Obama Presidency and American Finance

Introduction

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th leader of the United States took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. The issue of a bad economy was raised by him. He said, “Our economy is awfully dwindled, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective malfunction to make hard choices and arrange the territory for a new age”.

Obama essentially pursued the Bush strategy of stabilizing the banks in the belief that a stable banking system was indispensable and would in itself stimulate the economy by creating liquidity. Whether it did or it didn't, the strategy created the beginnings of Obama's political problem. He drew substantial support from populists on the left and suspicion from populists on the right. The latter, already hostile to Bush's policies, coalesced into the Tea Party. This was not Obama's biggest problem. It was that his policies, which both seemed to favor the financial elite and were at odds with what Democratic populists believed the president stood for, weakened his support from the left. The division between what he actually said and what his supporters thought they heard him say began to widen. While the healthcare battle solidified his opposition among those who would oppose him anyway, his continuing response to the financial crisis both solidified opposition among Republicans and weakened support among Democrats (Currie 1996, 121).

Policies under Obama

When Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, the last thing he wanted to do was raise consumers' interest rates. Credit card issuers raised their rates in anticipation of the new rules taking effect in August of 2010, with rates in the second quarter of 2010 spiking 1.6% over the same period in 2009. With Bush-era tax cuts set to expire, Republicans decided to play hardball in their attempt to keep rates low for households making more than $250,000 a year. Social Security withholding dropped from 6.2% to 4.2% ,for 2011. That means if you're making $1,000 a week at your job, you now have an additional $20 a week to spend, however, you please. A study predicted that health care costs will increase by 9% in 2011, with 63% of employers planning to raise premiums this year (Finkelstein 2007, 60).

Healthcare under Obama

Health care has been one of the issues that were hotly debated during the recent campaigns for the 2008 Presidential Election. Obama, aspiring to get healthcare costs under the command and double-check that the 46 million Americans who are uninsured can get health treatment, likes a new public program to contend with personal insurers. In fact? the US was advised to have the most costly health care system in the world? with 13.6 per hundred of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expended on health in 1998. This ratio has expanded considerably after nearly 10 years? has asserted by the Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services? as health care expending was approximated to be at ...