Nancy LeTourneau at the Political Animal blog has a useful post on the topic here: http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/01/20/a-snapshot-of-americas-performance-on-trumps-first-day/
It includes this summary of a few of the metrics the Trump Administration will inherit:
Unemployment rate: 4.7%For a brief retrospective on Obama's presidency, there's this post from Kevin Drum blogging at Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/thanks-everything-president-obama-were-going-miss-you His top 10 list includes:
Underemployment rate: 9.2%
Labor Force Participation Rate: 62.7%
Federal deficit: 3.2% of GDP
Dow Jones: 19,732
Uninsured rate: 9%
Medicare is projected to be solvent until 2028
Number of troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria: 14,700 (6,000/8,400/300)
Affordable Care ActNow for a first pass at Trump Administration "take aways". Number one is the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and its protections. Info on Trump's executive order here: http://www.vox.com/2017/1/20/14343332/trump-obamacare-executive-order
Stimulus package
Climate actions: Paris agreement, EPA power plant standards, auto mileage standards, etc.
Dodd-Frank financial reform
Iran nuclear treaty
Killed Osama bin Laden
Allowed gays to serve openly in the military
New START treaty
Delivered 74 consecutive months of job growth
Declined to get seriously involved in Syria
And yet another executive order hits the middle class in the pocket book - rescinding help with mortgages: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2017/01/breaking-reduction-of-fha-annual.html
On plans to cut government spending, from Kevin Drum again: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/report-trump-team-wants-slash-social-security-medicare-medicaid-and-pretty-much-e Here's a snippet:
So there you have it. Slash a bunch of hippy-dippy stuff (clean energy, water conservation, transit, climate); some employment stuff (jobs programs, Davis-Bacon); and military health care spending. Then take a meat axe to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and everything else, and you're done! Piece of cake.Also on the chopping block, jobs in the humanities, arts, and public broadcasting. Check out this post on Talking Points Memo: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-team-budget-cuts
For perspective, this 2014 article lists 10 countries that even then were way ahead of the US in support of the arts: http://www.alternet.org/culture/culturally-impoverished-us-nea-spends-140th-what-germany-doles-out-arts-capita
It's hard to see how these cuts will "make America great".
