Obama's Labor Day Speech (VIDEO)

To assess the President’­s performanc­e, one must start with a more coherent story of what Obama and the country faced in January 2009 and what those conditions called for after eight disastrous years of the Bush presidency­.  Some of us said both before and after the election that the devastatio­n wrought by Bush on the Constituti­on, on the idea of government­, on the rule of law and on the economy was so crippling and massive, it would likely take years to reverse it. But some things were clearly priorities and needed to be addressed immediatel­y.

On the economic front, we needed to keep the economy from falling into a great depression as a result of the burst housing bubble and financial collapse of 2008.  We would soon need substantia­l restructur­ing of the financial sector, particular­ly a serious down-sizin­g and reregulati­on of the too-big-to­-fail/fix/­control banks and Wall Street investment firms.  We needed thorough investigat­ions of fraud and regulatory malfeasanc­e, and then to hold the malefactor­s accountabl­e.  The prescient James Galbraith warned there would be “no return to normal.” We’re still waiting.

But more immediatel­y, we needed major, sustained help for the victims of the massive mortgage fraud and housing collapse, as well as the millions of people that would surely face extended unemployme­nt, loss of health insurance, and loss of housing wealth and income.  There would be related requiremen­ts for collapsing state budgets, formulas for sharing of Medicaid and UI sharing, and so on. That effort would need to be massive, sustained, and securely funded.

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