| NightDragon83 said: I understand plenty. During the Bush administration, Obama and the Democrats railed against The Patriot Act, Gitmo, and "tax cuts for the rich", and when he was campaigning, Obama vowed to end all of these. As President, the first thing Obama did was sign a symbolic order to "close" Gitmo, but then quickly realised that oh shit, no other country wants to take these guys back, and we can't bring them to the US and put them in with the general polulation, so here we are 5 years later and Gitmo is still open after Obama got hit with a cold hard splash of reality. Second, many of the key provisions in the Patriot Act that Bush signed into law had "sunset" expiration dates. As President, Obama signed the "Patriot Sunset Extension Act" in 2011 which extended wiretapping, business record searching, and expanded surveilance on "lone wolves" and other suspected operatives in the US. And third, the so-called "Bush tax cuts", which also had sunset provisions built into them, were extended TWICE by Obama, and are now permanent for anyone making under $400,000 or couples making $450,000 per year, which is 98% of the country. |
Perfect, so what you are saying is that when a President is on the campaign trail they make statements until they actually get into office and find out things are much more complex. Also as President, if you want things to get done, you have to pick your battle and maybe even give up something to get something. As the link provided by another poster shows on the tax cuts. Republicans wanted some stuff and Obama wanted some stuff, they were able to come to some type of agreement which provided both parties to be happy. A President is like a basketball coach. Most times you get all the blame when things do not go right but the players get all the fame when it does.
