President Barack Hussein Obama, Research Paper Example

In 2008, the United States and the world saw an unprecedented historical event occur that would forever change the face of racial and political relations.  Barack Obama became the first African American presidential candidate to be elected to the illustrious office and serve as the 44^th President in the United States.  This would forever be sketched into the history of the United States of America. His family background and career prior to becoming President of the United States is quite intriguing and each play a crucial role in his political achievements as well as his goals for the future of the country and the presidency.  President Obama continues to focus on building upon his achievements and create a better present and future for the American people in all areas of their lives.

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. was born on August 4, 1961 to Barack Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham in Honolulu, Hawaii.  His mother grew up in Wichita, Kansas until the attack on Pearl Harbor enticed her father to enlist in the military, which forced the family to move around quite a bit during the ongoing years.  However, the family eventually settled in Hawaii. Barack Obama, Sr. grew up in Africa as a goat herder and eventually earned a scholarship to study abroad at the University of Hawaii, where he met Dunham who was also studying there.  Obama, Sr. passed away when future President Obama was only 22-years-old.  However, he had not been with the family for several years before his passing due to his parents’ divorce.  Obama was able to study at the prestigious Ponahou Academy where he played basketball and excelled academically as an honors graduate.  He eventually graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Political Science in 1983.  In 1991 Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, the same school that his father had attended decades earlier.  While working as a civil rights lawyer and professor at the University of Chicago, Obama also became politically active working with voter registration efforts during the 1992 Clinton race.  It was through this political action that Obama eventually ran for office in the Illinois state Senate and served as a senator prior to running for president.

As President of the United States, Barack Obama has enacted three main laws that have been written and designed to improve the quality of life within the country for individuals of all backgrounds.  For instance, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was instituted in order to help the struggling economy and American households to have more financial resources available.  This law created a working tax credit to be paid to individuals that are working.  It also provided $250 for social security recipients, veterans and retirees from the railroad annually.  Among other things, the act also created more cash back on first time automobile purchases and well as increased first-time home buyers’ credit to allow individuals the ability for credit-related financing as well as to improve the purchase rates that had been drastically decreasing since economy had entered the recession.

The Obama administration also made a very serious push the enact the Public-Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets.  The federal government instituted this bill to provide for a more effective process for obtaining and monitoring the legacy loans for real estate.  The government has “been working jointly to put in place the operational structure for these programs, including setting guidelines to ensure that the taxpayer is adequately protected, addressing compensation matters, setting program participation limits, and establishing stringent conflict of interest rules and procedures” (FinancialStability.gov).  This bill came out of the necessity of the recession that coincided with banks tightening their loan restrictions and eliminating most of the loan applications.  These applications were being denied because the economy had shown a steady pattern of delinquent loans being disbursed and hundreds of banks threatened bankruptcy due to this issue.  The act provided a set of standards and guidelines for distributing funds to legal loan applicants as well as to judge the affordability of a loan venture for individuals with a hazy credit history.

The last major act that has been enacted by the Obama administration comes in the form of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).  “This program is designed to provide health insurance coverage to low income children who are uninsured and 18 years of age or younger.  This program may be useful for low-income families who are homeless, or children who are homeless, uninsured, and 18 years of age or younger” (CMS.gov).  While the government has recognized that health care benefits are crucial for a high quality of life in the United States, the Obama administration proposed the SCHIP program to provide health insurance coverage to children based on need.  The SCHIP program does not replace a parent’s current health insurance policy, but it simply provides another viable option for children to receive coverage.  Overall, the SCHIP program is very beneficial for individuals that do not work positions that offer health insurance through the company or for children and families where there is reasonable evidence that health insurance is not affordable.  This provides the ability for children and families to be covered under a government-sponsored health insurance program so that these individuals may receive the health care they need.

While the President has been very successful with these strong accomplishments, he continues to work to implement future goals for policy development and military action for the United States.  First of all, Obama has maintained a strict goal of drastically removing the number of American troops that are currently deployed within the Middle East, specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This was one of the major campaign issues that Obama and Hilary Clinton focused on during the 2008 presidential election, and some individuals may argue that this was the issue that ultimately won Obama the election.  In the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency, he committed an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan.  This raised much controversy over the president’s original campaign promises and stance on foreign military policy.  However, Obama took action to set an August 2010 deadline for the removal of American troops from Iraq (Biography.com).  The President has also proposed the national health care bill that is currently in the news and awaits a massive health insurance program funded by the federal government that will build upon the current Medicare and Medicaid programs to provide health insurance coverage to anyone that is not currently covered.  This bill is currently awaiting the Congressional vote that will take place on Sunday, March 21, 2010.  Finally, the president has also explained that he hopes to reduce the poverty rate for American citizens by at least one-third by the year 2016 (Biography.com). These goals are very lofty and show that President Obama not only has an eye on the present, but is also taking great steps to prepare this country for a prosperous future.

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. continues to serve as the President of the United States and one of the best contemporary political leaders that work in politics today.  He has not only become a strong leader for the American people and changed the racial stereotypes of the office of the President forever, but he also has worked to improve foreign relations and use his power as President to become a strong world leader as well.  Much of this stems from his family background specifically with his father being born and raised in Africa.  His previous experiences have made Barack Obama into the strong leader that he is today and he has proven that he is exactly the leader that this country needs in order to build up this country and take the United States into the future.

References

Biography.com. “Barack Obama – Biography.” Biography.com. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. <http://www.biography.com/articles/Barack-Obama-12782369?part=0>.

CMS.gov. “An Introduction to State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).” Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. <http://ww.cms.gov/apps/firststep/content/schiptips.html>.

FinancialStability.gov. “U.S. Department of the Treasury.” FinancialStability.gov | U.S. Department of the Treasury. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. <http://www.financialstability.gov/latest/tg_07082009.html>.

IRS.gov. “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Information Center.” Internal Revenue Service. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. <http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=204335,00.html>.