Jonathan Chait says Obama has accomplished all of his domestic goals that he listed in his Inaugural Address in 2009:
“On January 20, 2009, when Obama delivered his inaugural address as president, he outlined his coming domestic agenda in two sentences summarizing the challenges he identified: ‘Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.'”
“Those were the four major areas of domestic reform: economic recovery measures, health-care reform, a response to climate change, and education reform. (To the justifiable dismay of immigration advocates, Obama did not call for immigration reform at the time, and immigration reform is now the only possible remaining area for significant domestic reform.) With the announcement of the largest piece of his environmental program last Monday, Obama has now accomplished major policy responses on all these things. There is enormous room left to debate whether Obama’s agenda in all these areas qualifies as good or bad, but “ineffectual” seems as though it should be ruled out at this point.”
I know many education advocates who will disagree that education reform has taken place, or if it has, it is not a good reform. Regardless, I think when people right the book on the Obama Presidency, it is going to be the most eventful in terms of accomplishment since Franklin Roosevelt’s. Consider this from Andrew Sullivan:
Imagine the legacy [at the end of Obama’s presidency]: no troops in Iraq or Afghanistan; Gitmo closed; universal healthcare entrenched; Iran’s nuclear threat defused; marriage equality in all fifty states; the end of marijuana Prohibition; and carbon energy cut down to size. Repeat after me: meep meep, motherfuckers.