As with most two-term administrations, numerous changes occurred in the cabinet and White House staff as Obama began his second term. In , Obama chose Senator John F. Greater instability attended the position of secretary of defense. In , Holder stepped down as attorney general and was replaced by Loretta Lynch. In other cabinet positions, John Bryson became secretary of commerce in , when Gary Locke stepped down, and Penny Pritzker replaced Bryson in As secretary of the interior, Sally Jewell replaced Ken Salazar in , and as secretary of health and human services, Sylvia Mathews Burwell replaced Kathleen Sibelius in In the three most recently created departments, John B.
King Jr. Historically, long tenure as head of an executive department has been the exception, not the rule. The same pattern applied to leading positions in the White House staff and the executive office of the president.
Obama had four chiefs of staff, replacing Rahm Emanuel with William Daley and Daley with Jack Lew during his first term before settling on deputy national security adviser Dennis McDonough as chief of staff for the entire second term. Three individuals served as national security adviser: James Jones , Tom Donilon , and Susan Rice As White House press secretary, perhaps the most public staff positions, Obama was served by Robert Gibbs , Jay Carney , and Josh Earnest On January 20, , Obama delivered his second Inaugural Address.
It was traditional in some ways and innovative in others. Like most such addresses, he struck unifying themes grounded in the American experience. Among the issues he raised were climate change, same-sex marriage, and health care reform. The unifying theme of the address was that policies such as these would help to fulfill the ideals stated in the Declaration. In his February 12, , State of the Union address, Obama elaborated on the agenda that he offered at the inauguration, while also calling for greater federal support for early childhood education, immigration reform to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, an increase in the minimum wage, and new gun control legislation.
The last of these issues had taken on special urgency after December 14, , when a gunman shot and killed twenty school children and six teachers and staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. As in the past, Republicans in Congress, along with some Democrats from generally rural pro-gun states, thwarted passage of any gun control legislation.
Congressional resistance to new gun control laws persisted after several subsequent mass shootings, including the slaying of nine worshippers at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, Obama wanted Congress to forestall the scheduled sequester by raising taxes and making targeted cuts in spending.
Sequestration nevertheless took effect on March 1 as scheduled. In October , the government shut down for two weeks when Congress and the president were unable to agree on a budget. Later that year, they reached a compromise agreement that suspended sequestration for the foreseeable future. Congressional Republicans were loath to pass nearly all of the legislation the president wanted. In , a bipartisan majority of the Senate passed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act—an immigration reform bill creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants—by a vote of 68 to The bill died when Republican conservatives in the House, responding to growing grassroots anti-immigration pressure from their constituents, refused to bring it to the floor.
Obama turned to executive action in an effort to achieve some of the immigrations reforms he had not been able to obtain through the legislative process. United States. In June , the Supreme Court deadlocked in an appeal of the ruling, which left it in place. An earlier Obama initiative—DACA, or Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals—remained in effect, however, allowing certain classes of minors who arrived in the United States illegally to stay in the country.
Obama used the veto power sparingly but effectively. He vetoed twelve bills passed by Congress during his eight years as president, including bills to overturn the Affordable Care Act and to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Congress overrode only one of his vetoes, a measure to allow victims of terrorist acts to sue countries that supported the acts.
Equally important, veto threats by the president kept Congress from passing other measures of which he disapproved, or at least modifying them in ways that made them acceptable for him to sign. He issued pardons and commuted 1, sentences, more than the previous thirteen presidents combined.
Most of these acts of clemency were on behalf of individuals who had been sentenced to very long sentences for committing federal drug crimes. Under President Obama, Made-in-America exports have hit record-breaking levels for the last 5 consecutive years, and those exports now support an all-time high of These 21 st century trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, will open vital markets for our exporters, support jobs, level the playing field for our workers with groundbreaking labor standards, and enhance American competitiveness by shaping globalization in a way that builds on our strengths in the global economy.
And if trade agreements with high standards are to deliver their maximum benefits to American families, then it is imperative that the United States government vigilantly monitors and enforces them. To that end, with bipartisan support, the Obama Administration has executed the most robust upgrade of United States trade enforcement in the history of modern trade policy. The result has been an unprecedented record of enforcement victories against countries ranging from China to India to Indonesia to Argentina.
Those enforcement victories have been worth billions of dollars to American workers, businesses and farmers — and every billion dollars of American goods and services exports supports nearly 5, jobs. This takes on even greater meaning once we have finalized cutting-edge new trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that play to American advantages and contain the strongest labor and environmental standards in history.
For example:. Presidential Safeguard Action on Tires from China: In September , President Obama directed the imposition for three years of additional tariffs to stop a harmful surge of imports of Chinese tires for passenger cars and light trucks. What is a little rain between friends?
I am very glad to come to Cincinnati. I am very glad this morning to have seen some of the work with which the Federal Government has been able to help, first that slum clearance project, and then the bridge, and now this stadium. I think all of you understand why the Federal Government has helped in work of this kind. In the first place, as we all know, we had an unemployment situation three years ago which was so imperative to remedy that we simply had to put people to work. Then came the question of finding the best kind of work for them, and that was put up to the localities.
The communities-the cities and counties-throughout the United States told us what they most needed. And so the great bulk of the money that has been spent to give people jobs has been usefully spent, and spent at the request and upon the suggestion of the different States and municipalities of the Nation.
You know, I am sure, that this has aided very much in the national recovery which we have had during the past three years. Note: Make sure to check out our new Summer of Recovery map of the country that shows the jobs that have been saved or created in every state across the country, and which we will be updating with local stories throughout the summer. Citizens can even let us know if they see stories in their local news we should add.
Scroll around and dig in. Welcome, everyone, to the Summer of Recovery! And what better way to kick off a season of renewed American infrastructure and good-paying American jobs than to have the honor of joining President Obama in Columbus, Ohio.
Together, we celebrated the groundbreaking of the 10,th roadway project underway thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Now, 10, road projects underway from a single stimulus--that's an accomplishment right there.
But how about the fact that DOT helped get all of those projects underway in just the 16 months since President Obama signed the Recovery Act into law? And, let's remember that every single one of those projects creates many, many job opportunities--with some single projects employing thousands.
0コメント