyes stepped in. A reality of American politics today is that one of the only things large numbers of Republicans and Democrats can agree on is that they cant agree on basic facts. In August 2006, Obama traveled to Kenya, where thousands of people lined the streets to welcome him. The future of the media is likely to be an even more salient question following the 2016 presidential campaign, which saw the emergence of a trend of fake news that has caused some observers to say that America has entered a period of post-truth politics.. They worked to bring new votersmany of them young or Black, both demographics they believed favored Obamato become involved in the election. But the U.S. wasnt seen favorably everywhere. Learn more about Barack Obamas spouse, Michelle Obama. He poured money into basic medical and scientific research and super-charged the U.S. alternative-energy sector. The Obama bump was most dramatic in Western Europe, but was also evident in virtually every country surveyed between 2007 and 2009. The share of Americans who say it would be better if the U.S. just dealt with its own problems and let other countries deal with their own as best they can has risen 11 points since the spring of 2010. Indeed, for the first time, the Hispanic share of the electorate is now on par with the black share. He had not been a. Newspaper editorial staff in the U.S. went from nearly 47,000 in 2008 to about 33,000 in 2014 a 30% drop, according to data from the American Society of News Editors. Barack Obama was re-elected for a second term in 2012, beating out Republican Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan. The world economy was plunging like a runaway bobsled as Obama took the oath of office in January 2009 before one of the largest gatherings in the history of the nations capital. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Government is not an economics seminar, howeverits the real world. Obama had overseen the killing of Osama bin Laden, but a new self-proclaimed Islamic State arose during a civil war in Syria and began inciting terrorist attacks. Obama was a mirror in which millions of people saw their cherished ideals reflected: tolerance, cooperation, equality, justice. Senator from Illinois sponsored bills 44th President of the United States Presidency timeline Transition Inaugurations first second International trips Policies Economy Energy The same year, a record-high 12% of newlyweds married someone of a different race. At the end of July, Obama had become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Ethiopia as well as the first U.S. chief executive to address the African Union at its headquarters in Addis Ababa. Barack Obama: Life Before the Presidency By Consulting Editor: Michael Nelson Photo: University of Chicago Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Hawaii. He had not been a governor or a general or a veteran legislator. Jeff Wallenfeldt President Obama's cabinet The table provides a list of cabinet members in the administration of Pres. A best-case scenario: five or 10 or 20 years from now, pragmatic leaders will have come to power from Tehran to Ankara, from Cairo to Riyadh, tempering the Sunni-Shia conflict in favor of regional peace. Three-in-four said that news organizations keep political leaders from doing things they shouldnt. By contrast, among African-Americans his job approval is . I hope this answers your question. It was the biggest education reform bill since the Great Society, he continued. During those panicked early months, Obama was also pressing ahead with the unpopular bailout of the banking industry that began under President Bush. The most exalted position in American life has a way of humbling its occupants. The biggest foray into industrial policy since FDR, biggest expansion of antipoverty initiatives since Lyndon Johnson, biggest middle-class tax cut since Ronald Reagan, biggest infusion of research money ever. And that was just one of several massive Obama undertakings. Obama did it with dignity and conscience. How America Changed During Barack Obama's Presidency