Beks
Specific failures:
I think the bank bailout saved wall street fat cats at the expense of the small fry. People lost their houses while the people who gave them bad loans got their money back from the government. The downstream consequences of this are/will be terrible. We've essentially made it public policy to tell the moneychangers not to worry, if they screw it up will make sure they keep the three vacation houses and fancy cars.
The stimulus could have been directed to better uses, specifically fixing our crumbling infrastructure. And it should have continued along that line, we have years of work to do and we'd get something we can point to for our money.
He needs to rein in a number of agencies (IRS, NSA, etc) who are spying on us. I think the drone strikes need to stop.
I don't think his mid-east policy (whatever it is) is working. Personally, I think the best option would be to tell them to go ahead and kill each other, we'll be happy to try the survivors (if any) as war criminals. Who knows, they might decide they need to come up with a plan that works. Right now they know that we'll always come in and stop anything that gets too heavy.
Health care should have been tackled in smaller pieces and with a more tranparent process. He should have jumped on Pelosi for her "we have to pass it so we can find out what's in it"remark. That really fed into the anti-big government anger. I think that lowering the eligibilty age for Medicare would have been a good start. It would have removed a high risk group from the general insurance pool, thereby lowering costs. Assisting low income people to get started with high deductable plans with health savings accounts would also help. Yes, I recognize this would take a direct subsidy from the government.
I think he needs to get serious about cutting the deficiet.
The military's procurement process is awful, and made worse by congressional action designed to send pork home, not defend the country. He needs to step in as Commander in Cheif an fix it, or fix what he can.
This list is in no particular order as I wrote it as I thought of it. Lots of it applies to many past and possibly future Presidents.
As general advice to President's I'd say "STF once in a while." It used to be that a President gave about four speeches a year. That changed around 1900. The advantage in the old days was that when he talked, people paid attention because it was a rare event. Now I think people zone out when the President gives a speech.
