What Should President Obama Do In His Second Term?

joepistole

joepistole

Deacon Blues
Valued Senior Member
Nearly 4 years ago Republican Majority Leader McConnell said that the primary order of business for congressional Republicans was to ensure that President Obama did not get a second term. Try as he and his fellow Republicans did to make President Obama a one term president, they failed. So what should President Obama’s mission be in his second term?

Given that Democrats now control the Senate (by a slim majority) and the presidency, I think their primary mission for a second Obama term should be to strengthen their Democratic majority in the Senate and regain control of the House. In two years members of the House will be facing another election. The next presidential election is 4 years away. If Democrats regain control of the House and expand their majority in the Senate, hopefully achieving a super majority in the Senate, they might just be able to get some things done (e.g. jobs bills, balanced budget, etc.) in the last 2 years of Obama’s presidency.

So what should President Obama do in his second term?
 
Since the loony right belives it anyway, ban all guns without a legitimate work related reason:p
 
expand their majority in the Senate, hopefully achieving a super majority in the Senate
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But all they need is 51 to make themselves impervious to any Republicans trying to get them to change whatever they want to legislate. The Democrats have 53 today which means they control the Senate.


So what should President Obama’s mission be in his second term?
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Fix the economy by putting those out of work back to work, get busy on upgrading the American electrical grid and infrastructure, make sure Social Security / Medicare stays in the black, get troops out of Afghanistan, get Guantanamo shut down and the prisoners delt with, compromising when need be.
 
Buddha12 said:
But all they need is 51 to make themselves impervious to any Republicans trying to get them to change whatever they want to legislate. The Democrats have 53 today which means they control the Senate.
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I think you are forgetting Senate rules. In the Senate you need a super majority (i.e. 60 votes) to truely control the Senate. If you don't have a super majority in the Senate all you need is one vote to stop the Senate dead in its tracks.



Buddha12 said:
Fix the economy by putting those out of work back to work, get busy on upgrading the American electrical grid and infrastructure, make sure Social Security / Medicare stays in the black, get troops out of Afghanistan, get Guantanamo shut down and the prisoners delt with, compromising when need be.
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Well much of what you are referencing here was done by the previous Democratic congress. But this Republican congress and this Republican Senate have actively and repeatedly thwarted the efforts of President Obama to stimulate further economic development, invest in domestic infrastructure and close Guantanamo. When President Obama tried to close Gitmo and bring the prisoners to the continental US, Republicans sold Americans on the notion that the detainees in Gitmo were too dangerous to house inside the continental United States.
 
He needs to somehow form a consensus with the Republicans.
The election result is deceptively flattering, but he may not have won the popular vote.
ie, more people may have voted for Romney.
He has promised to listen to all sides, but George W did that at the start of his Presidency. And never did.
He needs to be a President for all Americans, or he will fail.
 
joepistole said:
So what should President Obama’s mission be in his second term?
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Cut spending. Leave taxes alone. Increase protections against opaque investment vehicles. Continue support for renewable energy. End the war in Afghanistan. Repeal DOMA.

I think their primary mission for a second Obama term should be to strengthen their Democratic majority in the Senate and regain control of the House. In two years members of the House will be facing another election.
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I think the ONLY way they will do that is to get their heads out of their asses and start working together. An effective Senate will help the incumbents. A legislature paralyzed by one party trying to "regain control" will give republicans all the ammunition they need to prove Obama and senate Democrats cannot do the job.
 
LOL!

Hi, Jo.

So those quotes are not Holdren's words then? Certainly many people would agree with the premise being promoted, no?
 
billvon said:
Cut spending. Leave taxes alone. Increase protections against opaque investment vehicles. Continue support for renewable energy. End the war in Afghanistan. Repeal DOMA.
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Agreed.
It shouldn't really be that hard for therm to agree.
To pay back a debt you need to have more money coming in than you are spending.
Listening to views today, everyone is saying much the same thing.
They should work together.
If they can't come to some compromise whereby the country is coming first, before party politics,
they are holding their voters wishes in contempt.

One way to pull in extra tax is to make the guzzling corporates pay their share.
They need to get their whiskers out of the cream trough and pay their fair due.
Giant companies are taking advantage of ruthlessly competitive international tax regimes by moving money around from country to country.
They end up paying a meagre percentage of their earnings as tax.
The G20 need to act together instead of vying to be the last country in the pass the parcel game.
I believe, but could be wrong, that the US has in the past vetoed such agreements.
 
clusteringflux said:
LOL!

Hi, Jo.

So those quotes are not Holdren's words then? Certainly many people would agree with the premise being promoted, no?
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I don't know what Holdren's words where or the context. But given the source and given that the links provided by CNS do not work, the whole article is questionable. I suggest using a credible source.
 
Captain Kremmen said:
Agreed.
It shouldn't really be that hard for therm to agree.
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But it is, Republicans declared war on the Democrats four years ago and have been playing asymmetrical political warfare with the Democrats for 4 years now. But this election was a bit of a game changer. President Obama’s term of office is 4 years. Republicans in the House have a 2 year term in office. Republicans in the House are going to be facing another election in the not too distant future and since they are the majority party, they will have more to lose next election. So if Republicans drive the nation off the fiscal cliff, Republicans will bear the wrath of the American voter much faster and more severely than the Democrats. That is a game changer. Before Republicans were content to sit back and try to bring the whole thing down on the Democrats. It didn’t work.

This was a devastating election for Republicans. I am sure Republicans are going to try to push the fiscal cliff down the road. But I don’t think they will find a willing participant in President Obama. President Obama wants to take the fiscal cliff off the table and accelerate economic growth. He does that in part by taking the fiscal cliff off the table permanently. But it puts the Republicans in a very difficult position. Republicans have promised, they have signed a pledge to Grover Norquist, to not raise taxes. And increased taxation is necessary to fix the nation’s fiscal woes. So Republicans must break their pledge to Norquist or send the nation into recession. For Republicans it is a very tough choice. They are in a really tough spot and the Republican leadership is very cognizant of that fact. That is why they were so grumpy last evening.
 
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1. Let the Bsuh tax cuts expire then the republicans who "can't" raise taxes will be able to make tax cuts while taxes still raise.
2. Agree to spending cuts, oh he already agreed to that in trade for increase taxes for the rich, well if 1 happens he can "compromise" by doing 2.
3. Sit back and look pretty.
 
Here is my short list:



1) Find a permanent fix to the fiscal cliff
a. Adopt Bowles-Simpson or something similar (President’s Commission on Debt)
i. http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/
ii. Develop a credible long term debt plan
b. Immediate investment in infrastructure
c. Restore Clinton tax rates for those earning more than 200k per year
d. Eliminate the need for constant debt ceiling votes
2) Successfully enact healthcare reform
3) Election Reform
a. Enact nationwide election reforms that prevents states from unfairly impeding elections
i. Enact minimum wait times at polling locations
ii. Make early voting mandatory
iii. Standardize voting requirements
iv. Ensure polling access for disable individuals
v. Providing voters with relevant information on the people and issues in advance of voting (similar to California)
b. Reverse and Replace Citizens United with Constitutional Election Reform
i. Constitutional Amendment, money is not free speech
ii. Initiate Publically funded elections
iii. Mandatory ethic reforms in congress (close K Street revolving door)
4) Immigration reform
a. Legalize dream act
b. Become immigration friendly
c. Require English language ability mandatory for citizenship
5) Expand trade agreements
6) Make US energy independent
a. Use of natural gas as a competing energy fuel for commercial and private vehicles
b. Expand natural gas availability
c. Continued investment in alternative energy research
7) Invest more in primary research
8) Improve US educational system
9) Tax reform
a. Tax code simplification
b. Eliminate special deals and loopholes
10) Resolve climate change
 
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Infrastructure, if they keep ignoring it, we will turn into a third world country. First, lets have a national language, American English, if you don't know it then you can't get into this country, second, pull our troops from places we aren't wanted and where it's not in the best intentioned national interest, put those troops on the Mexico border. Pull all aid from countries we are not welcome in or are not represented in, give that money to our people who are in need. Stop interfering with the states as long as state laws do not conflict with the U.S. Constitution. I may have left a lot out but the only other thing I can think of right now is Corporations are not people and don't deserve tax breaks.
 
The first thing he should do is reintroduce exactly the same jobs/infrastructure bill the Republicans rejected in 2009. It was a good bill, but had the flaw that it would increase employment and stimulate the economy on Obama's watch. And we know what "Job One" was for the Congressional Republicans, don't we. Since Job One didn't work out too well for them yesterday and every member of the House faces election in two years put 'em on the spot, make them vote against jobs, then vote them out in 2014.

As far as raising the tax rates for the rich, if the Republicans want to be reasonable then "Get'r Done", if not then let's jump off the cliff. Then introduce a middle class tax cut bill, a bill restoring certain programs on either side of the guns/butter cuts(maybe half the cuts), eliminate the corporate welfare system, the whole tax code that allows Swiss bank accounts and such, tax dividends as income and Viola! we're back to Clinton era surpluses and growth! This is not rocket science, Clinton did it for 8 years, created 22 million jobs and presided over the most prosperous period in American history. If we could magically remove the eight years of GWB we wouldn't even have much debt left today(when Clinton left office the debt was about 4 trillion and we had a 350 billion surplus, a surplus that was rising). It was the massive Bush tax cuts that altered that responsible fiscal course, then the two wars on the credit card along with a givaway to the Health insurers called Medicare Part D. And then the vulture capitalists and banksters nearly killed the golden goose and the economy tanked just in time to hand it to Obama and run back to Crawford. I think we all saw last night what America thinks about going back to those policies.

Grumpy:cool:
 
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