The Nobel Prize-winning economist, once one of the president’s most notable critics, on why Obama is a historic success. By Paul Krugman | October 8, 2014 Rolling Stone Magazine

When it comes to Barack Obama, I’ve always been out of sync. Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable, I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me that, far from being the transformational figure his supporters imagined, he was rather conventional-minded:

 

Even before taking office, he showed signs of paying far too much attention to what some of us would later take to calling Very Serious People, people who regarded cutting budget deficits and a willingness to slash Social Security as the very essence of political virtue.

 
And I wasn’t wrong. Obama was indeed naive: He faced scorched-earth Republican opposition from Day One, and it took him years to start dealing with that opposition realistically. Furthermore, he came perilously close to doing terrible things to the U.S. safety net in pursuit of a budget Grand Bargain; we were saved from significant cuts to Social Security and a rise in the Medicare age only by Republican greed, the GOP’s unwillingness to make even token concessions.

 

But now the shoe is on the other foot: Obama faces trash talk left, right and center – literally – and doesn’t deserve it. Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history. His health reform is imperfect but still a huge step forward – and it’s working better than anyone expected. Financial reform fell far short of what should have happened, but it’s much more effective than you’d think. Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction, but has nonetheless been much better than in other advanced countries. And environmental policy is starting to look like it could be a major legacy.

 

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Read the Full Rolling Stone Article: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/in-defense-of-obama-20141008

 

 

Bush took us into the deepest Recession; Obama kept us from falling into a Depression!

Beyond the shifting job numbers, what matters is how, with right fiscal-monetary policy mix, and astute management, Obama has held on firmly against all the odds in preventing the US economy from falling into a Depression.

 

As for the clearing of the mess that he had inherited from the preceding Republican administration, let alone Obama, no other President in his place could have done much to fix the economy than perhaps he did, despite constant hurdles presented by the Republican opposition.

 

Again, as far as the employment situation is concerned, it’s not the government driven effort only that matters, rather equally important is private sector push, that was deliberately withheld, leaving Obama alone to do whatever he could to at least not allow further deterioration of our Economy and Employment!

 

There is rough justice in the way things are playing out. Having spent the last year wrongly blaming the president for high unemployment, Republicans can only stand by helplessly as the unemployment rate goes down at the worst possible moment for them. Fox News scoured the data Friday, looking for signs that the economy wasn’t improving. They found some: high unemployment for African-Americans, for instance, and fewer manufacturing jobs.