What’s your advice for President Obama as he begins his second term?

Eric Ringham January 22, 2013, 5:00 AM Jan 22, 2013

President Obama has begun his second term in office. Today’s Question: What’s your advice for President Obama as he begins his second term?

About the blogger

Eric Ringham

eringham@mpr.org

Clark

You are not king Obama but president. You are man with no knowledge of how the economy works so stop criticizing those who disagree with your plans to bankrupt the country with your massive spending. I have watched as thousands of good people have lost their jobs due to over regulation, so this time try to understand the law of unintended consequences. Remember math is the ultimate truth teller and to date, your math skills require improvement.

reggie

The most practical advice I can offer President Obama is to ignore people like Clark (or Boehner, McConnell, Ryan, et. al.) and work to achieve the winning agenda for which the American people voted. Too much of the first term was utterly wasted trying to work with people who had no intention of participating, much less compromising. Time to channel your inner Lyndon Johnson, Mr. President.

Bear

Your list is way too, too short. And why does it only include Republicans? Finger pointing is a major reason for the mess with have in Washington. You have to put two promenant Democratics are at the top of the list: revengeful spitefull evil women Pelosi and obstructionist Reid.

Jim G

First, congratulations, Mr. President, on your historic inauguration. At the end of the songs, poems, oaths of offices, and 21 gun salutes, you turned and looked back at us, citizens of these United States and residents of the world. We gathered to celebrate the beginning of your 2nd term. We are with you, and wish you well. Remember that we, the citizens who voted you into office, are behind you as you labor to bring reform and renewal. Be bold, be courageous, make America a better country, and strive to improve the lives of those millions of average Americans across the states that have been left behind. Your second term is your last. Make it count.

James

On the debt & deficit: Lots of cutting and a little taxing. The goal has to be a balanced budget.
On taxes: Everyone has to pay a little more. Rich people can afford lots more, but everyone should at least pay a little. It’s the costs of citizenship.
On global warming: Get China to the table, fast. There is nothing the US can do to impact greenhouse gases if China is simply taking over our manufacturing, and doing it dirty.
On guns: Think big, not small. Big, like amending, or at least clarifying the constitution to allow our military to have what we need, and our citizens to have what is reasonable.
On health care: Get the exchanges working well, then let employers off the hook for providing health care. People like me making healthcare plan choices for my employees makes exactly no sense!
On being the world’s police force. Get out of the business unless our national interests are being impacted. For instance, Syria. Not our problem.

Gary F

From what I could tell from his speech, he is dead set on implementing Phase Two of the Dismantling of America.

I hope we just don’t become another Greece, Spain, or Italy.

GregX

given where America was at the end of 2008.. I think it was time to take it apart , dust out the crud, and reassemble.

GregX

1) Work with and through the people … and we’ll work on Congress.

The other path seems clogged up by special interests, PAC’s , Super-PAC’s, and Issue Oriented Non-Profits.

2) Simplify government. Fewer agencies, decreased redundancy, more money in programs going to citizens in need or of merit.

3) Drastically reduce government program reporting requirements for education and states – or automate it . Far too much money for programs is spent on reporting on the programs.

Regnar James

Read the Constitution of the USA, and abide by it.

I’ll help you out:

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

∑

DTOM

Pat

I’m sure the web like will help him, he must have lost his copy the first term.
leodial

Stop being so arrogant. You only won the second term with a slim popular vote margin no matter what you and the media are trying to make people believe. In politics fortunes change quickly. You are on the wrong track. Economy is not good.. No foreign policy. Watch your step.
- GregX
  
  shy earnest people never run for office.
  
  if you weren’t an irrepressible braggart you wouldn’t have run in the first place.
  
  Thank your God that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid – are all paragons of quiet, sensible diplomacy.
georges

You barely got re-elected. Barely made 50%. Down 3% from 2008.

You are our employee. Not our Moses. Or messiah. You were hired to count the beans. And you have made a royal mess of it.

You have spent like a drunken sailor and have accumulated more debt for us than all the presidents that went before combined. This is a shameful record of monumental ineptitude. Change it. Author a budget that spends no more than 2.1 trillion dollars this year. That’s for all total Federal Government spending. Show us you are capable of counting the beans….and coming up with the right number.

You bought votes outrageously with the Taxpayers money. During your 4 years, you have increased the amount of money the FedGov gives directly to people by 32%. And yet, it was barely enough to buy the votes. You spent to buy the votes, while at the same time the number of homeless children in public schools skyrocketed by 57% to over one million kids. Your gain, their loss, eh?

You took 20-something vacations, at our expense. Perhaps you should have stopped by China to find out why we are losing half a million jobs to them every year.

During your first four years, the number of Americans “not in the labor force” soared by an astounding 8,332,000. That far exceeds any previous four year total.

You are our employee, nothing more, nothing less, so stop saying things like, “The American people want…..” and, “The American people agree with me when I say….” and, “The American people are behind me on this….”

The American people are better than to be a kleenex in some politicians hind pocket. We are not back there. We do not follow you. We precede you. You follow us. And count the beans. You have failed miserably, so far, to count the beans correctly. In fact, you are so far off that our economy will colapse if such fantasy figuring is allowed to continue. Drop the Democrat Party loyalty long enough to do some good for your country. The people who elected you…..have their hand out. Not to shake hands, but to feel the love of free money. Disappoint them. For once. Man-up.
- GregX
  
  I’m surprised you didn’t point out that 50% of 63% of the voting population that showed up is actually 31.5% support. Of course we’d have to go back and re-compute every election on that basis. Ouch.
  
  Spend like a drunken sailor …hardly … congress had to approve the spending … clearly, as much as they didn’t like it … there was some other pressure to spend. Few if any sailors I know of ever consulted anyone else.
  
  Bought votes – well , possibly – but I have to tell you there is a certain honesty in doing it directly like that as opposed to the super pac and other black-ops political groups that go about feigning non-profit status as an issues group and then doing nearly everything else but be a non-profit issues group.
  
  Vacations :
  According to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, considered the unofficial presidential statistician,
  
  President Obama at the end of November 2012 will have spent 84 days on vacation since he became president on January 20, 2009.
  
  To compare, at one term :
  George HW Bush at spent 180 days at his ranch
  Reagan spent 112 vacation days at his ranch
  Bill Clinton had spent the least time off — 28 days.
  
  Knoller says President George W. Bush spent 879 days on holiday during his eight years in office.
  Obama would have to have the next year off to catch up to “W”
  
  I’m thinking you have some harsh words for the Bush’s and Reagan ?? No ..
  - georges
    
    I have some harsh words for all the presidents since 1960….not much for GHWB tho. He was the best of the group, by far. Lyndon Johnson was the worst, and the most responsible for damaging our economy.
    
    I will now ease your confusion and put the “vacation” thing in rhyme for you.
    
    When a president goes to his “ranch”, that is not a vacation. It is working from home. Just as many employees do these days. Work from home with computer and I-pad. And a few other machines and helpers for a president working from home.
    
    I have not heard of Obama ever going back to his Hyde Park mansion. Maybe he is afraid Bill Ayers will drop by. But if he should do so, he will also be working from home.
    
    Instead, Barack Obama goes on real vacations, all around the world, at our expense. And, he uses the age-old trick of visiting a head of state or two along the way, in order to make it look like it isn’t a vacation, so he doesn’t have to pay for it himself. Thereby defrauding the people, and cheating on his taxes. His wife, of course, goes on seperate vacations sometimes with the kids. To Spain, South Africa, etc., at our expense. Grey Goose, too.
    
    The honest way to buy votes is to do so with your own money. Obama buys votes the Democrat Party way……with other peoples money, the Taxpayers money. The dishonest way. When the Democrats perfected the method of buying votes with taxpayer money, they found they could keep their own bucks in their own pockets. The whole thing felt much better that way.
    
    Now, the term “spending like a drunken sailor” is really not accurate for Obama.
    
    Afterall, a drunken sailor can only spend what money he has at any given moment. Obama, on the other hand, can spend all the money the taxpayer has, plus all the money the taxpayers children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, ad infinitum…..forever…..have.
    
    So, saying he only spends like a drunken sailor is certainly letting him off the hook lightly.
    
    When there is anything else I can fix for you, just ask. I am here for the edification of my fallow man.
Steve the Cynic

When the economy finally turns around after the worst recession since the Great Depression, try to avoid the temptation to gloat and say “I told you so.” A president’s policies have only a marginal effect on economic cycles, despite what your detractors say.
Jeff

Work with the other party, as we can see from this comment thread getting extremely partisan rarely accomplishes anything useful. Get something done on tax reform, lower the rates and eliminate many tax breaks/credits. Reform of Social Security and Medicare; make them solvent again with a combination of ideas like setting inflation to the CPI, increasing the age for benefits by 2 years over 2 decades (for those age 55 or younger), increasing the SS cap to around $150k/year and allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Finally, reduce government spending across the board.
Lawrence

First, you have 2 years remaining before becoming a lame duck president. Do not worry about the conservatives you clashed with last term. President Lincoln clashed with racist Southerners who never were interested in Black freedom. You’re in the same boat with
regards to today s conservatives. Keep doing the right things.
- jockamo
  
  President Lincoln wanted to round up all the Africans and ship them back to Africa, or, alternatively, just dump them on the coast of Panama.
  This was his solution to the problem.
  The only reason he didn’t do it, he said, was because he couldn’t get the use of enough ships to do the job.
  Read some history. Tis good for the soul.
James8107

Resign
jockamo

Of course they wanted to stay here, son.

And everybody knew it back then. That’s why Lincoln wanted to send them back, or ship them……somewhere. (by the way, he stated his shipping plan AFTER freeing the slaves) (nice try at another “history revision”, but it won’t fly)

And, the African Americans did not want to stay here merely because it was “the only home they had ever known.”

What they knew for sure was that after having a taste of the wonderful advancements brought forth by European style civilized life, and the bursting out all over of Capitalist miracles at the beginning of the Age of Machines, they sure as hell didn’t want to go back to the primative tribal desolation that they knew of only by word of mouth from their ancestors who had been there.

They knew which side their bread was buttered on. Good grief……they knew that back in Africa they wouldn’t even have BREAD, much less butter to put on it. And then, all the other tribes trying to run them through with spear or horn…..definately much better here in a civilized world…..slavery or no slavery.

By the way, Lincoln’s ONLY priority was keeping the Union together. He didn’t like slavery, and wanted to see it go, but if he could have saved the Union from going to war, and the South kept slavery, he would have done so.

Because of Capitalism, and its rampant advancements, slavery only had a few more years to run in the U.S.A. anyway (not true in the primative world, where blacks still enslave other blacks to this very day, like they always have throughout history). Perhaps Lincoln could see ahead, and knew slavery was dying in this country a natural and swift death.

Thank you, Capitalism.

Capitalism……….the greatest force for improving the lives of all people, especially the poor, that has ever existed. Thank you, Capitalism.

Read some history. Tis good for the soul.
- Steve the Cynic
  
  That’s ideological thinking. Make the evidence fit your ideology, rather than following the evidence where it leads. And you have no business calling me “son.”
Sam

“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” And stay aware so that you may use these forces.

Tear out the secrets of government that keep us from being an informed democracy – the secrets which allow the take over of our government by the few who dwell in shadows. Keep us safe, not just from distant terrorists wearing beards, but from terrorists among us wearing Brooks Brothers shirts. Your work on Wall Street is not complete. Protect not just our nation, but our natural world, preserving it for our children’s children.Tear out the parasites of the medical and military industrial complex so that we can turn this treasure to more productive use that will help us to address the profound issues we will not face, but are facing us today.
Wally

My advice: quit keeping your promises to the unions, the GLBT’s, the abortionists, and keep your promise to make government “transparent.”

So how about enforcing the laws we have? But no. Obama’s administration is rife with corruption, and while talking about making the rich pay, the Wall Street criminals who created the financial meltdown that drove millions from their homes, and nearly shut down the nation, got away with 9-figure salaries and bonuses, and not one of the big name crooks spent a day in jail. BHO knows who butters his bread.
Roy Wehking

Speak to and also act on behalf of the 48% who did not vote for you.

If you look at the land mass of this country, you will find very little of it voted for you. Break down the counties..you are not the one.

Lastly, stop the spending and cut the debt. Try to get it done, even in your limited capacity to get anything done of benefit and stop destroying our country our values our pride and our successes.