Despite constant obstructionism and withering partisan attacks, President Obama has completed almost 100% of the domestic agenda he laid out in his 2009 inaugural speech.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

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.

Shocking right? But there you have it.

The President has continued moving forward despite the fact that he is often swimming against the political current in shark infested waters.

And what exactly has he accomplished? Well I'm glad you asked.

Courtesy of Americans Against the Tea Party:

Economic Recovery: By the time Obama entered office, the Bush Recession had already crushed our — and most of the world’s — economy by sheer force of greed. Obama’s first actions kept the Great Recession from turning into a full-blown Great Depression. An $800 billion stimulus, the Frank-Dodd financial regulations, bank reorganization and the auto bailout were controversial moves, but they gave America’s sinking ship the vital moments it needed to level out. Since then, we’ve been steadily bailing water and pumping ballast from the bilge. Unemployment is down to at least mid-2008 levels, as is deficit spending, with both dropping steadily. Wall Street closed at an all-time high not long ago, and Gross Domestic Product is growing at about the same rate it was in 2007. We’ve got a ways to go yet, but the way things are going, we very likely will see a full recovery to a Pre-Bush-Recession economy by the time Hillary gets elected. 

Health Care Reform: Obamacare. Despite the fact that almost nobody likes it (us because blood-sucking insurance companies are still involved, them because Obama’s involved), the Affordable Care Act has already hit its target number for paying enrollees. Uninsured rates are dropping precipitously, and the exponential rise in the cost of medical care has at least begun to level off. Which, in itself is impressive, considering that Koch-owned conservatives were (again) predicting exactly the opposite. More impressively still, this is in spite of the fact that almost half the states in the country don’t even allow their citizens access to expanded Medicaid. Because, Tea Party. Once those states’ constituencies start firing the people who are killing them…well, we’ll see what the figures look like then. 

Education Reform: Obama’s education reforms haven’t been mind-blowing, but some progress is better than the regress we were facing under Republican authority. As of now, it’s estimated that about 22 million students are currently benefitting from Obama’s educational reforms, which included doubling funding for Pell grants, offering “Race to the Top” grants for schools that improved standards and education, and most recently, stopped student loans from more than doubling for 7 million college students, and capped federal student loan rates at 10 percent of income. Which is, you know…better. At least, it’s better than just sending all the white kids to private schools to receive a proper, Christian education before the strongest get shipped off to Koch U to get an indoctrination they’ll never finish paying for. 

A Response to Climate Change: In 2009, Obama promised to “double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in three years.” Challenge accepted, and met: Solar energy supplies have tripled, and wind energy has increased by a whopping 16-to-1. But that was a somewhat intangible thing for most. Obama’s latest bit of legislature has been called a “war on coal” by people who sell coal. The rest of us just call it “a market-based cap on carbon emissions via EPA regulations passed more than 20 years ago.” It might not be the most drastic step imaginable, but nobody can argue that it’s not a serious response to climate change. You know it’s serious, because the Koch Brothers hate it.

There is reasonable criticism which can be voiced concerning the effectiveness of these changes or the methodology used to achieve them, but what cannot be argued is that the goals were not reached.

They were.

And don't forget all of this was accomplished despite the fact that key Republicans met the night of Obama's inauguration to make sure NONE of it would succeed.

Imagine just how much more could have been accomplished if the Republicans were actually working for the American people instead of their corporate overlords.