Obama has been good for America -- we need him for another four years

There's no way that I'm going to sit here at this keyboard and tell you that President Barack Obama has been perfect.  Nobody's perfect.  But for an imperfect fellow, President Obama has accomplished a remarkable amount of good things for the country.

These are good things for America

He stepped into the job by inheriting the Great Recession from his predecessor.  President Obama guided the government to help the failing domestic automobile manufacturing industry to rebuild itself and thrive.  That action alone saved and eventually created hundreds of thousands of American jobs when taking into account all of the suppliers and subcontractors who would have been thrown into the fiscal junk heap that would have been created by a chaotic bankruptcy of the auto industry.

Under his leadership the bedrock financial institutions--which were plummeting into a black hole of insolvency--have been stabilized, recapitalized and set on a recovery road.  The regulatory oversight that was lacking during the previous years has been revitalized and enhanced as a tool to protect us against the same--or maybe even a worse--financial collapse happening again.

Obamacare is the first nationally-successful action to strengthen consumer protection in the delivery of healthcare services in a century's time of talking about doing that.  It is also the first focused and thoughtful set of requirements for healthcare reimbursements and administration that is aimed directly at reining-in the growing costs of consumer healthcare.  As a nation, we have been talking about doing something like this for over twenty years now, and during that time healthcare costs have grown to a stunning 17% of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and threatening to go higher.  America's per capita spending on healthcare is about 50% to 100% greater than it is in other comparable nations, with no better overall results.  Others have talked about achieving something like the Affordable Care Act; only Barack Obama has done so.

Under President Obama's leadership we have successfully extricated our armed forces from a long, costly, draining and domestically-contentious conflict in Iraq.  With his leadership, we are on the right path to finally end our military presence in Afghanistan.  Obama has skillfully redirected America's overall foreign policy to become one that is more collaborative with other nations, instead of confrontational.  Living as we do in a global community of almost two hundred nations, these achievements are of monumental importance for our future international business, social and political relationships.

Many Presidents have struggled to achieve half this amount of successes in twice the time.  With having accomplished so much, you might wonder:  is there anything else left to do?

Yes, there's plenty.

The next four years

A second Obama term will mean that there will be much-needed investments in major areas of national interest such as infrastructure, education, and leading-edge research and development.  These are things that mean employment, both in the near-term and in the future, as well as also placing America in a leading competitive position in emerging and developing technologies.  Infrastructure investment will support safe, smooth and timely transportation of people, goods and commercial transactions.

All of these things must be done while addressing the issues revolving around governing deficits and the growing national debt in the only way possible:  restraining and stabilizing government spending, augmented by increasing the government's intake of revenues.  It's tempting to talk about simply slashing spending.  The problem with that approach is that it is unrealistic in a growing country, and America is not done with growing yet.  The only realistic approach is one that balances the money that goes out with the money that comes in.  I have confidence that Barack Obama provides the necessary leadership to do that.

Always look for the history

The facts of history must be given their due -- Obama did not create the Great Recession, he stepped into it after it had been created by the business environment and the governing policies of the previous years.  Obama did not create the multi-trillion dollar national debt; he inherited a legacy of Republican-led tax cuts, followed up by excessive Republican-led Federal spending on two overseas wars, that taken together created a multi-trillion dollar national debt.

The work necessary to correct the errors of the Bush Administration is not yet done.  There has not been enough time; the Republican Party made the job tougher by not admitting to the American people that its policies created those errors; and the Republican leadership has failed to cooperate in fixing the problems  created by its faulty policies.

Barack Obama should be reelected President of the United States.