>>As for the national debt, yeah, it would be nice to lower it, but it's not the most pressing issue by any means. And the deficit has gone down each year since 2009 (which was, of course, exceptional, because of the downturn that began in 2008).
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>And you can actually thank the Republicans for some of that (budget deficit going down) :)
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>>Over the years, you've liked to blame Obama for high gas prices. I note that you have nothing to say about that now that they're low again.
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>Note that they only began to drop a few months AFTER the 2012 election.
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>>Yes, the recovery has been slow. It would have been faster if the Republican-majority Congress had been willing to do the things governments normally do to get out of a recession, but instead they decided to cut government workers.
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>Curious about this one - what *should* governments do to get out of a recession?
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Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Get people to work doing things that benefit the public in the long run.

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>>I also judge things other than the economy. I see a more diverse federal bench. I see increased equality for LGBT folks. I see a lot of people with health insurance who didn't have it before. (And yeah, it could better if Congress hadn't obstructed fixing the initial flaws in the program.)
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>More and more, I see a politically-changed federal bureaucracy .
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Yeah. That's after years and years of putting lots of way right folks on the bench. About time to get some balance.

>And regarding health insurance, this administration has tried to deceive the country into thinking that the sheer # of enrollments is somehow a validation of ACA. First, the enrollment numbers continue to grossly under-perform projections. Second, the ACA impact has been disastrous (hugely narrowed networks, organizations pulling out, increased premiums in many states, co-ops falling apart...)

As I said to Marcia, we could have done better. I'd still prefer single-payer.

Tamar