OBAMACARE and its effects on employment

This week the Obama Administration reached their target goal of 7 million Americans signed up under the Affordable Healthcare Act and healthcare.gov, a substantial feat to what most conservatives claimed as nearly impossible.  Also the expansions in Medicaid have provided millions more with benefits that will provide security for them in the future.  Also the fact that millions of people that already had insurance will be able to keep their health insurance even if they are terminated from their employment. So essentially people can continue to gain health insurance and work less hours or part-time, as people begin to opt out of working full-time the labor market is likely to see a demand for new workers and in turn higher wages from the supply and demand cycle of the US job Market.  A writer for the Guardian Dean Baker claims that there are going to be signs that the ACA is coming into full effect the first is that we will see an increase in the quit rate throughout the US as people can keep their coverage without being employed, next there will be a rise in people who voluntarily will work part time under 35 hours a week.  Another aspect to this series is that people who are elderly will decline in the workforce especially between the ages of 54-66 as they can retire and keep their coverage, and lastly the number of self-employed workers and the amount of small businesses will increase as well.

IS the Affordable Healthcare Act really as bad as conservatives make it out to be? I'm playing the devils advocate obviously so pick a side guys!!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/31/obamacare-deadline-signups-plan-keep-wages-up

Obama: For and Against Himself-Observations on Personality During His First Four Years

               At an early age we are taught not to judge.  Not to judge someone by his or her looks, the car they drive, the clothes they wear, or any other materialistic or worldly possessions they may have to their name.  Rather, we are tough to give everyone a chance and base our options of them by less shallow means.  Personality, ethics, and actions are how we would ideally evaluate the people around us.  Yet, how would we understand and analyze the people we cannot come into contact with?  How are we as Americans supposed to decide which presidential candidate we wish to align our support with, if we can’t truly meet them? We have to do this by casting aside political biased and partisanship, and create a real option determined by the issues a candidate stands for.  Sometimes this isn’t enough though, we need to understand a person’s personality and past before we can cast our ballots and set our decisions in stone.  Steven J. Wayne, of George Town University, feels the same way about this topic, and closely observed Obama’s behavior and past to gain a clear understanding of his personality, and how this affects his style of “ruling”.  By reading Wayne’s book Personality and Politics: Obama For and Against Himself, the reader can gain a concrete of idea of the kind of person current President Barack Obama truly is.  I will discus my options based on the major themes I came across while reading Wayne’s book.  These themes include: Obama as a realist or an idealist, his decision making ability, and finally if he is a transformational or transactional figure as leader. 

            We will start by examining the question is Obama an idealist or a realist?  An idealist is someone who is guided more by ideals than by practical considerations.  While a realist is a person who tends to view or represent things as they really are.  An example of each of these types of people are Karl Marx, an idealist, and Niccolò Machiavelli who was a realist.  Marx had a romantic idea of communism, and used this “imagine if” idea of it to gain support of an unproven theory in his writing The Communist Manifesto.  Machiavelli demonstrated his realist ideas in his book The Prince, where he simply explained how to be a strong ruler.  He didn’t use any romantic ideas he simply stated facts he gathered from historical events from around his time.  I believe Obama is more of an idealist than he is a realist.  He believes humans are generally good and hard working.  Obama sees himself as living proof the American dream can be reached.  In his Inaugural address he said, “… we can shape our individual and collective destines, so long as we rediscover the traditional values of hard work…” The key word in that sentence is “rediscover”.  He has no control over this, he is hoping on the American people to make a change to better the country.  This is very similar to Marx as he was hoping to make a change in the ideas of the people through his writing.  “Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” according to Obama “immortalizes the American belief in individual freedom…” (Wayne, 38)  He believes that if he can level the playing field, people will work to better their lives, for themselves and the people around them.  He is lead by the ideals he found while discovering his own identity, and his religious beliefs are used as a moral guideline, and not a literal way to live his life. 

            Obama makes rational decisions, and he likes to please the people he is working for.  He keeps his focus on the doable, and understands that compromise of his plans is necessary to making anything happen in politics.  His visions and ideas are strong, but he will sacrifice here and there to see his ideas pass through and gain support. Obama describes himself as, “… a practical person, somebody who, I think can cut through some very complicated problems and figure out the right course of action.”  He avoids taking risks, and is slow to rush to judgment because he needs to think about everything his decisions can affect.  “Rigor, logic, and rationality guide his thought process.  He tends to keep whatever emotions he feels well buried.” (Wayne, 52) He thinks with his head when it comes to making policies and laws.  “He’s very methodical in how he evaluates decisions.” David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political strategist says, “He’ll engage you in a dialog on the options.  And then he’ll make a decision.  And he doesn’t look back at that decision.”  He is bold and he is confident.  In a way Obama is an elitist because of his ego.  Which he is fully aware of, this and his lack of emotion in making decisions makes him appear distant form regular people.

            Lastly, is Obama a transformational or transactional leader? A transformational leader goes beyond managing day-to-day operations and crafts strategies for taking his “company” to the next level of performance and success.  A transformational leader thinks about how to better the future of his “company”.  A Transactional leader is more concerned with maintaining the normal flow of things and keeping everything running smoothly.  Ideally one must possess traits from both styles of leadership to be successful, but I believe Obama is more of a transformational leader.  He is concerned with bettering the country for the future generations.  He wants to fix the problems we have now, and establish new programs to better situations down the road.  Obama’s policies on social change are what lead me to classify him as a transformational leader.  The easier thing to do would be to sit back and say everything is fine, but Obama addresses and warrants change.  Obama is pro-choice, pro same sex marriage rights, and his The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare as it’s now known) are all solid proof that he is trying to change the country for what he believes to be for the better.  “Obama sees government as a positive force in promoting greater contrary, Obama sees government as a positive force in promoting greater economic and social opportunities, especially for those at the lowest end of the socio-economic scale. “ (Wayne, 40)  Obama is trying to create programs and situations to better the lives of poor Americans.  He has been doing this since he was a young politician in Chicago.  Obama uses the Bully Pulpit to express his options on these issues.  He always speaks of how he plans to better the country, and he has been successful (to an extent) in doing so during his first four years as a president.

            In conclusion, I feel President Obama has done a good job in office during his first four years.  His upbringing and his search for his identity in a confusing time and in an unorthodox situation shaped him as a person and established his moral and political beliefs, as well as served as a means to keep him grounded and his ego in check.  He is an idealist, yet logical and is pushing for social and economic change.  He has already made many changes for the better, he cut prescription price of Medicare recipients by 50%, brought troops home, passed a $789 billion economic stimulus plan, Removed restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research, and much more.  Although sometimes it takes him a while to get his ideas passed, he almost always gets things done.  He is a man of change for the better, yet he keeps the traditional American values of hard work in order to prosper in check.  The manifest destiny idea is still alive in America.  If you work hard enough anything can be yours, and President Obama wants to keep that dream alive for millions of hard working Americans today. 

WHY IS THE U.S GOVERNMENT PICK AND CHOOSE WHEN IT COME TO OTHER COUNTRIES CONFLICT?

After the United States won the Cold War against the Soviet Union during the 1940 throughout 1990s, it took the wheel and drives the world to it political correction, where it want the rest of the world to participate in it. We have seen many invasion that our government had done, and continue to do so as part of controlling the world, show off our military power, and gaining some economic interest. At the beginning of this month the Dalai Lama visited the United State, and spoke in many universities. I happened to follow most of his speech, and begin to think a lot about his country Tibet, and what action the U.S government has taken or where they stand now toward the Tibet, and Chine issue. The conflict between the People Republic of China and Tibet, is kind of the general knowledge, but for those who don't know, I will give a little background history. Tibet was an independent country until 1949, when the communist government under Mao Zedong invited it as a part of China. During the invention the U.S government was against the communist government, so it supported the Tibetans' believes of being free from the communist. But somehow in the blue, the relationship between People Republic of China, and the U.S grew stronger, and now the voice of Tibetans citizens of wanting their freedom of religion participation, and to be independent from China is stronger, but there is not any The U.S government has take. Do you thing the reason is because we will lose relationship with China? or is because the land of Tibet has nothing we can get from it?

Presidential Elections and people

         As many people know, the presidential election coming in 2016 has already brought out rumors of who will run. Many people believe Hillary Clinton will run again. She ran against president Obama in 2008 and lost. Around campus there are groups that support her and want her to run. The reason why the key word is rumors is because Clinton has not said she will officially run. If Hillary ran in 2016 she would have a good chance of winning. About 82% of democrats want her to run and 52% of independent voters want her to run for 2016. The election will be a mystery for all of America because Obama cannot run again and no matter what there will be a new president for 2017.
        The presidential election will show as does almost any other election how people will vote as to the red or the blue and by these results one can look at why. What would be the main views that differ from each candidate that would make a person vote from one person to the other. Looking at a comparison from Romney and Obama views, Obama wanted the troops out of Iraq while Romney wanted the troops to stay in Iraq. Ironically enough, Obama promised to take them out in 2009, 2012, and 2013. Some say he wants them stay there, but is telling the people what they want to hear until his term is over. This is just one of the main differences in views told to the public. The one big similarity from the same website was "Obamacare" verses "Romneycare". They are the same type of healthcare act yet these two are on two different sides of the chart. Even though Obama and Romney have very similar views, Obama still won the 2012 election. This is very well a sign that people are too worried which part the candidates are affiliated to whether than who truly is the better candidate.
    

Blog Schedule

Please be sure to post on or before Thursday on the week assigned!

Week of March 3
Skylar

Week of March 10
Brendan
Skylar

Week of March 17
Al
Gene
Carol

Week of March 31
Petro
Gary
Brendan
Grace

Week of April 7
Petro
Gary
Al

Week of April 14
Robert
Gene
Carol

Week of April 21
JJ
Angelica
Robert

Week of April 28
JJ
Angelica
Grace

President Obama and the Russian Forces

         The past few weeks, much of the United States has been looking at the Ukraine and their overthrow of their president and creating a new government. We also see Russian president; Vladimir Putin trying to put the Russian military in the Ukraine because of its "illegitimate government".  As the previous Link shows, Putin has deployed over 16,000 troops to the Crimean Peninsula which is where much of this is taking place. Russia is worried that because the Ukraine is right on their border and once part of Russia that this "falling under European Influence" a white house official stated. There is also a Crimean referendum which would join the Crimean Peninsula with Russia.
     President Obama on the other hand stands with the fact that the Crimean referendum is currently violating International Law and saying that "we are passed the days of being able to redraw country lines by government power". President Obama makes the logical point about "Vladimir Putin's rationale for his incursion into Crimea was not "fooling anybody" and that Russian "meddling" in Ukraine would isolate Moscow". In this situation, President Obama is a very Effective president in not only the United State's sake, but in the independence of the Ukraine government. There is now a point where using Germany as a mediator, Putin can take out many of his troops from the Ukraine and still not lose the authority. 

Welcome to our Presidency Class Blog for Spring 2014!

 Welcome to our Presidency class blog! The first step for class members is to set up an account with Blogger.com so I can add you to this blog so you can get started posting! Look for an email from me, if you do not receive one, let me know. I will send a sign up sheet around and publish the posting schedule.


(I took this photo when then Senator Obama spoke to us here at PSU).



A few rules to follow:

1. No profanity or obscenities! This Blog will maintain professional standards of discourse!

2. No jerks.

3. No incivility. You are expected to treat one another with respect and offer constructive comments.

4. follow all rules about fair use of material--copyrights etc.

5. You are expected to post a story on or before Thursday of the week assigned below.

Now--get blogging!