Quote:
Originally Posted by PornMD
I have a serious question because I haven't paid enough attention to timing of what presidents have done - looking at the last 3 presidents that had 2 terms (W. Bush, Clinton, Reagan), did they accomplish more good in their 2nd term than in their 1st because of not having to give a shit about re-election?
I'm genuinely curious about this. Granted Bush started 2 wars in his first term so it's hard for his 2nd term to be any worse, but then all the bailout shit started happening. Clinton I'm not sure but the bubble burst happened under his 2nd term. Reagan was while I was a kid so I simply don't know what he accomplished in his 2nd term vs. his first except his "tear down this wall" speech.
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It's a brand new phenomenon to have the opposing party leader in the Senate say out of his own mouth on the record and on camera that his party's primary goal is to prevent a second term for the sitting president though.
When I think of things Obama was on track to do and then seemingly felt he had to compromise with such ilk I just have to think he would never have needed to do that if he hadn't had to think long term about his own re-election. Single payer healthcare would have been by far the best way to implement universal healthcare but first we had to deal with Palin's nonsense about "death panels" and then we had old Chuck Grassley and his "pull the plug on grandma" bullshit AFTER he pretended to negotiate. It was just a fiasco that didn't have to happen and probably wouldn't have.
Bush tried to "spend his political capital" that he thought he'd won in his re-election by going on a country wide tour giving speeches to groups of people about privatizing Social Security.. a giant flop. He'd have never attempted that in term 1 even if he had nothing else to do. Your re-election committee's just don't allow you to do stupid things (of course they can't help you if you mispronounce things, spit on the whitehouse lawn and try to open locked doors etc..) Clinton and Reagan had their giant scandals to deal with yet still managed to pass pet projects. Wikipedia (yeah not exactly the greatest) and the whitehouse sites have info if you search for accomplishments.
And on the topic of green energy, I can't believe someone in this thread said that green energy is OK as long as it stands on it's own and then didn't mention the 10's of billions of our tax dollars being gifted annually to oil companies who are the most profitable corporations in the history of this planet. Some people say weird things. How about oil and coal and natural gas companies stop lobbying congress for more free money and stand on their own and then we'll talk about it? A crazy concept?