A Progressive case against Obama

despite the heated tone of Obama defenses, not one person disputed the underlying factual basis of my argument:

1) Under Barack Obama, economic inequality in terms of income growth has skyrocketed to historically high levels. After I published my piece, Ian Welsh buttressed these claims, pointing me to this St. Louis Federal Reserve chart of the Gini coefficient (see below, JMM), a measurement of inequality. Labor as a share of GDP is at a historically low level. And this is in spite of a different trend line when Obama took office – during the crisis, inequality was actually collapsing. Obama reversed this trend, restoring Bush’s unequal America, and then going beyond it.

2) Under Barack Obama, there has been a massive foreclosure crisis, with a policy response that was intentionally ineffective. Meanwhile, corporate profits have rebounded, while home equity levels (which can rebound through increased home values or debt write-offs), have not.

3) These shifts largely occurred when Barack Obama’s party controlled Congress, from 2009-2010.

4) The American energy system is turning us towards a petro-state, with investment in mining (fracking, tar sands and dirty oil, coal, etc) nearly equal to investment in manufacturing.

5) Obama broke a significant number of campaign promises from 2008, promises that would have secured bargaining leverage for debtors and labor. These included : a higher minimum wage, a ban on the replacement of striking workers, seven days of paid sick leave, a more diverse media ownership structure, renegotiation of NAFTA, letting bankruptcy judges write down mortgage debt, a ban on illegal wiretaps, an end to national security letters, stopping the war on whistle-blowers, passing the Employee Free Choice Act, restoring habeas corpus, and labor protections in the FAA bill…

via Why is the left defending Obama? – Salon.com.