Obama's Just More Of The Same

Take his State of the Union Address.

Did we need Barack Obama to say “the true engine of job creation will always be America’s businesses”?

Did we need Barack Obama to give corporations, big and small, more tax breaks, when even John McCain’s top economist recognizes that such tax breaks are among the least effective ways to get the economy moving again?

Did we need Barack Obama to come out for an across-the-board spending freeze, exempting the Pentagon, of course?

Did we need Barack Obama to dwell on the “burdens facing the middle class” while barely mentioning the burdens of those in poverty?

Did we need Barack Obama to issue an Executive Order to establish a commission that will pave the way for slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security?...

Did we need Barack Obama to advocate offshore oil drilling—and clean coal, as if there were such a thing?...

He talked about improving the nation’s image abroad, but he’s been disastrously ineffectual in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which lies at the heart of our sullied reputation.

In Latin America, he showed his true colors by failing to throw his weight behind restoring President Zelaya in Honduras and by signing a military base agreement with Colombia.

And for all his talk about ending torture, the United States is still disappearing people into black sites in Afghanistan—and still torturing them there. (See Anand Gopal’s horrifying report)

On civil liberties, his record is extremely mixed, and that’s being generous. The ACLU just put out a report, “America Unrestored,” that goes item by item.

Suffice it to say that he’s done nothing to prohibit the warrantless spying that was the hallmark of the Bush Administration. He’s done nothing to end the Secret Service’s use of “free speech zones.” And he continues to assert the right to hold people, indefinitely, without charge.

On the economy, he baked half a loaf of stimulus, even when he was warned by Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman and the brilliant economist Dean Baker that a full loaf was needed to prevent 10 percent unemployment. And Obama surrounded himself with Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and Ben Bernanke, the architects of disaster and bailouts....

And on health care, he took the best proposal—single payer—off the table at the start and never, ever even put the second best proposal on the table, which would have been Medicare for All Who Want It. The bill he favors is a giveaway to the insurance industry....

--more Matthew Rothschild