Hope Has Left the Building

If one case encapsulates the disaster that is the Obama
administration, it may be the dustup over the A.I.G. bonuses last
March. Recall that extreme gambling by A.I.G. Financial Products nearly
crashed the world in 2008, necessitating a taxpayer bailout of $182.3
billion (and counting). Following this, A.I.G., now 80
percent government owned, rained more than $400 million in bonuses on
Financial Products employees for their performance in 2008. The Obama
administration, which knew of the bonuses for months, played defense
for A.I.G. by unspooling a bloated Larry Summers to argue, "The
government cannot just abrogate contracts."

The problem was the feds had just demanded that auto workers
abrogate their hard-won contracts before Detroit got a bailout. United
Auto Workers leaders complied, sacrificing "job security provisions and
financing for retiree health care," plus agreeing to cuts in base pay,
overtime pay, break time, raises, skilled worker positions and chopping
wages for many new hires in half to $14 an hour.

Far from failures or mistakes, these episodes illustrate how Team
Obama, which surfed a tsunami of corporate money and savvy branding to
victory, is doing exactly what it was elected to do: redistribute money
upwards. It's hard to think of a decision by this White House that
would have not elicited cackling glee from the Bush administration. The
number of horrendous policies] enacted by the Obama administration in
barely a year boggles the imagination. What follows is by no means an
exhaustive list, just a few dozen of the worst.

EMPIRE'S BACKYARD

Even Time magazine has concluded that "Obama's Latin American Policy
Looks Like Bush's." While many hoped Obama would lift the 48-year-old
embargo against Cuba, Obama loosened a few restrictions only for Cuban
Americans. Last April, Obama declared the United States a "full
partner" in Mexico's calamitous drug war. Months later, the White House
slapped Bolivia with economic penalties, allegedly for not being an
enthusiastic drug warrior, but more likely for pursuing an independent
agenda. And there is the Honduran coup, which Obama endorsed by
recognizing the rigged election in November. Most ominously, his
administration inked a deal in October for seven military bases in
Colombia, convenient for launching new wars against socialist
governments in the region.

GREEN JOB LOSSES

Before Van Jones was thrown under the bus, Obama promised to create
five million green jobs in plug-in hybrids, weatherization, renewable
energy, biofuels and clean coal. Biofuels and clean coal? Okay, maybe
it's a good thing this promise was snuffed. But as Naomi Klein points
out, between the stimulus, the auto bailout and the Wall Street rescue,
Obama had the leverage and political capital to fund mass transit and a
smart electrical grid, restructure government-owned automakers to focus
on green technology and force bailed out banks to fund industrial
restructuring and green infrastructure. Instead, we get a White House
vegetable garden the size of a New York apartment.

TOO BIG TO FAIL, TOO BIG TO JAIL

While the original Troubled Assets Relief Program was "only" $700
billion, the program's watchdog estimates taxpayer money at risk is a
phenomenal $23.7 trillion. The Obama administration has been more
interested in defending obscene executive pay, blessing more of Wall
Street's highrisk trading, stonewalling on how the TARP funds were used
and abused, and resisting real regulation, rather than prosecuting
Goldman Sachs and other banks that peddled risky mortgage- backed
securities while secretly betting they would plummet in value - a
textbook case of securities fraud. But what do you expect from a
candidate who raked in the most dough from Wall Street, real estate,
commercial banks and hedge funds?

A DREAM FORECLOSED

In comparison to the bank bailout, relief for homeowners is limited
to a miserly $75 billion under Obama's Making Home Affordable program.
As of December, only 31,000 homeowners have received permanent mortgage
modifications. The real winners are loan servicers. Of the top 25
participants, 21 were "heavily involved in the subprime lending
industry." The parent companies of the lenders, which have vacuumed up
more than $21 billion from the program, include Bank of America, Wells
Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. Homeowners in the program who
don't get permanent help are left with wrecked credit scores while they
continue to pay for homes they can't afford, which may be lengthening
the crisis. Meanwhile, the number of homeowners with mortgage debt
greater than the value of their homes was 23 percent as of September
and could peak at 48 percent in 2011. Even modest measures, such as
allowing bankruptcy judges to lower mortgages, were abandoned by the
Obama administration.

HEALTH CARE DEFORM

There is a method to Obama's madness. First, his economic philosophy
is to subsidize private entities to provide public goods. Second, his
main tactic is to appeal to bipartisanship. (Never mind that there was
plenty of bipartisanship during the Bush era when Democrats surrendered
to virtually every heinous decision.) In the case of healthcare, a much
simpler and more effective single-payer system was rejected because
Republican support was supposedly needed. The bipartisan tactic allowed
the Obama administration to replace single payer with a fake public
option that was then dropped. As for the healthcare bill, it will skim
$500 billion from publicly funded Medicare and Medicaid and use it to
subsidize individuals who will be forced to buy for-profit insurance or
pay a fine. The bill does nothing to control costs, ensure quality
coverage or prevent workers from losing job-related insurance. It
allows for wildly different rates based on age and region, and will
deliver millions of new "customers" to insurance and drug companies and
for-profit hospitals.

WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE

While President-elect, Obama was largely silent about the Israeli
slaughter of 1,400 civilians in Gaza. Three days after being
inaugurated, Obama ordered Predator drone strikes inside Pakistan,
expanding the illegal U.S. war. Over the last year, Obama has committed
another 64,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, effectively launching a new
year. There are still 115,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The use of private
military contractors is surging, with 121,000 (and growing) in
Afghanistan alone. Obama has continued to threaten Iran over its
uranium-enrichment program. And many believe the White House is
"initiating a low-level war in Yemen." Author and Ret. U.S. Army Col.
Andrew Bacevich writes that Obama has effectively signed on to
"perpetual war."

LABOR PAINS

Despite reportedly pouring $450 million into Obama's campaign and
providing thousands of volunteers, organized labor has been unable to
advance its main cause: a bill called the Employee Free Choice Act that
would make it easier for employees in a workplace to unionize. The
Obama administration says it is committed to passing the bill, but it
has not put any muscle behind it. That may be because wealthy Obama
backers, including three Chicago billionaires who own hotels,
vehemently oppose the bill.