What Has Obama Done for You Lately? - Cenk Uygur/YoungTurks/HuffPo

[pnwmom]

33. For another take on this: WA Post, "Obama's incredibly ambitious 2nd term agenda."

He has been issuing executive orders whenever possible. But as for the rest, that depends on Congress.

Obama laid out his agenda. Cenk obviously wasn't listening.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/12/obamas-incredibly-ambitious-second-term-agenda/

Imagine, for a moment, that President Obama managed to pass every policy he proposed Tuesday night. Within a couple of years, every 4-year-old would have access to preschool. The federal minimum wage would be at $9 -- higher than it's been, after adjusting for inflation, since 1981. There'd be a cap-and-trade program limiting our carbon emissions and a vast infrastructure investment to upgrade our roads and bridges. Taxes would be higher, guns would be harder to come by, and undocumented immigrants would have a path to citizenship. America would be a markedly different country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/10/how-obama-has-used-executive-powers-compared-to-his-predecessors/

Obama has also signed far reaching orders on climate change in November 2013 – forcing power plants to cut their emissions by 30 percent by 2030 – which will be much discussed in this year’s elections. The president has instigated 23 separate executive orders on gun control, which have made information about mental illnesses available in background checks and expanded research into causes of gun violence. Obama has promised two new executive actions on gun control but again, there’s no sign of them.

Through his executive powers, Obama has slowly extended the rights for same-sex couples and raised the minimum wage for federal workers to $10.10. But for all the accusations of abuse of power, his actual uses of his executive authority so far aren’t that far-reaching: Not so much the smack of firm government, more nudging in a certain direction. George W. Bush for example managed to gut the Presidential Records Act (greatly reducing access to presidential records), limit federal funding for stem cell research and sidestep the Geneva Convention on interrogation techniques -- all through executive orders, even when he had Congress on his side. Interestingly, all of these orders were later rescinded by Obama.

SNIP

Of course, how far-reaching these orders are is subjective and many of Obama’s opponents would argue that combined with his efforts so far, his latest actions on gun control and immigration will go far beyond what his predecessors have done. But he’s certainly not alone among presidents who have used executive powers to get big things done.