speech and a song that helped bring the nation together. he followed it by signing a 12-nation trade deal and then by announcing the re-opening of embassies in the u.s. and cuba. it s a remarkable streak. and so today, i put on my historian hat to try and imagine what the history books might say about this president. the first paragraph may go something like this. the first black president, president obama, restored the economy after the great recession with a stimulus and auto bail-out passed universal health care, and wall street reform, and was the first president to embrace marriage equality. he ordered the mission to kill osama bin laden, moved to normalize relations with cuba and reached a historic deal on iran s nuclear program. back with me are clarence page
on your historian hat. we re talking about the future, but i want you to look back and give us an idea of another president after a pretty turbulent few months after some defeats, you talked about the obamacare fumble, gun control and all of the things that the president s put through or tried to pass through a divided government. someone who s gotten it right and used this speech to turn it around. there s no question it s bill clinton in recent memory. clinton was just getting hammered over the lewinsky affair. he went to the state of the union basically asked for forgiveness and started doing his famous triangulation with republicans and built quite a legislative record to the point by the end of his second term there was a surplus, not a deficit. and clinton kind of started rebuilding himself. this president i think still has to trust of a lot of people. but when you go down 52% last
extended the time frame for the election. think about what the main question is everybody is asked, are you better off now than you were four years ago? he was saying look at the last decade. two tax decades, are we better off? better growth? no, the worst in 50 years so i think that s his strategy. put on your political analysis hat, not the historian hat. can a president win with rhetoric after four years or are you judged by performance not the angle with which you enter the debate? well, clearly what he s going to have to do is to have the big stick to follow the rhetoric, as teddy roosevelt did, which means he may have to exercise the veto power and make certain threats. he doesn t have control of the congress right now, but he s going to act strongly and fiercely in those last months of his presidency, but we re into a time now where it is rhetoric. what do we have in the next 12 months because not much is going to get done except the veto power, and he can exercise that. tha
months ago. these strikes are not hurting it hurts the walmart protest that could hurt shopping. port authority in oakland not necessarily behaved. they are one of the mot notorous unions. and at the same time certainly labor has a right to have their voice and issues whether it is health care or pay. they are choosing america s holiday season to get their message across and get their employers on the spot. you think that turns the sentiment against the unions. nit is not the best pr strategy. if i put my historian hat on here a bit. work is more hexploited in tough times. it is it the rise of the unions and the port problem as
if everybody does that, we won t have an economy that grows. it is very important any additional money they have, they be prudent with the additional money. if there are tax cuts, if the tax cuts are at least enough to free up some discretionary spending, then things will begin to turn around. a lot of consumers have what are called consumerdurables. cars, washing machines, appliances, clothing that have to be replaced. they are going to have to make some replacements. that s going to boost the economy a little bit. banks are still going to be very cautious about lending. they have they have to be cautious. banks are sit o sending out a lot of bad ious. consumers won t have an easy time getting more credit. i want to ask you to put on kwour historian hat for me for a