On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States.
Shortly after assuming office, Obama rolled up his sleeves and got to work with the hopes of rectifying a plethora of problems plaguing the country, among them: A precarious economic state, two stalling wars, an unsustainable health care system and a financial system being upended by greed and expedience.
The first item on Obama's agenda was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009--better known as the "Stimulus Bill"--which sought to accomplish a number of things, including:
* Offsetting low consumer spending with domestic expenditures, in the form of capital improvements, the expansion of unemployment benefits and infrastructure advancement.
* Federal tax cuts for ALL Americans, with the largest beneficiaries being those individuals making <$70,000 or couples making <$140,00.
* Monies allotted to the preservation of numerous social welfare programs including Medicaid and Social Security.
Altogether, the bill accrued a total of $787 billion dollars. While the number may seem like a lofty one, it's not radical. The bill was an exhibition of "deficit spending," an economic policy in which the government borrows from itself (thus, creating a deficit) and channels the loaned funds into the economy. Typically, this is performed when consumer perception of the economy is alarmingly bleek. To compensate for the lack of cash flow in the economy, the government takes it upon itself to act as an intermediary between businesses and the consumer.
Typically, there are only two viable options to remedy an economic downturn: cut taxes or increase spending. The bill passed in Congress was a hybrid of both, with $288 billion of the total cost being in the form of tax cuts. Most economists hailed the bill as a step in the right direction, although many offered the caveat that a bill that exercises "deficit spending" should be sweeping. Nonetheless, preliminary reports showed that the bill did, in fact, work--although it wasn't as effective as it could have been had it been larger in scope.
However, not everyone was on the side of the president and many people dismissed the bill as a pork-laden waste of time . The bill received virtually NO Republican support in Congress and, soon, "socialism," "communism" and "anti-American" were thrown into the public discourse.
Members of the right had stamped the bill a "government takeover." To them, The United States--as we know it--was on the precipice of destruction.
Before Barack Obama even hovered his pen over the bill to authorize it, the rumblings had turned into a roar. The inception of the TEA Party Movement was upon us.
(Coming soon: Part two)
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