Responding to a friend’s letter

Dear Editor,

Michaeleen Moffit, a friend of mine, asked me last week through the Pilot’s “Letter to the Editor” what I think President Obama has accomplished in his first year.

Here are a few accomplishments as I see them.

When the President was elected the financial organization of the world was in a death spiral downward. The result was a crashing of the world economy and a destruction of banking and monetary structure as we knew it. (That included myself watching my life’s savings plunge nearly 50%.)

There were very few quality ideas on how to hold off a second Great Depression. I will agree it has been messy but the fact is that the President executed a plan that stabilized the banks and industry areas to give us time to work out solutions.

That was absolutely imperative even before any efforts related to building jobs.

It appears to have worked because signs are beginning to show that this will likely be a shorter economical downturn than we thought.

I must say that is quite an accomplishment for the President’s team in one year. He adjusted to the move into a new job and also geared up for the very first task of stopping utter financial failure.

I don’t even have the boxes of a move put away in one year.

After that, the President went to the tasks we actually elected him to do. He took the risk of being only a four year president and developed a plan to make healthcare more affordable.

Warts and all, if passed, it will set a base to include many more citizens and begin the long process of wrestling with special interests and reducing costs over time helping us all. One and 1/2 billion dollars have been spent to gut any plan of any kind from being passed this last year.

Merit must be given for the very difficult efforts to push Congress to do their job and hash out the plan, thus, accomplishing what he was asked to do.

Next the Administration is busy shifting troops out of Iraq, as he promised, and beefing up our strategy in Afghanistan knowing that those efforts were our central focus since the beginning.

That is what many of us asked the President to accomplish. You mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Committee clearly thought that the President should be honored for putting into words and every interaction a willingness to increase prosperity and safety. That also includes the world as being important and ways to work to reduce conflict.

His policy shows a strong commitment to create a platform for more dialogue and diplomacy in a tryingly complex world to reduce combating forces.

The Nobel Prize is a great honor for us all. It can help each of us stay focused on increasing our own peaceful interactions.

It certainly inspired me to increase my efforts because I believe strongly in the power of words. Great speakers have inspired the world to do better.

A complex world requires a complex speaker and thinker and I am glad that we have one for the country that is admired around the world. That is quite an accomplishment.

But, as you know Michaeleen, there is something more dear to my heart even than the above. That is freeing ourselves from so much dependence on fossil fuels.

In this area, he started out by just enforcing the laws that we had regarding protecting citizen’s health and the environment.

He is reviewing many neglected policies and focusing on more sustainable living.

He wants energy that moves us thru the 21st Century, with the environment more safeguarded and better international relationships making this happen.

That is huge and very hard. For a task that will take years, just starting it is an accomplishment. He also has focused more money and efforts on education and science to keep us creating alternatives to fossil fuel expansion to sustain the future.

We can either lead or follow. I could write many pages on these accomplishments and what it already will mean years down the road for peace and prosperity.

There is no perfect execution of ideas but when one cuts thru all of the “noise” the President has been busy. (All of this, with so many organized just to block any efforts a democrat might have.)

It has only been about 365 days, one year, and what a year it has been. Now, I’m really glad you asked me about the first year’s accomplishments of the President and his team and I only could list a few!

Let’s have lunch and talk about some more.

Carol Price

Tool, Texas