Top 50 Reasons to Vote For
President Obama
As Americans go to the polls today, it seems a perfect time to take a final look back at what we've been through the past four years. With that in mind, I've created a quick new list of top reasons to re-elect President Obama. Some of the reasons you may not like, and some things you may think I missed, but these are my top 50 reasons to vote for President Obama.
- President Obama inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (an economy losing 800,000 jobs a month) and led us out of it (now creating 170,000 jobs a month).
- Under Obama, we've now had 32 consecutive months of private sector job growth.
- We've added nearly 5 1/2 million new jobs during that time.
- The president saved or created 3 million new jobs with the American Recovery Act.
- He saved 1 million auto-related jobs with the auto bailout.
- He helped boost new car sales with the popular "cash for clunkers" program.
- He cut taxes for small businesses 18 times.
- He cut middle class taxes an average of $3600 over 4 years.
- He cut payroll taxes for working families.
- Despite what Republicans would have you believe, income taxes are lower today than under most of the Reagan administration (35% today versus 50% then) and the corporate tax rate is lower than it was under Reagan.
- New financial reform will help reign in Wall Street abuses.
- Banks have paid back the money loaned to the them from the Bush financial bailout.
- Obama required CEOs at banks that received bailout money to agree to executive compensation limits until their loans were repaid.
- He created a new consumer protection bureau to set fair rules for what financial institutions can do with consumer credit cards, mortgages, and student loans.
- Mortgage interest rates for homebuyers have reached record lows.
- Corporations earned record profits, which undermines the argument that the president's policies are bad for business.
- Obama passed comprehensive health care reform (Affordable Care Act) that Presidents Truman, Nixon, Clinton, and others have been trying to do for 70 years.
- 32 million people will now get health care coverage under the ACA.
- Young adults can stay on their parents' health care plans until they turn 26.
- People with pre-existing conditions will no longer be denied health coverage.
- Seniors on Medicare will save thousands of dollars on prescription drugs and other medical costs through the ACA.
- And the Affordable Care Act reduces the deficit by more than $100 billion.
- President Obama encouraged states to set common academic standards and provided support for the nation's best teachers through his Race to the Top education initiative.
- He reduced student loan payments for college students and borrowers to 10 percent of their discretionary income.
- He helped first-time homebuyers purchase a home with an $8,000 tax credit.
- Home prices are finally coming back after the 2008 market collapse.
- The president got BP to set up a $20 billion victims' compensation fund to help Gulf residents after the historic 2010 oil spill.
- America's dependence on foreign oil is declining and U.S. oil imports have fallen to a 20-year low.
- The war in Iraq has been ended.
- The war in Afghanistan will end in 2014.
- And we finally got Osama Bin Laden and took out Al Qaeda's top deputies.
- The president gave the orders that rescued U.S. commercial ships from Somali pirates.
- He led the international effort to remove Moammar Gaddafi in Libya.
- He signed new trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.
- The Dow has doubled from 6500 in March 2009 to more than 13,000 today.
- Women are now entitled to equal pay for equal work under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
- Obama appointed two women to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- He appointed the first Latina to the Supreme Court.
- And in the words of First Lady Michelle Obama, "he believes that women are more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies and our health care."
- He appointed the first African American Attorney General.
- He signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduces the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.
- He ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" that prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.
- The Justice Department stopped enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act, a discriminatory law widely considered unconstitutional.
- Obama became the first president in U.S. history to announce his support for marriage equality.
- And he signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
- He appointed his former rival Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
- He was endorsed by George Bush's Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Republican Senator Larry Pressler, former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican.
- He was praised by Republican Governors Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.
- Of the 500+ promises Obama made when he ran for office, 374 of them (75 percent) have been kept, fully or partly, or are currently in progress.
- And he did all this in the face of stiff GOP opposition and a Senate Republican Leader who vowed his top political priority was to make Barack Obama a 1-term president.
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