My Critique

I wrote the commentary below after review my classmate, The United States' Power and Regime Blog.

I say give the guy more of a chance. When I first read your post regarding scrapping NASA, I was perplexed. Why would a liberal, forward thinking president like Obama cut spending in an area like science, where we have fallen far behind? The first thing that comes to my mind is that it probably was not his first choice, but in light of wars and economic recessions, cuts had to be made somewhere. I did a bit more research on Obama's new proposed NASA program, which allots millions of dollars to creating space jobs in Florida, and billions towards going to Mars and beyond. So maybe we won't be going back to the moon anytime soon.... but it's not going anywhere for awhile anyways. The budget cut was necessary in my opinion to give headway to more advanced space programs.

During a speech to NASA, Obama was quoted saying:

“I am 100 percent committed to the mission of NASA and its future. Because broadening our capabilities in space will continue to serve our society in ways that we can scarcely imagine. Because exploration will once more inspire wonder in a new generation -- sparking passions and launching careers. And because, ultimately, if we fail to press forward in the pursuit of discovery, we are ceding our future and we are ceding that essential element of the American character.”

I know it may seem a bit hard to comprehend at this very moment, but reforms brought about in the health care industry were much needed in my opinion. It presented more mandatory regulations (like not being able to turn down health care to children), not what so many refer to as “socialized medicine”. You still have plenty of options for health care providers depending on your budget. Just look at the handful of other industrialized societies and you will see they give us a run for our money. Somehow, they manage to provide every one of their citizens decent, affordable health care and have not incurred near as much debt as we have over just the last 9 years.

Now I am trying to think of what other measures Obama has “done away with”? Are we referring to the issues on torture, Guantanamo, illegal wiretaps? Not much has happened there. And he followed right in ex-President Bush's footsteps when he lent trillions of dollars to keep our weak financial system afloat. He did not reverse the unconstitutional Patriot Act, which ultimately gave the government the right to listen read any pertinent email, conduct “sneak and peek” searches of residences, search medical and library records, etc.

So as far as leaning right or left, Obama has done a fantastic job of riding the line of a cautious moderate. I get that he is trying to be “partisan” and take things slow, but he better realize the ones who elected him to office expect to see more changes in the upcoming years, and more campaign promises fulfilled.