Barack Obama – A Great Leader or just a Great Orator?

“I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.”

-          Barack Obama

What’s common among today’s Lawyers and Presidents? The answer is that they are both required to be good speakers. This must be the reason why India’s current, as well as former President, were both holders of degrees in Law. This principle applies to Western Countries as well, such as the U.S. where Barack Obama had wooed his way into the Presidential Office in 2009.

Admittedly, Obama took office at a time when America was suffering a Great Recession, with businesses laying off employs on a large scale, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But that was over three years ago. As the new president, and with the aid of a firm Democratic Congress, Obama gave U.S. a variety of promises, which till date remain unfulfilled. Several of his policies have turned out to be futile. In the face of overwhelming public opposition, Barack Obama’s health care reform legislation symbolizes the largest expansion of government authority in over 70 years, and is a important step towards a government-run health care system. He proposed an expansion of health insurance coverage to cover the uninsured, to cap premium increases, and to allow people to retain their coverage when they leave or change jobs. His proposal was to spend $900 billion over 10 years and include a government insurance plan, also known as the public option, to compete with the corporate insurance sector as a main component to lowering costs and improving quality of health care. [1]It would also make it illegal for insurers to drop sick people or deny them coverage for pre-existing conditions, and require every American carry health coverage. The plan also includes medical spending cuts and taxes on insurance companies that offer expensive plans. On June 28, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled by a 5–4 vote in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius that the Commerce Clause does not allow the government to require people to buy health insurance, but the mandate was constitutional under the US Congress's taxing authority.

Is the Decline of the West Inevitable?

Summary
There has been a drop in the GDP of western countries and a rise in that of eastern countries. The West will inevitably decline in the future. However, this will probably not happen any time soon as eastern countries are still dependent on the west for trade and employment purposes.

Introduction

Ever since the release of the late Oswald Spengler’s double volume book ‘The Decline of The West’, economists, political thinkers and leaders have been debating if Spengler’s predictions may come true. The West is usually defined as Oceania, North America, Europe and Israel, with the Post-Soviet World and Latin America having the possibility of becoming Western. Although initially regarded as a pessimist, comparison of recent trends in the economic, political and social conditions of the West to that of the east have given rise to a genuine concern about Spengler’s theory of the decline of the West.