7 years!

[passiveporcupine]

27. Yes, let's inject a little reality in this thread.

I agree that Obama has helped to save the countryfrom what would have been a much worse financial crisis, if a Republican was in the white house, and he has helped to build jobs.

but I still don't see where he has changed anything about the money in politics...it's much worse now than when he first started. He still has not pushed hard enough on green energy and stopping oil production, and he still has done nothing to change the fact that this country is an Oligarchy, with most profit going to the top while the middle class keeps slip sliding away.

Yes we have jobs, and some of them are good jobs with good pay and good bennies, but too many of them have changed from good manufacturing jobs with union pay and bennies to low income jobs (many service jobs) and many manufacturing plants have moved to the south (those that aren't moving overseas) and are hiring non-union at much lower wages.

I admire Obama very much and I know he has done what he could against the congress he was dealt with, and getting ACA was better than what we had before, but he's still not progressive enough for what this country needs, if we want to compete with the world. Our educational creds are also slip sliding away, yet kids from other countries still come here to go to college. We have good colleges, it's just that kids here can't afford them any more.

All this has gotten worse on Obama's watch. I'm not blaming him for all of it, but I'm not letting him off the hook for all of it either.

More than 16 million children in the United States – 22% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level – $23,550 a year for a family of four. Research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. Using this standard, 45% of children live in low-income families.

Most of these children have parents who work, but low wages and unstable employment leave their families struggling to make ends meet.

http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html

When you look at that chart you see our unemployment and uninsured rates have improived, but have they really? Or is it that the people are working multiple jobs to make ends meet (and still not making it) and many have just dropped out of the search for jobs because they are too old to be hired now, and too many of the "new insured" have insurance they still cannot afford to use.

We are the wealthiest country in the world and yet we have some of the lowest living standards and poverty and health rates for developed countries. We are spending too much on war and for-profit prisons and a screwed up justice system, and not enough on our own people.