What would you add or remove from this list?
As the first African-American elected President of the United States, Barack Obama became a pivotal figure in American history even before his inauguration. But after winning a second term in 2012, his achievements in office have made him one of the most transformative presidents of the past hundred years.
He took office with a country in peril and led it through the Great Recession, two wars, civil unrest, a rash of mass shootings, and changing cultural demographics. In the 2008 campaign he called for change and eight years later we are living in a more prosperous country because of it.
Here are 28 of President Obama's biggest accomplishments as President of the United States.
1 – Rescued the country from the Great Recession, cutting the unemployment rate from 10% to 4.7% over six years
2 – Signed the Affordable Care Act which provided health insurance to over 20 million uninsured Americans
3 – Ended the war in Iraq
4 – Ordered for the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden
5 – Passed the $787 billion America Recovery and Reinvestment Act to spur economic growth during the Great Recession
6 – Supported the LGBT community's fight for marriage equality
7 – Commuted the sentences of nearly 1200 drug offenders to reverse “unjust and outdated prison sentences"
8 – Saved the U.S. auto industry
9 – Helped put the U.S. ontrack for energy independence by 2020
10 – Began the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan
11 – Signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals allowing as many as 5 million people living in the U.S. illegally to avoid deportation and receive work permits
12 –Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to re-regulate the financial sector
13 – Dropped the veteran homeless rate by 50 percent
14 – Reversed Bush-era torture policies
15 – Began the process of normalizing relations with Cuba
16 – Increased Department of Veteran Affairs funding
17 – Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act
18 – Boosted fuel efficiency standards for cars
19 – Improved school nutrition with the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act
20 – Repealed the military's “Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy
21 – Signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, making it a federal crime to assault anyone based on sexual or gender identification
22 – Helped negotiate the landmark Iran Nuclear Deal
23 – He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to combat pay discrimination against women
24 – Nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, making her the first Hispanic ever to serve as a justice
25 – Supported veterans through a $78 billion tuition assistance GI bill
26 – Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"
27 – Launched My Brother's Keeper, a White House initiative designed to help young minorities achieve their full potential
28 – Expanded embryonic stem cell research leading to groundbreaking work in areas including spinal injury treatment and cancer
This article originally appeared on 09.12.18
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