Why I'm Done Defending President Obama

I campaigned for him, believed his promises and would have voted for him if I were 18 at the time. But now I'm simply tired of pretending his intelligence and good intentions are enough to guarantee he knows what’s best for America. We can all judge how good of a person Barack Obama is and how charismatic an orator he remains, but lets take a real hard look at this country and ask ourselves- after over 640 days with a Democratic administration, are we really that much better off? Economically and fiscally, I do not believe we are. On immigration policy, drug policy, gay rights policy and education policy, I believe the state of affairs has become even worse than it was under George W. Bush. On the legalization of Marijuana and the War in Afghanistan, I believe the Obama Administration has worked against the will of his base to push an outdated agenda that continues to hurt the country and even the world as a whole. And now, as the Republicans take over the house and make major gains in the Senate, one can only believe, realistically, that history will repeat itself and things will continue to deteriorate.

Now, lets get specific. Unspoken of on the economic front is our tremendously false unemployment numbers, which currently claim just under 10% of America is unemployed. This number does not factor in the remarkably high load of U.S citizens behind bars, nor those who have given up looking for work or those living without a residence. Homelessness has climbed dramatically in cities nationwide. I’m from New York, where ads on busses revealed that 1 in 45 children in the city are now homeless. In the infamously poor city of Flint, Michigan, children make up 70% of the homeless population according to the city’s Metro Community Development.

The American economy has yet to create enough capital to curb fears of investors on Wall Street. Our unemployment numbers from November indicated that 9.8% of Americans looking for work had failed to find a job, with over 15 million looking for work for over 6 months. The longer one looks, the more dismal are their chances of finding career placement. The reality is, our jobless rate is higher than it’s been in half a year and as we become increasingly dependent on federal aid to stimulate growth, our private sector continues to shed jobs – last months employment gains fell short by over 110,000 hirings that CNN’s surveyed economists had expected. Even more alarming, the government shed 11,000 jobs in November and factories cut over 13,000.

The rampant spending in Washington D.C has provided us with seven bailouts, four of which Obama has signed into law. As economists argue, stimulus packages remain either too small or ridden with pork and earmarks that do little to fuel job growth in the private sector. Backroom deals and lobbyist sway are funneling money into expensive and ridiculous projects often benefiting the government itself. From $400 million towards a quick fix of The Social Security Administration’s computer system to $600 million dollars for the General Services Administration to have new cars, the stimulus packages have wasted an opportunity for congress to stimulate the economy. Instead, we have devalued the dollar dramatically, leaving many small businesses unable to foot the bill. When the dollar is devalued and wages remain the same, business are forced to cut back, now laying off more and more employees and filing for bankruptcy at new highs.

I was not a supporter of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, and I recognize the Republican's economic policy of deregulation and stripping of safety nets got us into this mess in the first place. But, our current president just renewed those tax cuts to this dismay of Democrats everywhere and has spent more money, as a percent of the budget, on defense, and less on education than our last one! Furthermore, as Obama's Military Budget begins to exceed Bush's with massive expansions in a seemingly impossible battle with the Taliban, we have nearly quadrupled the deficit in just two years. More simply put, Barack Obama has already spent more money in the White House than George Bush did, with only a fourth of the time to do it. I cannot help but ask myself- is our economy really improving (3.2% spike in unemployment since new administration took over) or is Obama's rhetoric simply getting more optimistic?

Truthfully, I think Obama gotten far, far more desperate. About two months ago, the New York Times published a striking look into the mistruths Obama himself is perpetuating. His selective and misleading characterization of the Republican Party's education platform have led many to believe they propose cutting education by 20 percent- a reduction that would “eliminate 200,000 children from Head Start programs” and “reduce financial aid for eight million college students"- a proposal that as the Times points out, does not exist. Moreover, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org, the very non-partisan organizations Obama’s campaign used to its advantage to defend against the dishonest attacks of Sarah Palin and John McCain, have now questioned the veracity of some specific claims the president has made. For instance, Barack has claimed that ninety-eight percent Americans would not get the RNC's proposed federal income tax cut- a figure he seems to have pulled out of the sky.

How do we measure the character and honesty of politicians today? I say- we assess if they have been true to their words.

Obama took a hard line stance against negative and dishonest campaigning when he fought for office two years ago, and now it seems he has determined that the only way he keep his approval rating from dipping below 40% is to become the misleading man he promised us all he would never become.

|||||||||||| On immigration policy, the administration has decided that sending federal agents to scour companies’ records for undocumented workers is the best way to give jobs back to Americans and deter unemployment to “illegal” Mexican-Americans. What the administration fails to recognize is that companies nationwide depend on immigrant labor and this radically conservative move will systematically raid big business only to contribute to the rising level of discontent from the Latino and immigrant community displayed in the midterm elections.

Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies. Customs has levied a record $3.5 million in civil fines so far in 2010 on businesses that hired unauthorized immigrants. Thousands of those workers have been fired, immigrant groups estimate, and this bad policy has led organizations like the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project to stand against the Administration’s discriminatory policy. The turnout of Latinos in the midterm elections was so tremendously low because, as sophomore Noah Gallo Brown argues, “Obama’s immigration policy has been one of the largest disappointments of his presidency thus far”.

On gay rights, Barrack Obama remains a president firmly opposed to marriage equality. As gay fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters are denied equal protection under the law, the president somehow sees justice in determining who is and isn't a second-class citizen. Instead of adapting his stance on marriage to meet a more accepting public, he has yet to pressure congress for legislation repealing DOMA- the Defense of Marriage Act. For this, leaders in the LGBT community (like Rachel Maddow, the Huffington Post’s editorial board or even the fresher faces of the gay rights movement, Lady Gaga and Jack Black) have spoken out against the president’s tremendously disappointing policy. “Young people are becoming more tolerant of gays and more active in the gay rights movement” states sophomore Denali Gillaspie “We want leaders who reflect the interests of all people and our disappointment with the president’s unwillingness to hear out our generation shouldn’t be ignored.” While DOMA, which features horrible language comparing gays and lesbians to pedophiles and child molesters, remains law, Obama and members of his administration continue to show support for it and remain concerned with more important things.

Things like fighting this war if Afghanistan. The war has become a trademark of the Democrats- almost like a “hey-we-can-fight-wars-too” excuse to be over there. As we come closer to our tenth year in the longest war in the history of the United States, professionals everywhere keep telling our government this thing is un-winnable. Noble journalists like Joshua Sanders and Stephen Vizinczey have exposed to the public how impossible the mission is, and even my favorite, Jon Stewart has gotten serious and told our president to leave. Instead, the Obama administration quietly moved the deadline for the war from 2011 to 2014 and has recently declared that deadline may be too soon. I'm with the people against this war- stop fighting the Taliban as Al Queda roams free in Pakistan. Stop pretending this war is somehow a response to 9/11. It is no more a response to 9/11 than the war in Iraq was. Stop putting more and more Americans on the front lines just to keep our employment up and our war vigor strong. Stop screwing with taxpayer money in a battle that seems more endless by day, and stop spending more money over there than Bush did. It's bad policy now, more than ever.

Then there's education policy. Barrack Obama has even lost support of the teachers unions on this one. Right when we thought it couldn't get any worse than Bush’s ‘Every Child Left Behind,’ the president has shoved “Pay-for-Performance” and “Race to the Top” down our throats. This policy is hurting our education system like a cigarette hurts a lung or an oil spill hurts an ocean. As schools continue to fail, the federal government rewards only those that continue to improve. We now face a wave of education reforms based on the belief that school choice, test-driven accountability and the resulting competition will dramatically improve student achievement. As any education historian would have pointed out, this just isn’t true. As an education minor, I spend lots of time with teachers in Colorado Springs. And both liberal and conservative-minded teachers are offended that the president is using failed policy to assume he knows what’s best for our schools. “There is no question we are being driven down the same path to ruin under Obama as we were under Bush on this issue in particular” says sophomore Kalia Ryan.

And finally, it’s time to talk pot. As California continues to spend more money on Marijuana crack-downs than America does on Education, we continue to miss out on an industry that could help revive America's economy. In Colorado Springs, medical marijuana alone has refueled advertisements in city newspapers and provided a rebirth to the journalism business that was previously collapsing. In Michigan, thousands of AIDS, glaucoma, anorexia and cancer patients have received help from pot dispensaries selling green by the ounce. And yet, the government remains unable to realize that legal industries like liquor and tobacco are killing scores of people while Marijuana continues to help countless people in need. It's not a radical position- Marijuana use should not be punished. And I'm disappointed that the Administration that argues cutting our deficit is a priority still believes taxation of marijuana isn’t. “What in the world is the great harm about making it legal?” asks freshman Brittany Soto. While many say he has answered that question effectively, Obama has taken a stance against legalizing pot time and time again.

Well, I'm taking a stance too. "Change We Can Believe In" has instead felt much more like like "Harm We Can Fear" to me. I'm sick and tired of acting like we finally have an Administration looking out for us. Sure, we passed Health Insurance reform. I get it! But even that went against nationwide opinion and focused more on mandating private plans than creating a public option. If anything, that bill symbolized a “lets do something now so we don’t have to deal with this problem for another 100 years”.

Let me be very clear: It's time we elect a real liberal to be our commander in chief. Do we want a president with pathetic approval ratings and even more pathetic policy, or do we want a president who gets done what the country wants? Call me an idealist, but there’s has got be a better way than this. He's not what we thought he would be, and just like we pushed for no more Bush, I push for no more Obama. Said and done.