Chris Long, Owner, Long & Associates financial advisors
What is the administration’s overall achievement?
Helping to prevent a collapse of the economy into a Depression.
What was the Obama administration’s biggest win and loss?
The biggest win was getting a healthcare reform bill through both houses of Congress, and the biggest loss was the political capital and time it has taken to get the bills passed has hurt his popularity.
What’s your assessment of Obama’s first year in office?
[This has been] one of the scariest and toughest for the economy since the depression. Obama has done a good job of carefully focusing on each issue he has faced thoughtfully.
What’s ahead for the administration?
A sluggish recovery in 2010 with high unemployment, probable losses in the 2010 Congressional Elections. He will sign a healthcare reform bill in the next couple of months that will likely prove very popular with people in the future just as Medicare is today.
On a scale of A to F, how would you grade Obama on the following:
Jobs: B.
The stimulus helped unemployment from being even higher, but Obama is constrained on the fiscal front due to large deficits.
Healthcare reform: A-
Obama actually has gotten something passed that is a big improvement over the current system, though the process was ugly.
Economy: B
Obama helped to prevent a depression but unemployment is high.
Wall Street: C-
Nothing has changed to date, Congress will be taking up in banking system reforms in 2010.
Small business development: C
Credit is still tight for small business, this is tied to the lack of banking reform and changing the incentive structure for banks.
Housing: B
Obama has said all of the right things, but no fundamental changes have been made the way foreclosures are being handled. Bad foreclosure policy has led to devastation in many urban areas especially in the Midwest which never benefited from the boom in housing prices.
National security: B
Overall: B
This article was written by Marcia A. Wade, Deborah Creighton Skinner, Janell Hazelwood, and Renita Burns
Cast your vote: How would you grade Obama’s first year in office?