Do you people even know the powers that the President has? Damn, it seems the average American has no clue what the President can and can not do. Most assume his powers are almost monarch like in the first place.
For those that need a refresher:
1) Recognizing, receiving, sending, and hob nobbing with foreign dignitaries. The Pres is the face to the world.
2) Applying executive orders. These are writs that become law, but ONLY can affect federal agencies. No executive order has any direct affect on the common man.
3) Preparing a budget. The President writes out a budget plan and then it must be approved by congress.
4) Making legislative suggestions to Congress. The President has no power to create laws that affect everyone in the nation. NONE what so ever. He can submit suggestions to Congress, but he can not create laws. Congress creates laws.
5) Veto power. Laws created by Congress he has to approve before they are enacted. He can rubber stamp any law and give his blessing or he can use his Veto power. The Veto does not stop a law, but it sends it back to the drawing board. It is basically the power for the President to tell Congress that he doesn't like the law so they should redo it until he likes it. The Veto can delay laws from being enacted, but in the long run if Congress really wants to pass a law then there is nothing the President can really do to stop it.
That's pretty much it. His major powers are regulating federal agencies such as the military, FBI, CIA, and others like that. While he can regulated them, he can't create them or their mission really. That is what congress does. Sure the president is influential though and can lean on Congress to see things his or her way. That doesn't mean it will always work though as we've seen.
Basically the only real piece of Legislation that Obama has proposed was the Health care reform. That was his major campaign principle to get through and he sort of did. I wanted health care reform, and we didn't quite get that. I can't put all the blame on the Pres because there are too many fucktards in Congress that screwed up the legislation for their own agendas. He tried, but came short of his goal in my opinion. I would also have liked to see him at least pull all troops out of the ME. This is a bit of a disappointment for me that he hasn't yet, but I can see his logic for not doing so yet.
People around here get so wound up over this crap it is mind boggling. I didn't like Bush for example because of his abusive use of the military in starting wars that were not needed. I didn't like some of his executive orders such as expanding the patriot act either. I didn't like his budget plans of major tax cuts to the rich. In short, I didn't like what he did with his powers and put America in the crap we are in today. Still, you didn't see me making 5 or more posts per day of me lamenting the failings of Bush. Nor did I make tons of vitriolic posts about hi-jinks.
For Obama, I'm not sure I like his budget plans yet, but letting the bush tax cuts expire is good. His budget for the craptacular health care reform bill as it stands has yet to be played out so I can not comment on this. I would like to see him try to get us out of the economic downward spiral we've hit, but I'm a realist and know at this point it is going to take longer than he can be in office because of the bungling from Bush on the budget and wars. As for jobs, why does everyone insist that it is the Presidents job to create jobs for everyone? People should get off their fat lazy asses and find or create their own jobs. This is one thing I can not understand that people push blame on him for.