The number one British single today in 1958 was the first in British chart history to start at the top:
Today in 1969, New Jersey authorities told record stores they would be charged with pornography if they sold the John Lennon and Yoko Ono album “Two Virgins,” whose cover showed all you could possibly see of John and Yoko.
The number one album today in 1976 was Bob Dylan’s “Desire”:
That was some opening act for the 45th President’s term.
The most frequent question I got on Friday was: “What did you think of the speech?”
My answer was the same to all:
“It wasn’t the speech I would have written, but it was the speech President Trump wanted to give. That’s why I didn’t vote for him.”
If his speech had been one of soaring Sorensonian rhetoric or Noonanesque oratory, no one would have believed that Donald Trump had believed a single word he had uttered.
I think your answer to the question is pretty simple. If you voted for Donald Trump you liked it. It was a speech to his base, promising to follow up on his campaign promises.
If you voted for Hillary Clinton, you hated it. It was a speech to his base, promising to follow up on his campaign promises.
The weekend wasn’t about that.
On Saturday, some millions of people – mostly women – around the country and around the world demonstrated against the inauguration of Donald Trump.
I said, on Saturday, about those demonstrations that if the marchers had been similarly organized in the weeks before the election and had gotten on busses to Florida and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Iowa and Wisconsin to urge women in those battleground states to get out and vote for Hillary Clinton on November 8 – then they would have been celebrating on Friday, rather than demonstrating on Saturday.
A friend of mine – a really good friend of mine – went in to downtown Washington, DC to show her support for the marchers. She texted she wanted me to support “what we are standing for.”
I texted back that more than a million Americans (1,196,552 Americans, according to PBS) have died in large part to ensure that more than a million living Americans could peaceably assemble to demonstrate their revulsion with their government just one day after that government came to power.
Not only would their new government do nothing to them in retaliation; but, in fact, would spend millions to make sure they were safe. I am standing tall for that.
But the weekend wasn’t about that, either.
On Saturday – after the swearing-in, after the parade, and after the balls – President Trump traveled to Langley, Virginia to the CIA headquarters to, one might have thought, make peace with the employees, agents, analysts, and officers.
In the end, he used the remarks to castigate the press corp for underreporting the number of people on the Smithsonian Mall for the inauguration ceremony. From The Hill newspaper:
“Honestly it looked like a million and half people, whatever it was it was. But it went all the way back to the Washington Monument … and by mistake I get this network and it showed an empty field, and it said we drew 250,000 people. Now that’s not bad, but it’s a lie.”
Later in the afternoon, Press Secretary Sean Spicer went into the briefing room to read a statement defending the notion that President Trump’s inaugural was the biggest, bestest, greatest inaugural what ever was:
“Photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall That was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period.”
It was important to the President that not only had more people attended his inauguration than any President before him, but he was far more concerned about suggestions that the anti-Trump demonstrations were larger than his inauguration.
It does no good to ask “Who cares?” when the answer is: “The President cares.”
Short of committing an Article II, Section 4 offence; that is, being impeached for, and convicted of, having committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” we’re going to have President Trump to deal with until at least January 20, 2021.
The Hill reports on something all Republicans should favor:
Donald Trump is ready to take an ax to government spending.
Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned.
The changes they propose are dramatic.
The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.
The proposed cuts hew closely to a blueprint published last year by the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has helped staff the Trump transition.
Similar proposals have in the past won support from Republicans in the House and Senate, who believe they have an opportunity to truly tackle spending after years of warnings about the rising debt.
Many of the specific cuts were included in the 2017 budget adopted by the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), a caucus that represents a majority of House Republicans. The RSC budget plan would reduce federal spending by $8.6 trillion over the next decade.
Two members of Trump’s transition team are discussing the cuts at the White House budget office: Russ Vought, a former aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence and the former executive director of the RSC, and John Gray, who previously worked for Pence, Sen. Rand Paul and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) when Ryan headed the House Budget Committee.
Vought and Gray, who both worked for the Heritage Foundation, are laying the groundwork for the so-called skinny budget — a 175- to 200-page document that will spell out the main priorities of the incoming Trump administration, along with summary tables. That document is expected to come out within 45 days of Trump taking office.
The administration’s full budget, including appropriations language, supplementary materials and long-term analysis, is expected to be released toward the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office, or by mid- to late April.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump’s choice to head the Office of Management and Budget, has not yet weighed in on the proposed spending reforms because he is still awaiting confirmation by the Senate.
Mulvaney voted for the RSC budget offered as a more conservative alternative to the main House Republican budget in 2015. The House did not vote on the RSC budget for fiscal year 2017. …
It’s not clear whether Trump’s first budget will include reforms to Social Security or Medicare, two major drivers of the federal deficit.
Trump vowed during the campaign not to cut Medicare and Social Security, a pledge that Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), his pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers in testimony Wednesday has not changed.
Yet it could be very difficult to reduce U.S. debt without tackling the entitlement programs. Conservative House budgets have repeatedly included reforms to Medicare and Social Security, arguing they are necessary to save the programs.
The presidential budget is important in setting policy and laying out the administration’s agenda, though Congress would be responsible for approving a federal budget and appropriating funds.
It should be pointed out that there was little mention of budget cuts in the early days of the previous Republican administration, since George W. Bush campaigned as a “compassionate conservative.” And then eight months after he took office 9/11 happened, and federal spending ballooned.
Budget cuts, of course, depend on whether Trump can be trusted to keep his (most recent) word. That was one of the major objections of the NeverTrumpers, and it remains to be seen whether Trump will do what he claims he’ll do.
Our first item comes from the Stupid Laws File: Today in 1956, Ohio youths younger than 18 were banned from dancing in public unless accompanied by an adult, the result of enforcing a law that dated back to 1931.
The number one single today in 1965:
The number one British single today in 1971 was the first number one by a singer from his previous group:
Today in 1977, Patti Smith broke a vertebra after falling off the stage at her concert in Tampa, Fla.
The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay starts writing about phobias, then says …
Me? I’m terrified of Aaron Rodgers.
Seriously. Who isn’t scared of Rodgers at this point? Besides exuberant Green Bay Packers cheeseheads, that is. The most frightening thing left in these NFL playoffs isn’t the Atlanta Falcons or the Pittsburgh Steelers or even Grumpy Bill Belichick’s New England Patriot Dance Machine, but a scruffy, solitary 33-year-old quarterback.
Rodgers. If my team is alive, I don’t want any part of him.
Consider Sunday’s thrilling Green Bay victory over Dallas. This thing was setting up to be a Cowboys comeback for the ages: the Packers racing to a 21-3 early lead, and then Dallas rallying to tie it late, led by rookie quarterback Dak Prescott.
When Rodgers took to the field deep in Packers territory in the closing minute, he noticed what he had left to work with:
35 seconds.
“There’s too much time left on the clock,” Rodgers said later.
Too much time!
Here a brief list of things I cannot do in 35 seconds or less:
1. Put on both shoes.
2. Find my keys.
3. Log into my company email.
4. Decide if I want hash browns (which is weird, because I always want hash browns.)
5. Dress my kids for a snowstorm (I also cannot do this in 35 years or less.)
But 35 seconds is plenty enough for Rodgers to help his team win a football game, as it turns out. Even after a crushing Dallas sack (how did Rodgers not fumble?) left Green Bay with a third-and-20 from its own 32. It was enough time for a rolling Rodgers to locate tight end Jared Cook, who brilliantly tiptoed on the sideline’s edge and pulled in a 36-yard completion. It was enough for Mason Crosby—and let’s hear it for Mason Crosby, a historic performance, kicker man—to come on for 51-yard field goal, and that was that.
Another Aaron Rodgers Green Bay epic in the book.At this point, it’s absurd, expected. When you play Rodgers, you don’t really play him. You’re at his mercy. I don’t want to use some cliché like “standard rules of space and time don’t apply” but it’s true: standard rules of space and time do not apply. If you give him a few seconds, he’s good. If you give him one play from his own side of the field, he’s good.
Which leads us to the Hail Marys. Rodgers is to Hail Marys what Steph Curry is to midcourt 3-pointers. It’s a fluky thing for everyone else. For them, not so much.
Ask yourself: If it’s your team, do you want to watch Aaron Rodgers heave a Hail Mary in the closing seconds of the half?
I don’t need an answer, because I know it. If you’re on the other sideline, a Rodgers Hail Mary is absolutely terrifying. Ask the New York Giants.
The Packers are a quirky kind of headache. They are probably the most imperfect team left in the NFL postseason. They have a depleted roster, especially on defense. After that early deficit, Dallas was able to move the ball rather easily on both the ground and in the air. Rodgers is without his best receiver, Jordy Nelson, who suffered broken ribs against the Giants in the Wild-Card round (it isn’t clear if Nelson will be back for the NFC title game.)
Green Bay’s flaws aren’t news. The Packers began their 2016 season 4-6, on the outside of the playoff picture, with chatter swirling about head coach Mike McCarthy’s job status and Rodgers’s diminished effectiveness. He isn’t the same, was the prevailing criticism.
That’s when Rodgers suggested that the Packers might be able to “run the table,” win their final six games and get a playoff spot. Which is a rather brash thing to predict. And it’s exactly what Green Bay did.
I’m assuming Atlanta was happy the Packers won Sunday—it means another home game for them, a championship closer for the Georgia Dome. The Falcons were impressive in handling Seattle on Saturday.
And yet this also means facing Rodgers in a climate-controlled environment. I always assume that when great quarterbacks from harsh-weather outdoor stadium teams get to domes, they turn into giddy free-range chickens. They think: This is amazing! I can’t believe people get to play here! I can feel my fingers!
It certainly felt that way for much of Sunday’s game in AT&T Stadium. It will probably feel that way for portions of next Sunday’s. Packers fans can’t wait. Aaron Rodgers is on the loose. The rest of us should be hiding behind the couch.
5:00 left, fourth quarter: Green Bay 28, Dallas 20. Cowboys driving, but even if the kid quarterback, Dak Prescott, can score here, he’ll still need a two-point conversion to tie, and have a prayer of extending the game.
4:17 left: The kid squeezes a seven-yard TD pass into Dez Bryant on a short post route. The kid executes a quarterback draw well, but Packers linebacker Jake Ryan corrals him around the 1. Prescott’s will, and his body, barrel across the goal line. Prescott has brought Dallas all the way back from a 21-3 deficit against the great Aaron Rodgers. Two facts here. One: No rookie quarterback has thrown three touchdown passes in a playoff game in the past 50 years, and now Prescott has. Two: Prescott’s ridiculously good. Tie, 28-28.
2:00 left: Rodgers throws an ill-advised pick (that is the last time in this column you will read “Ill-advised” and “Rodgers” in the same sentence) to Dallas safety Jeff Heath … but wait. Rookie corner Anthony Brown gets called for pass interference for hooking Ty Montgomery early in his route. Iffy call, but watching it six more times Tuesday, it’s the right one. Brown hooked him and interfered with his route. Jason Garrett doesn’t like the call. Why would he?
1:33 left: Mason Crosby ambles onto the field to try the longest playoff field goal of his career–56 yards. He’s made 21 straight playoff field goal. His last miss: a 50-yarder he shtoinked off the left upright six years ago to the day in Atlanta. He boots a low, half-knuckleball liner that’s eight feet above the crossbar, just inside the right upright. Rodgers shows more glee on the sidelines than he ever shows after a TD pass, punching the air violently. Green Bay, 31-28.
0:49 left: Who exactly is the rookie here? Prescott to Terrence Williams for 24 up the gut. Prescott on a cross to Jason Witten for 11. First down, Packer 40. And then Prescott does something that looks stupid in the moments after the game. He spikes the ball. Odd, because the Cowboys have one timeout left, an incredibly reliable kicker (Dan Bailey), and they’re five to seven yards from a low-risk field goal in the weatherless stadium. If they’re playing for the tie and overtime, they should let the clock run. If they’re playing to win it right here, they’ll need that down they just gave away. Sure enough, Prescott throws a seven-yard out to Cole Beasley … clock stops … and Nick Perry bats down a pass at the line … clock stops … and it’s fourth down. What have the Cowboys done? Have they left enough time for Rodgers to score?
0:35 left: Bailey, with the easiest-looking 52-yard field goal in world history. Rodgers confers with Randall Cobb on the Green Bay sideline. I am guessing he might have said, “Can you believe they spiked it and left us enough time to win?” Tie, 31-31.
0:21 left: There’s going to be parade down the center of the Saginaw Valley (Mich.) State campus for Jeff Heath after the season. The feisty safety bursts around left tackle on a blitz and nails Rodgers for a 10-yard loss, back to the Green Bay 32. Watching at home in Columbus, Ohio, a good pal of Rodgers’, A.J. Hawk, is shocked, like the rest of America, that Rodgers has the ball in his right hand, ready to throw, and doesn’t feel the rush at all. You can see it in his eyes on the replay. He had no idea anyone was coming. And boom! Heath levels him. “Man, how’d he hold onto that ball?” Hawk wondered Tuesday, when I interviewed him for The MMQB Podcast With Peter King. “When that happened and he held onto the ball, I said to my wife, ‘He’s going to make a deep throw to win it, right now.’” On replay, it’s more amazing. Heath’s sacking arm is within eight or 10 inches of the ball but never could find the target to punch out. But it’s moot anyway. Rodgers needs 33 yards to get into field position and has maybe two plays to do it. But …
0:18 left: The act of the sack isn’t even done, but Rodgers, after a total clock-cleaning and his head bouncing back and forth like a crash-test dummy’s, pirouettes up quickly and signals for Green Bay’s second timeout. There’s some presence of mind.
0:12 left: Sideline route to Cook. Excellent coverage by Dallas’ Byron Jones, who sticks his arm in to bat a perfect pass away. Incomplete.
Third-and-20, Green Bay 32. How many 35-yard completions against seven DBs you got on that playsheet, Mike McCarthy? Shotgun snap. Ty Montgomery as a sidecar. Three Cowboys rush.
0:11 left: Rodgers spins completely around to face the left sideline and begins a loop.
0:10 left: Rodgers takes his first look downfield. Guard Lane Taylor breaks away from the mosh pit at the lane to protect Rodgers, and here comes the only rusher with a chance, linebacker Justin Durant.
0:09 left: Taylor engages Durant, who tries to use his quickness to get around the guard. Nothing doing. Rodgers stops. He bounces once, looking downfield.
0:08 left: Cobb’s open, slightly, just past midfield, but not deep enough. Useless throw. Rodgers pumps and recoils, and then jogs three more steps to his left. At home watching in Minnesota is Rich Gannon, who knows Rodgers well. “This is the most difficult throw for a right-handed quarterback,” Gannon told me on the podcast Tuesday. “Going to his left, throwing right-handed.”
0:07 left: Rodgers, three yards from the left sideline, now has Durant coming into his vision. But here’s the important thing: Taylor did a terrific job slowing Durant long enough for Rodgers to release it. Rodgers reaches back while still moving left slightly, never stopping to set up, and he rears back to throw, and the ball leaves his hand. He’s got a prayer to hit Jared Cook 38 yards away. Hey, it’s probably overtime. Take a shot.
0:06 left: “I can make that throw 15, 18 yards,” Gannon said. This Rodgers throw passes midfield with juice on it. A line drive.
0:05 left: Cook, who took a long, looping route to the left sideline from the right tight end spot, sees the ball coming toward him. “I used to watch him on the flights back home when I was on the Rams,” Cook said, “and I’d think, ‘He’s a beast.’ Now I see him make these passes every day.” Like this one. Here it comes, and Cook knows he has to be mindful of his feet. Stay inbounds, feet.
0:04 left: Ball hits hands. Cook falling out of bounds. Feet close to stripe. Ball secured. Cook on ground. Gannon is wowed at home in Minnesota. “He put it in a 12-inch box!” Gannon says, awestruck.
0:03 left: Cook on ground. Out at the 33. Head linesman Jeff Bergman, 15 yards behind the play, immediately signals no catch. “Pass is incomplete, out of bounds,” Joe Buck says on TV. Side judge Rob Vernatchi, 11 yards in front of the play, staring at Cook’s feet, sprints toward the play, signaling it was a catch. Bergman and Vernatchi converge at the 32. Bergman slaps Vernatchi on the rear end, as if to say, “You had it. Good call.” Which it was. Perfect, decisive call by Vernatchi.
Troy Aikman in the booth: “Unbelieva–
Buck: “Unbelievable!”
Two minutes and 40 seconds later, ref Tony Corrente has the ruling.
Corrente: “After review, the ruling on the field of a completed pass is confirmed.”
0:00 left: Crosby, from 51 yards for the win, good! But wait, Dallas timeout. He has to do it again.
0:00 left: Crosby, from 51 yards for the win … jussssst inside the left upright. Good. Green Bay, 34-31.
Three 50-yard field goals in the last two minutes of a game has never happened. “Really it was four,” radio host Chris Russo said Tuesday. “He made the other one and Garrett called time.” Never mind Rodgers: How about the icy kickers?
But that throw.
“To fit that ball in there,” Gannon said. “Incredible.”
Rodgers is breathless, seemingly, when Erin Andrews gets him on the field. “I mean, it’s just kind of schoolyard at the time,” Rodgers tells him. And as our Robert Klemko tweeted after the game, Cobb told him that Rodgers made up each receiver’s pattern in the huddle before the play. That really makes the whole story better.
The world moves so fast. Slow it down this morning, and appreciate one of the best games we’ll ever see.
Rodgers has had an unbelievable postseason. Pick your own favorite:
Gay is unfortunately correct that the Packers might be the worst team left due to their somewhat porous defense thanks to all the defensive backfield injuries and their sort-of adequate running game. (But the worst of four is still better than the remaining 28 teams, including the previously number-one-seeded Cowboys.) Not having Jordy Nelson Sunday and possibly not having Davante Adams will make things even more difficult.
If you thought the Packer defense was tested by the Cowboys, consider that the Falcons were the top scoring team in the NFL this regular season, ahead of fourth-place Green Bay. On the other hand, if you think the Packers’ defense wasn’t very good this season (21st in scoring), the Falcons’ defense was worse (27th in scoring). Based on that betting the over in an over–under bet (which as of now is 61.5) seems appropriate. (For comparison purposes, the Cowboys were fifth in scoring offense and scoring defense.)
This will be the third straight week the Packers will play in the postseason someone they played in the regular season. They looked awful and lost to Dallas 27–16 (and the game wasn’t that close), and then two weeks later lost to Atlanta 33–32 on a touchdown with 31 seconds left. The Packers lost three more games after that, and haven’t lost since then.
This looks eerily similar to the 2010–11 postseason (which included a surprisingly large win over Atlanta), but history generally doesn’t repeat itself, and one feels like the Packers’ magic can’t continue. The NFL would love a Patriots–Packers Super Bowl, but I don’t think the Falcons are going to cooperate.
Americans voted in November for seismic change, but our outgoing president is still as clueless as ever about the nation he governed.
In his farewell speech-cum-lecture earlier this month, President Barack Obama proclaimed that he made America better by “almost every measure.”
The statement goes far beyond optimism, and lands squarely in the realm of delusion.
Eight years of Obama’s leadership has left America demonstrably weaker and more divided. Rather than the promised “healing”—racial and other—the Obama era frayed the ties that bind us.
It began when his Justice Department dropped an open-and-shut voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. It was essentially a declaration that his administration would use the Voting Rights Act to protect only certain races.
There followed a steady stream of false claims that America was an inherently racist society with a biased judicial and law enforcement system. Obama rekindled a racial divide that had been steadily disappearing in American society.
In fostering group identity politics for political advantage, the Obama administration only divided the American people. And the people know it.
A recent Rasmussen poll found that 60 percent of Americans felt “race relations have gotten worse since Obama’s election”—a far cry from the president’s claim of “better” race relations under his administration.
The president also boasted of controlling health care costs while bringing Americans better insurance coverage. Neither claim is true.
This year, insurance premiums skyrocketed by an average of 25 percent in states with exchanges. Deductibles are through the roof. And people shopping for more affordable insurance are finding far fewer options.
Most states this year have even fewer insurance providers participating in health care exchanges than last year.
As for “better coverage,” the vast majority of previously uninsured people now covered are enrolled in Medicaid—a troubled and increasingly stressed program that actually delivers poorer health outcomes than those of people with no insurance at all.
It’s no wonder that more Americans want to repeal the consistently unpopular law than keep it, according to a recent Kaiser Health tracking poll.
The president proudly stated that he opened a “new chapter with the Cuban people,” but it appears the new chapter for the Cuban people is one behind bars. Since Obama began “normalization,” arrests of Cuban political dissidents have escalated, with over 9,000 political arrests made in 2016.
It is no secret that the tyrannical Castro regime has a dismal human rights record. The influx of American capital blessed by normalization will only bolster the regime.
It was a huge mistake to give Havana diplomatic recognition with no conditions and no requirements to stop the oppression. In Cuban-American communities, the widespread celebrations of Fidel Castro’s death stood in stark contrast to the bitter disappointment in Obama’s failure to stand for freedom and liberty in Cuba.
Returning to domestic policy, the president ignored his real record: eight years of economic stagnation. Instead, he offered happy talk: “The good news is that today the economy is growing again.”
Really? Our economy continues to underperform, with low increases in gross domestic product, a low labor participation rate, increased cost of living in cities, and lower-than-expected wage growth.
Rather than implement policies that encourage business creation and investment, the president fostered an environment of class warfare and instituted policies, including Obamacare and overregulation in many other areas, which increased the barriers to entry for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
This no-regrets president remained unapologetic of his “pen and phone” approach to governance. First expressed in 2014, it reflects his belief that the limits of the Constitution on the power of the presidency do not apply to him.
Obama has engaged in more unilateral policy-making through executive fiat than almost any previous president—bending, changing, rewriting, and ignoring the law at will.
From refusing to enforce federal immigration law or welfare work requirements, to ignoring statutory deadlines, to making illegal recess appointments, Obama abused his office and his power. That is not something to be proud of.
In his typical lawyerly fashion, the president skirted around the truth of cities riddled with racial tension and soaring crime rates, small businesses ruined by rising health care costs and crushing regulations, a metastasizing national debt, and a foreign policy that seems to favor authoritarian regimes over our allies.
Perhaps all the spin worked on the reporters attending Obama’s last speech. But the broad swathes of the American people who have suffered the consequences of his misgovernance for eight long years stopped buying it months, if not years, ago.
James Wigderson as we reach the next-to-last day of Barack Obama in the White House:
His own ambition was to be a transformative figure like Ronald Reagan, and his long farewell to the American people is supposed to remind people of George Washington. Instead, Obama’s ambition outweighed his ability, and the last week has us wishing Chevy Chase was back on Saturday Night Live – “Our top story tonight, Barack Hussein Obama is still saying goodbye to the American people.”
Let’s remember the promise of eight years ago when Obama was the change he was seeking, or something like that. He took office after a terrible financial collapse and recession. However, the Bush Administration had already taken the immediate steps of the Wall Street bailout to stabilize the economy, and it was Obama’s fortune to preside over the nation’s economic recovery.
Obama’s $804.6 billion stimulus, crafted by Congressional Democrats, contributed to doubling the national debt in his time in office. It’s estimated that only $33 billion went to “shovel ready” transportation spending. Much of the money was spent shoring up state government spending on Medicaid and education, including here in Wisconsin. But at least the Recovery.gov website was redesigned, and it only cost $18 million.
The “summer of recovery,” like the effects of global warming described by Al Gore, never seemed to arrive. Economic growth through the beginning of 2016 averaged just 2.1 percent. While unemployment is down, labor participation is the lowest it’s been since Jimmy Carter was in office, and that’s only partially due to demographics.
It certainly didn’t help that under the Obama Administration the Federal Register, the book of federal regulations, is now over 97,000 pages long. Worse, according to Forbes the problem isn’t just the regulations but the growth in “Agency guidance documents and memoranda, notices, bulletins, circulars, other decrees.”
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration’s environmental policies didn’t help, either, including his war on coal. Yes, natural gas got cheaper, thanks to fracking technology, but much of the coal industry was hit hard by EPA regulations, putting thousands out of work and raising energy costs. The good news is that Obama never addressed the public on energy costs wearing a sweater and suggesting we adjust our thermostats. We can thank the private sector and fracking.
Finally, the greatest disappointment of the Obama domestic agenda has to be Obamacare. The greatest lie Obama ever told was the promise that if you liked your health insurance you can keep it. Not only did that turn out to be a lie, but people were having a hard time keeping their new insurance policies through the exchanges, too.
Insurance companies like Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthCare dropped out of the exchanges when it became clear they couldn’t make money by being in them. The insurance companies remaining in the health care exchanges often have such high deductible and premium costs to make them unaffordable, even with government subsidies.
Obamacare co-ops were designed to create more competition, but only seven of the original 23 co-ops now remain, according to The Hill. In Illinois, Oregon and Ohio, 92,000 people had to scramble to find insurance when their co-ops failed in 2016.
As large private health insurance companies leave the market and the co-ops fail, many consumers are left with no choice. Business Insider reports a study by Avalere Health said 36 percent of the “exchange market regions” may only offer one insurance carrier in 2017. Nearly 55 percent will have two or less carriers. The Heritage Foundation says that number could grow to 70 percent of the counties in the United States next year.
Obama said recently that 20 million people have health insurance coverage that did not have coverage before. The Heritage Foundation points out the number is closer to 14 million, and 11.8 million of them received coverage through expanding the rolls of Medicaid, not private insurance. As many of them are discovering, “coverage” does not equal care, and are frustrated by the number of doctors that do not accept Medicaid.
So, no, Obama didn’t preside over a civil war, although race relations actually got worse during his time in office and police departments feel besieged by liberal politics. He didn’t get impeached, although his administration was hardly scandal-free. Obama is not the “worst president ever.”
But his domestic policies can be graded a failure on the Obama standard. Instead of the transformative figure he hoped to become, Obama’s policies should be swept away by a Republican congress that achieved success when it ran against the Obama agenda.