This article is about the 44th president of the United States. For his father, see Barack Obama, Sr.
| Barack Obama | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Obama in December 2012 | |
| 44th President of the United States | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 20, 2009 | |
| Vice President | Joe Biden |
| Preceded by | George W. Bush |
| United States Senator from Illinois | |
| In office January 3, 2005 – November 16, 2008 | |
| Preceded by | Peter Fitzgerald |
| Succeeded by | Roland Burris |
| Member of the Illinois Senate from the 13th District | |
| In office January 8, 1997 – November 4, 2004 | |
| Preceded by | Alice Palmer |
| Succeeded by | Kwame Raoul |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Barack Hussein Obama II August 4, 1961 Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Michelle LaVaughn Robinson(m. 1992–present) |
| Children | Malia Ann Obama (b. 1998) Natasha Obama (b. 2001) |
| Residence | White House (official) Chicago, Illinois (private) |
| Alma mater | Occidental College Columbia University (B.A.) Harvard Law School (J.D.) |
| Profession | Lawyer Professor of constitutional law Community organizer Author |
| Religion | Christianity |
| Awards | Nobel Peace Prize Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album[1] |
| Signature |  |
| Website | barackobama.com |
 | This article is part of a series on Barack Obama |
|---|---|
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First term
Second term
| |
Barack Hussein Obama II (
i/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States, and the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000.
i/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States, and the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000.
In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the United States Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November. He began his presidential campaign in 2007, and in 2008, after a close primary campaign againstHillary Rodham Clinton, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidential nomination. He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months after his election, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
During his first two years in office, Obama signed into law economic stimulus legislation in response to the Great Recession in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. Other major domestic initiatives in his first term include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as "Obamacare"; the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. In foreign policy, Obamaended U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, increased U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. military involvement in Libya, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. In November 2010, the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives as the Democratic Party lost a total of 63 seats, and after a lengthy debate over federal spending and whether or not to raise the nation's debt limit, Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
Obama was re-elected president in November 2012, defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney, and was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2013. During his second term, Obama has promoted domestic policies related to gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, has called for full equality for LGBT Americans, and his administration filed briefs which urged the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 and California's Proposition 8 as unconstitutional. In foreign policy, Obama has continued the process of ending U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan.
Contents
[show]Early life and career
Main articles: Family of Barack Obama and Early life and career of Barack Obama
Obama was born on August 4, 1961,[2] at Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital (now Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children) in Honolulu, Hawaii,[3][4][5] and is the first President to have been born in Hawaii.[6] His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas, and was of mostly English ancestry.[7] His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a Luofrom Nyang’oma Kogelo, Kenya. Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian class at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student on scholarship.[8][9] The couple married in Wailuku on Maui on February 2, 1961,[10][11] and separated when Obama's mother moved with their newborn son to Seattle, Washington, in late August 1961, to attend theUniversity of Washington for one year. In the meantime, Obama, Sr. completed his undergraduate economics degree in Hawaii in June 1962, then left to attend graduate school at Harvard University on a scholarship. Obama's parents divorced in March 1964.[12] Obama Sr. returned to Kenya in 1964 where he remarried; he visited Barack in Hawaii only once, in 1971.[13] He died in an automobile accident in 1982 when his son was 21 years old.[14]
In 1963, Dunham met Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian East–West Center graduate student in geography at the University of Hawaii, and the couple were married on Molokai on March 15, 1965.[15] After two one-year extensions of his J-1 visa, Lolo returned to Indonesia in 1966, followed sixteen months later by his wife and stepson in 1967, with the family initially living in a Menteng Dalam neighborhood in the Tebet subdistrict of south Jakarta, then from 1970 in a wealthier neighborhood in the Menteng subdistrict of central Jakarta.[16] From ages six to ten, Obama attended local Indonesian-language schools: St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School for two years and Besuki Public School for one and a half years, supplemented by English-languageCalvert School homeschooling by his mother.[17]
In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and with the aid of a scholarship attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from fifth grade until his graduation from high school in 1979.[18] Obama lived with his mother and sister in Hawaii for three years from 1972 to 1975 while his mother was a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Hawaii.[19] Obama chose to stay in Hawaii with his grandparents for high school at Punahou when his mother and sister returned to Indonesia in 1975 to begin anthropology field work.[20] His mother spent most of the next two decades in Indonesia, divorcing Lolo in 1980 and earning a PhD in 1992, before dying in 1995 in Hawaii following treatment for ovarian cancer and uterine cancer.[21]
Of his early childhood, Obama recalled, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind."[9] He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.[22] Reflecting later on his years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."[23] Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind".[24] Obama was also a member of the "choom gang", a self-named group of friends that spent time together and occasionally smoked marijuana.[25][26]
Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to attend Occidental College. In February 1981, he made his first public speech, calling for Occidental to participate in thedisinvestment from South Africa in response to its policy of apartheid.[27] In mid-1981, Obama traveled to Indonesia to visit his mother and half-sister Maya, and visited the families of college friends in Pakistan and India for three weeks.[27] Later in 1981, he transferred as a junior to Columbia College, Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations[28] and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1983. He worked for a year at the Business International Corporation,[29] then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.[30][31]
Community organizer and Harvard Law School
Two years after graduating, Obama was hired in Chicago as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale on Chicago's South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988.[31][32] He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[33] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.[34] In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.[35][36] He returned to Kenya in 1992 with his fiancée Michelle and his half-sister Auma.[35][37] He returned to Kenya in August 2006 for a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.[38]
In late 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School. He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,[39] and president of the journal in his second year.[33][40] During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as an associate at the law firms ofSidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.[41] After graduating with a J.D. magna cum laude[42] from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.[39] Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention[33][40] and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations,[43] which evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 asDreams from My Father.[43]
University of Chicago Law School and civil rights attorney
In 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book.[43][44] He then taught at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years—as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004—teaching constitutional law.[45]
From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois's Project Vote, a voter registration campaign with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteer registrars; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.[46]
In 1993, he joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004. His law license became inactive in 2007.[47][48]
From 1994 to 2002, Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project; and of the Joyce Foundation.[31] He served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999.[31]
Legislative career: 1997–2008
State Senator: 1997–2004
Main article: Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois's 13th District, which at that time spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park – Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[49] Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation that reformed ethics and health care laws.[50] He sponsored a law that increased tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[51] In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.[52]
Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in the general election, and was reelected again in 2002.[53] In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary race for Illinois's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.[54]
In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.[55] He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.[51][56] During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.[57] Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate.[58]
U.S. Senate campaign
Main article: United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004
In May 2002, Obama commissioned a poll to assess his prospects in a 2004 U.S. Senate race; he created a campaign committee, began raising funds, and lined up political media consultantDavid Axelrod by August 2002. Obama formally announced his candidacy in January 2003.[59]
Obama was an early opponent of the George W. Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq.[60] On October 2, 2002, the day President Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War,[61] Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally,[62] and spoke out against the war.[63] He addressed another anti-war rally in March 2003 and told the crowd that "it's not too late" to stop the war.[64]
Decisions by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic predecessor Carol Moseley Braun to not participate in the election resulted in wide-open Democratic and Republican primary contests involving fifteen candidates.[65] In the March 2004 primary election, Obama won in an unexpected landslide—which overnight made him a rising star within the national Democratic Party, started speculation about a presidential future, and led to the reissue of his memoir, Dreams from My Father.[66] In July 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention,[67] seen by 9.1 million viewers. His speech was well received and elevated his status within the Democratic Party.[68]
Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004.[69] Six weeks later, Alan Keyes accepted the Republican nomination to replace Ryan.[70] In the November 2004 general election, Obama won with 70 percent of the vote.[71]
U.S. Senator: 2005–2008
Main article: United States Senate career of Barack Obama
Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 3, 2005,[72] becoming the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.[73] CQ Weekly characterized him as a "loyal Democrat" based on analysis of all Senate votes in 2005–2007. Obama announced on November 13, 2008, that he would resign his Senate seat on November 16, 2008, before the start of the lame-duck session, to focus on his transition period for the presidency.[74]
Legislation
Obama cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.[75] He introduced two initiatives that bore his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reductionconcept to conventional weapons;[76] and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending.[77] On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama—along with Senators Tom Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain—introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.[78]
Obama sponsored legislation that would have required nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities of radioactive leaks, but the bill failed to pass in the full Senate after being heavily modified in committee.[79] Regarding tort reform, Obama voted for the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which grants immunity from civil liability to telecommunications companies complicit with NSA warrantless wiretapping operations.[80]
In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.[82] In January 2007, Obama and Senator Feingold introduced a corporate jet provision to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September 2007.[83] Obama also introduced Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections,[84] and the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007,[85] neither of which was signed into law.
Later in 2007, Obama sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to add safeguards for personality-disorder military discharges.[86] This amendment passed the full Senate in the spring of 2008.[87] He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry, which has not passed committee; and co-sponsored legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.[88] Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.[89]
Committees
Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs through December 2006.[90] In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.[91] He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs.[92] As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. He met with Mahmoud Abbas before Abbas became President of the Palestinian National Authority, and gave a speech at the University of Nairobi in which he condemned corruption within the Kenyan government.[93]
Presidential campaigns
2008 presidential campaign
Main articles: United States presidential election, 2008, Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008, and Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008
On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.[94][95] The choice of the announcement site was viewed as symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech in 1858.[94][96] Obama emphasized issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and reforming the health care system,[97] in a campaign that projected themes of "hope" and "change".[98]
A large number of candidates entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries. The field narrowed to a duel between Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton after early contests, with the race remaining close throughout the primary process but with Obama gaining a steady lead in pledged delegates due to better long-range planning, superior fundraising, dominant organizing incaucus states, and better exploitation of delegate allocation rules.[99] On June 7, 2008, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama.[100]
On August 23, Obama announced his selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate.[101] Obama selected Biden from a field speculated to include former Indiana Governor and Senator Evan Bayh and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine.[102] At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Hillary Clinton called for her supporters to endorse Obama, and she and Bill Clinton gave convention speeches in his support.[103] Obama delivered his acceptance speech, not at the center where the Democratic National Convention was held, but at Invesco Field at Mile High to a crowd of over 75,000; the speech was viewed by over 38 million people worldwide.[104][105]
During both the primary process and the general election, Obama's campaign set numerous fundraising records, particularly in the quantity of small donations.[106] On June 19, 2008, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976.[107]
John McCain was nominated as the Republican candidate and the two engaged in three presidential debates in September and October 2008.[108] On November 4, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain.[109] Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%.[110] He became the first African American to be elected president.[111]Obama delivered his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago's Grant Park.[112]
2012 presidential campaign
Main articles: United States presidential election, 2012 and Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012
On April 4, 2011, Obama announced his re-election campaign for 2012 in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website and filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission.[113][114][115] As the incumbent president he ran virtually unopposed in the Democratic Party presidential primaries,[116] and on April 3, 2012, Obama had secured the 2778 convention delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.[117]
At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, former President Bill Clinton formally nominated Obama and Joe Biden as the Democratic Party candidates for president and vice president in the general election, in which their main opponents were Republicans Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.[118]
On November 6, 2012, Obama won 332 electoral votes, exceeding the 270 required for him to be re-elected as president.[119][120][121] With more than 51% of the popular vote,[122] Obama became the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to twice win the majority of the popular vote.[123][124] President Obama addressed supporters and volunteers at Chicago's McCormick Place after his reelection and said: "Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties."[125][126]
Presidency
Main article: Presidency of Barack Obama
See also: Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet and List of presidential trips made by Barack Obama
First days
The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President took place on January 20, 2009. In his first few days in office, Obama issued executive orders and presidential memoranda directing the U.S. military to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq.[127] He ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp,[128] but Congress prevented the closure by refusing to appropriate the required funds[129][130][131] and preventing moving any Guantanamo detainee into the U.S. or to other countries.[132] Obama reduced the secrecy given to presidential records.[133] He also revoked President George W. Bush's restoration of President Ronald Reagan's Mexico City Policy prohibiting federal aid to international family planning organizations that perform or provide counseling about abortion.[134]
Domestic policy
Main article: Barack Obama social policy
The first bill signed into law by Obama was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, relaxing the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits.[135] Five days later, he signed the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover an additional 4 million uninsured children.[136] In March 2009, Obama reversed a Bush-era policy which had limited funding ofembryonic stem cell research and pledged to develop "strict guidelines" on the research.[137]
Obama appointed two women to serve on the Supreme Court in the first two years of his Presidency. Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by Obama on May 26, 2009, to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter, was confirmed on August 6, 2009,[138] becoming the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.[139] Elena Kagan, nominated by Obama on May 10, 2010, to replace retiring Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, was confirmed on August 5, 2010, bringing the number of women sitting simultaneously on the Court to three, for the first time in American history.[140]
On September 30, 2009, the Obama administration proposed new regulations on power plants, factories and oil refineries in an attempt to limit greenhouse gas emissions and to curb global warming.[141][142]
On October 8, 2009, Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure that expands the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.[143][144]
On March 30, 2010, Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, a reconciliation bill which ends the process of the federal government giving subsidies to private banks to give out federally insured loans, increases the Pell Grant scholarship award, and makes changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.[145][146]
In a major space policy speech in April 2010, Obama announced a planned change in direction at NASA, the U.S. space agency. He ended plans for a return of human spaceflight to the moonand development of the Ares I rocket, Ares V rocket and Constellation program, in favor of funding Earth science projects, a new rocket type, and research and development for an eventual manned mission to Mars, and ongoing missions to the International Space Station.[147]
On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, fulfilling a key promise made in the 2008 presidential campaign[148][149] to end the Don't ask, don't tellpolicy of 1993 that had prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces.[150]
President Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address focused on themes of education and innovation, stressing the importance of innovation economics to make the United States more competitive globally. He spoke of a five-year freeze in domestic spending, eliminating tax breaks for oil companies and reversing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, banning congressionalearmarks, and reducing healthcare costs. He promised that the United States would have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015 and would be 80% reliant on "clean" electricity.[151][152]
As a candidate for the Illinois state senate Obama had said in 1996 that he favored legalizing same-sex marriage;[153] but by the time of his run for the U.S. senate in 2004, he said that while he supported civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex partners, for strategic reasons he opposed same-sex marriages.[154] On May 9, 2012, shortly after the official launch of his campaign for re-election as president, Obama said his views had evolved, and he publicly affirmed his personal support for the legalization of same-sex marriage, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to do so.[155][156]
During his second inaugural address on January 21, 2013,[126] Obama called for full equality for gay Americans: "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well." This was a historic moment, being the first time that a president mentioned gay rights or the word "gay" in an inaugural address.[157][158] In 2013 the Obama administration filed briefs which urged the Supreme Court to rule in favor of same-sex couples in the cases of Hollingsworth v. Perry (regarding same-sex marriage)[159] andUnited States v. Windsor (regarding the Defense of Marriage Act).[160]
Economic policy
Main article: Economic policy of Barack Obama
On February 17, 2009, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion economic stimulus package aimed at helping the economy recover from thedeepening worldwide recession.[161] The act includes increased federal spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals,[162] which is being distributed over the course of several years.
In March, Obama's Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, took further steps to manage the financial crisis, including introducing the Public-Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets, which contains provisions for buying up to two trillion dollars in depreciated real estate assets.[163] Obama intervened in the troubled automotive industry[164] in March 2009, renewing loans for General Motors and Chrysler to continue operations while reorganizing. Over the following months the White House set terms for both firms' bankruptcies, including the sale of Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat[165] and a reorganization of GM giving the U.S. government a temporary 60% equity stake in the company, with the Canadian government taking a 12% stake.[166] In June 2009, dissatisfied with the pace of economic stimulus, Obama called on his cabinet to accelerate the investment.[167] He signed into law the Car Allowance Rebate System, known colloquially as "Cash for Clunkers", that temporarily boosted the economy.[168][169][170]
Although spending and loan guarantees from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department authorized by the Bush and Obama administrations totaled about $11.5 trillion, only $3 trillion had been spent by the end of November 2009.[171] However, Obama and the Congressional Budget Office predicted that the 2010 budget deficit will be $1.5 trillion or 10.6% of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) compared to the 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion or 9.9% of GDP.[172][173] For 2011, the administration predicted the deficit will slightly shrink to $1.34 trillion, while the 10-year deficit will increase to $8.53 trillion or 90% of GDP.[174] The most recent increase in the U.S. debt ceiling to $16.4 trillion was signed into law on January 26, 2012.[175] On August 2, 2011, after a lengthy congressional debate over whether to raise the nation's debt limit, Obama signed the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011. The legislation enforces limits on discretionary spending until 2021, establishes a procedure to increase the debt limit, creates a Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to propose further deficit reduction with a stated goal of achieving at least $1.5 trillion in budgetary savings over 10 years, and establishes automatic procedures for reducing spending by as much as $1.2 trillion if legislation originating with the new joint select committee does not achieve such savings.[176] By passing the legislation, Congress was able to prevent a U.S. government default on its obligations.[177]
As it did throughout 2008, the unemployment rate rose in 2009, reaching a peak in October at 10.0% and averaging 10.0% in the fourth quarter. Following a decrease to 9.7% in the first quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate fell to 9.6% in the second quarter, where it remained for the rest of the year.[180] Between February and December 2010, employment rose by 0.8%, which was less than the average of 1.9% experienced during comparable periods in the past four employment recoveries.[181] By November 2012, the unemployment rate fell to 7.7%,[182] decreasing to 6.7% in the last month of 2013.[183] GDP growth returned in the third quarter of 2009, expanding at a rate of 1.6%, followed by a 5.0% increase in the fourth quarter.[184] Growth continued in 2010, posting an increase of 3.7% in the first quarter, with lesser gains throughout the rest of the year.[184] In July 2010, the Federal Reserve expressed that although economic activity continued to increase, its pace had slowed, and chairman Ben Bernanke stated that the economic outlook was "unusually uncertain".[185] Overall, the economy expanded at a rate of 2.9% in 2010.[186]
The Congressional Budget Office and a broad range of economists credit Obama's stimulus plan for economic growth.[187][188] The CBO released a report stating that the stimulus bill increased employment by 1–2.1 million,[188][189][190][191] while conceding that "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."[187] Although an April 2010 survey of members of the National Association for Business Economics showed an increase in job creation (over a similar January survey) for the first time in two years, 73% of 68 respondents believed that the stimulus bill has had no impact on employment.[192]
Within a month of the 2010 midterm elections, Obama announced a compromise deal with the Congressional Republican leadership that included a temporary, two-year extension of the 2001 and 2003 income tax rates, a one-year payroll tax reduction, continuation of unemployment benefits, and a new rate and exemption amount for estate taxes.[193] The compromise overcame opposition from some in both parties, and the resulting $858 billion Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress before Obama signed it on December 17, 2010.[194]
In December 2013, Obama declared that growing income inequality is a "defining challenge of our time" and called on Congress to bolster the safety net and raise wages. This came on the heels of the nationwide strikes of fast-food workers and Pope Francis criticism of inequality and trickle-down economics.[195]
Environmental policy
In July 2013, Obama expressed reservations and stated he "would reject the Keystone XL pipeline if it increased carbon pollution" or "greenhouse emmisions".[196][197] Obama's advisers called for a halt to petroleum exploration in the Arctic in January 2013.[198]
Gulf of Mexico oil spill
On April 20, 2010, an explosion destroyed an offshore drilling rig at the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, causing a major sustained oil leak. The well's operator, BP, initiated a containment and cleanup plan, and began drilling two relief wells intended to stop the flow. Obama visited the Gulf on May 2 among visits by members of his cabinet, and again on May 28 and June 4. On May 22, he announced a federal investigation and formed a bipartisan commission to recommend new safety standards, after a review by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and concurrent Congressional hearings. On May 27, he announced a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling permits and leases, pending regulatory review.[199] As multiple efforts by BP failed, some in the media and public expressed confusion and criticism over various aspects of the incident, and stated a desire for more involvement by Obama and the
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