Tonight, the President of The United States will give his third official State Of The Union speech, and his fourth annual address to the combined Congress of the United States. In light of that pivotal moment, we think it's a good time to take stock of what's happened over the last few years - and what our next steps should be.
Four years ago, when Barack Obama took over the Presidency from George W. Bush, this is what Mr. Obama found waiting for him at the entrance door to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The American economy was in a freefall. America lost close to three-quarters of a million jobs that January, most before Mr. Obama set one foot inside the White House. This was after the worst year for jobs since 1945. The housing market collapse was in full roar as well. Our nation was also deeply entrenched in two wars, one in the heart of the Middle East, and one in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden was still alive, and Wall Street titans were still highly unregulated. On top of all of that, the worst drag on our Federal budget into the future was the ever increasing cost of health care - and there were no legitimate plans in Congress to staunch that fiscal wound.
This is the job that Barack Obama was handed that cold January four years ago.
He was also given to work with, to help govern our nation out of the mess he'd been handed, a Congress full of weak-kneed Democrats, along with many angry and arrogant Republicans. The latter had a single goal, clearly stated by one of their leaders, Mitch McConnell: to make Obama a one-term President, above all else. To top it all off, Mr. Obama was also "gifted" with a conservative-leaning, activist Supreme Court, where the members most likely to retire were those on the political left.
To say that the task set before him was monumental is probably one of the greatest political understatements ever.
Fast forward four years, to now.
Even Mitt Romney agrees the economy is now getting better. Unemployment is going down, with some of the best numbers in years - though it's still not getting better as fast as we'd like. Even so, America has seen twenty-two months of private sector job creation. If extremist Republicans wouldn't continue to insist on gutting our public services without ethically and legitimately collecting more revenue, the private sector jobs level might be further into recovery than it is now. That many legislators - mostly Republican, though some Democratic - still keep trying to rob cities, counties, and states to pay for tax cut proposals we can't afford is a problem that voters no longer seem blind to.
The housing market is showing positive - though shaky - signs, for the first time in years, Wall Street has begun to be put under control again, and the insurance and medical cost curve appears to be bending lower. Osama Bin Laden is dead, and thousands of Americans are already home from one war and beginning plans to get out of the other.
All of this has been done with a Congress made up of a large number of Republicans who did not want ANY of this this done as much as they wanted to see President Obama fail.
If he had failed, our nation would also have failed. As evidenced by the difference between four years ago, and now, President Obama did not fail, and we did not fail him or our nation - but that does not mean our nation is healthy.
Unemployment is still far too high. We are not yet out of Afghanistan. The foreclosure crisis is a long way from over. Wall Street needs more regulation - and the big banks must be made to pay for their own "gambling" debts, instead of expecting taxpayers to bail them out. Corporations and the rich need to pay the amount in taxes they're supposed to. Lastly, the poisonous levels of hate and fear that have been evident in many of the recent GOP debates and candidate rallies still infect far too much of this nation, and must not be allowed to determine the future for the rest of us.
There are a great many Americans who believe that regardless of what our challenges are, we can, we should, and we have - RECENTLY - worked together to solve some of America's worst problems in generations, regardless of our class, race, age, sexual preferences - or even political affiliation.
The state of what America CAN be is still strong, but to keep improving our collective health, we will need a leader like the one we already have, who has proven over the last few years that he is the President of ALL of us - not just the President of those who agree with his ideology.
