Former Congressional Candidate Says Obama Has Had A Remarkable Run

By Scott Benjamin

Former Democratic congressional candidate Bob Marconi says Barack Obama is the first president since Ronald Reagan to leave office with an enhanced reputation, the first to enact a major permanent health/economic program since Lyndon Johnson and is the nicest one since George H.W. Bush.

Marconi, a Connecticut state assistant attorney general who lives in Brookfield, said Obama will be remembered for overcoming the Great Recession, signing an effective health care reform that will become as second-nature as the Medicare package that Johnson signed in 1965 and for demonstrating good manners and avoiding the pratfalls that have plagued the major-party nominees of 2016.

The Pew Research Group reported in October that Obama had a 54 percent approval rating but was viewed as more partisan than many recent presidents, which contrasts with his pledge during the 2008 campaign to be post-partisan.

The late David Broder, the Washington Post political columnist, wrote some years ago that the only recent president to leave office with an enhanced reputation was Reagan. Marconi said Obama also meets that standard He added that former President Bill Clinton also would have if it hadn’t been for the impeachment vote less than two years before he left office. Clinton was the first president since Lyndon Johnson 29 years earlier to have a budget surplus and was hailed for his efforts to reach compromises with Republicans on deficit reduction and welfare reform.

Wikipedia.org reported that in the polls of presidential scholars and journalists through the years, Obama has an aggregate ranking of 17^th among the 44 presidents, although he has only been rated in two of those surveys. Occasionally presidents, Harry Truman being a notable example, see their ratings improve considerably over time as their accomplishments are further analyzed.

Marconi, who was the Democratic convention nominee in the Fifth Congressional District in 2004, said the $787 billion stimulus package of February 2009 and the economic rescue of the domestic auto-makers set the stage for a gradual economic recovery that in the last year has produced an unemployment rate of less than 5 percent, which is lower than it ever was under Reagan, who is considered the most successful Republican president of the last generation.

He said Obama, a Democrat, has had to overcome a lack of confidence by banks, corporations and consumers – who have been tepid in their spending since the 2008 financial collapse when some banks were overleveraged as much as 40:1 and shareholders saw their stock portfolios collapse.

“The United States came out of the recession better than almost every other developed country,” said Marconi, who also was the Democratic candidate in the 30^th state Senate District in 2002. Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson has stated that, for example, Japan, the third largest economy in the world, is still struggling despite multiple stimulus packages.

He said the American recovery has been partly stymied by how digitization has eliminated jobs over the recent years.

“It takes fewer people now to make a car,” Marconi added.

However, Marconi said he supported the call by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination this year, to reinstate the Glass-Steagall legislation, which was established in the 1930s and was revised in 1999 to allow banks to combine their commercial and investment portfolios He said the revisions were one of the reasons for the 2008 financial collapse.

Marconi said that after Republicans took control of Congress following the 2010 midterm elections, a lot of the economic stimulus “came from the Federal Reserve Board,” which kept interest rates historically low for years.

Critics, such as Samuelson, have stated that Obama made a mistake by making the Affordable Care Act his top priority so soon after the stimulus. They believe that unemployment, which peaked at 10.2 percent under Obama, should have been more aggressively addressed and that the health care reform would slow the economy since it would make it more costly for employers to hire new workers.

However, New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman has written that the United States economy is robust again even after adding a mandatory health care initiative and elimination of the across-the board tax cuts that Obama ended after being in place for 12 years.

“I think he (Obama) saw that there was a Democratic Congress that would allow him to tackle what had evaded so many presidents – whether it be Harry Truman or Bill Clinton,” Marconi said of the attention paid to the health care plan, which Obama signed in March 2010.

“This is something that will last and change the dynamics of health care and the economy because so many more people are covered,” he said. “It’s more the same as Lyndon Johnson signing Medicare in 1965 than Bill Clinton’s economic plan, which produced four straight budget surpluses but was then negated by George W. Bush’s tax cut and a Republican Congress.”

Marconi said he agrees with critics who are concerned about the recent surge in premiums.

He said the penalties for not having insurance “should be as costly” as the expense of having coverage, which would entice more young workers to have coverage and create a healthier risk pool, which would lower costs for everyone.

On another subject, Marconi said the president was not able to reform Social Security or lengthen its long-term solvency.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama wanted to increase the limit on earnings on Social Security to $250,000. It is now $118,500.

Marconi acknowledged that reforms are in order since unlike 1935, when Social Security was established, more people elderly people today are wealthy and live and work longer.

On another topic, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote in February that although he disagrees with some of the president’s policies, he praises him on his conduct and “good manners.”

Marconi and state Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury have said recently that Obama is probably the nicest president since H.W. Bush, who was noted for his pledge to build a “kinder, gentler nation.”

Marconi - who attended an Obama campaign rally with one of his daughters, Elizabeth, in 2008 - said he couldn’t imagine Obama making the mistake of using a personal e-mail server in the way that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton did as Secretary of State.

Godfrey has said that Obama continued to seek compromises from Republicans even though there has been fierce opposition to his policies, even to the point that the U.S. Senate wouldn’t consider the nomination of prospective Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland because it was a presidential election year.

Godfrey said he believes some of the opposition has been racist, a reference to Obama being the nation’s first African-American president.

“There are Republicans that say we’re against this even though we supported it two years ago” he said

Marconi questioned whether a Caucasian president would have had his birth right scrutinized the way Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has raised questions about Obama’s heritage.

He said Obama has faced unprecedented polarization, noting that Republicans even allowed the federal government to be shut down in the fall 2013.

On a separate topic, Marconi applauded the work by Vice President Joe Biden in negotiating with U.S Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on a variety of issues.

“Barack Obama only had four years in the Senate, but Joe Biden had decades of experience, and he’s used those relationships for the benefit of the White House,” he said.

Marconi added that as a result of his tenure as chairman of U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee the administration was able to get fairly easy confirmation for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

He also said First Lady Michelle Obama is so popular she could have been elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois. He noted that she gave an impressive address at the 2016 Democratic National Convention and has been an effective surrogate speaker for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Michelle Obama has been an advocate for addressing childhood obesity and finding jobs for military veterans.

Regarding foreign policy, Marconi said he believes the president has been unjustly criticized for the rise of ISIS. He said the “Pandora’s box” that opened for the growth in ISIS came as a result of W. Bush’s police action in Iraq following the 2003 invasion.

He said Obama has enhanced America’s reputation with foreign leaders after the unilateral approach that W. Bush often practiced.

Marconi said he supports the president’s efforts to get the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) approved during the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress. He said the 12-nation agreement would help make America more relevant in the Pacific at a time when China has become the second largest economy in the world.

The proposed agreement encompasses nearly 40 percent of the global economy.

Marconi said he supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada and Mexico, which was signed by Bill Clinton in 1993. However, he said he opposed Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, because that Asian country has generated a huge American trade deficit through currency manipulation.

He said the TPP would benefit the United States since it would, among other things, allow more American cars to be sold in Japan, which is the third largest economy in the world. Additionally, labor and environmental standards would be improved with Canada and Mexico more than 20 years after NAFTA was approved, and Vietnam, a Communist country, would allow its workers to join collective bargaining units.

Marconi said he will miss having Obama in office.

He said, “He has some notable accomplishments and has been such a role model as a human being.”