- The American Revolution and the early federal republic
- The transformation of American society, 1865–1900
- Imperialism, the Progressive era, and the rise to world power, 1896–1920
The 2010 midterm elections
News •
As the economy continued to struggle and as high levels of unemployment and underemployment persisted, much of the American electorate was commonly characterized as angry. The groundswell of opposition to the policies of the Obama administration and to “big government” that had given birth to the Tea Party movement took on an anti-Washington, anti-incumbent cast. This had an impact not only on Democrats but on Republicans too, as a raft of conservative candidates with Tea Party associations triumphed over candidates favored by the Republican Party establishment in primary contests for the November 2010 midterm congressional election. In the 2010 general election, however, Tea Party candidates had mixed success, but the Republican Party as a whole experienced a dramatic resurgence, recapturing leadership of the House with a gain of some 60 seats (the biggest swing since 1948) and reducing but not overturning the Democrats’ Senate majority.
The weekend before voters went to the polls, the election had been replaced in the headlines by the foiling of another terrorist bombing attempt, this time involving explosive devices that were intercepted en route via air from Yemen to two Chicago-area synagogues. It was believed that the devices may have been intended to explode while still in flight.
WikiLeaks, the “Afghan War Diary,” and the “Iraq War Log”
Later in November 2010, the administration was stung by the third major release that year of classified documents by the Web site WikiLeaks. In July and October several periodicals, including The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian, had published secret documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, collectively known as the “Afghan War Diary” and the “Iraq War Log,” respectively. In both cases, the material was mainly in the form of raw intelligence gathered between 2004 and 2009. In general, the information added detail but few new revelations to what was already known and did not radically change the public understanding of either war. Nevertheless, the Obama administration condemned its release as a security breach that would set back U.S. efforts in the region and endanger the lives of military personnel and the lives of Iraqis and Afghans who had cooperated with the U.S. military. The administration was also quick to criticize WikiLeaks’ November release of documents, this time comprising some 250,000 diplomatic cables between the U.S. State Department and its embassies and consulates throughout the world, dating mostly from 2007 to 2010 but including some dating back as far as 1966. Among the wide-ranging topics covered in these secret documents were behind-the-scenes U.S. efforts to politically and economically isolate Iran, primarily in response to fears of Iran’s development of nuclear weapons—fears that were revealed to encompass Saudi Arabia’s and Bahrain’s emphatic opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran.
The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the ratification of START, and the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Against this backdrop, the lame-duck Congress looked ready to move toward the end of its session with legislative gridlock firmly in place. However, the Obama administration and the Republicans were able to forge compromises on several significant pieces of legislation. When the administration proposed extending the Bush tax cuts for another two years, Republicans responded by supporting an extension of unemployment benefits. Several Senate Republicans also joined Democrats to enable the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that had prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, and legislation was enacted that extended medical benefits to first responders to the September 11 attacks. The Senate also ratified a new Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) treaty with Russia, capping what was one of the most productive legislative periods in recent memory and in the process helping boost Obama’s popularity. When a gunman killed six people and critically wounded Gabrielle Giffords, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, as she met with constituents in Tucson, Arizona, on January 8, 2011, however, there was a renewed national discussion about the vehemence of political polarization in the United States.
Budget compromise
That polarization remained at the fore as the new Republican majority in the House locked heads with the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Obama administration over the federal budget for fiscal year 2011. Unable to agree on that budget, the previous Congress, in October 2010, had passed the first in a series of stopgap measures to keep the federal government operating until agreement could be reached on a long-term budget. Both Republicans and Democrats believed that reductions to the budget were necessary in response to the federal government’s soaring deficit; however, they disagreed vehemently on the extent, targets, and timing of budget cuts. House Republicans upped the political ante when they announced that they would not vote for another temporary budget and demanded deep reductions. The threat of a shutdown of all but essential services of the federal government came within a few hours of being realized, but on April 8, 2011, an agreement was reached that resulted in passage a week later by both the House (260–167) and the Senate (81–19) of a compromise budget for the remainder of the fiscal year that cut $38 billion in federal spending. Neither side was completely satisfied, and a large number of Republicans, many of whom had come into office as part of the wave of Tea Party opposition to big government, chose not to vote with the majority of their party in support of the compromise. Democrats and Republicans were also engaged in dramatic ideological battle on the state level, perhaps most notably in Wisconsin and Indiana, where collective bargaining for state employees and the role of unions were at issue.
The Arab Spring, intervention in Libya, and the killing of Osama bin Laden
American foreign policy was tested by the huge changes that were taking place early in 2011 in the Middle East, where popular uprisings led to regime change in Tunisia (see Jasmine Revolution) and Egypt (see Egypt Uprising of 2011) and to widespread demonstrations aimed at achieving government reform throughout the region. Collectively, these events would become known as the “Arab Spring.” When Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi brutally turned the considerable forces of his military on those rebelling against his rule (see Libya Revolt of 2011), a coalition of U.S. and European forces sought to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe by intervening militarily with warplanes and cruise missiles. On March 27, as the conflict continued, the United States handed over the primary leadership of the effort to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
At the end of April the southeastern United States, especially Alabama, was ravaged by a rash of destructive tornadoes and severe storms that left more than 300 dead (see Super Outbreak of 2011).
On May 1 Obama made a dramatic late-night television appearance to announce that U.S. special forces had killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks of 2001, in a firefight at a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. U.S. forces took custody of the body, confirmed bin Laden’s identity through DNA testing, and buried his body at sea.
The debt ceiling debate
In the spring and summer of 2011, the national government faced the possibility of default on the public debt and a downgrading of its credit rating unless Democrats and Republicans could agree on whether and how to increase the congressionally mandated national debt ceiling. That ceiling of $14.29 trillion was reached in mid-May, but, by shifting funds, the Treasury Department was able to push out the anticipated deadline for default until August 2. Although the debt ceiling had been raised more than three dozen times since 1980, House Republicans, responding in large measure to Tea Party initiatives, insisted that the ceiling not be raised unless there were commensurate cuts in government spending. Republican proposals called for from $4 trillion to $6.2 trillion in spending cuts, especially to entitlement programs, including radical overhauls of Medicare and Medicaid. While Democrats also advocated spending cuts, they insisted that Medicare and Medicaid be protected, and they proposed tax increases for the wealthiest Americans as well as an end to tax breaks for some corporations, especially oil companies.
The failed “grand bargain”
Efforts at compromise by the leadership of both parties—including closed-door negotiations led by Vice President Biden and a bipartisan attempt by the “Gang of Six” (three senators from each party)—repeatedly collapsed in partisan rancor. In July Obama and Republican Speaker of the House John A. Boehner, meeting privately, nearly reached agreement on a "grand bargain" that would have included trillions in spending cuts, changes to Medicare and Social Security, and tax reform. The deal fell through near the end of the month, however, when the two could not agree on the level of additional tax revenue to be generated. Media reports indicated that Boehner had agreed to tax revenue increases of $800 billion, but, when Obama asked for another $400 billion, Boehner nixed the deal. In any case, many believed that the speaker would have been unable to win sufficient support for the agreement from House Republicans, who remained adamantly opposed to tax hikes and had passed a bill requiring a cap on spending and a balanced budget.
Nevertheless, as the threat of default grew more imminent, there was increasing consensus in both parties that the debt ceiling should be raised. With a broad agreement seemingly out of reach, compromise appeared to hang on whether the ceiling would be increased in one step (which would extend the limit past the 2012 election) or two (which would raise the issue again sooner). Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell proposed a solution that would allow the president to raise the ceiling provided that two-thirds of both houses of Congress did not vote against that action (that is, not enough votes to override a presidential veto). Senate majority leader Harry Reid advanced a bill that removed tax increases from the equation.
Raising the debt ceiling, capping spending, and the efforts of the “super committee”
On July 31, just two days before the deadline, an agreement was reached by the White House and congressional leaders that called for an increase of about $2.4 trillion to the debt ceiling through November 2012, to be imposed in stages. The agreement provided for an immediate increase of $400 billion, with an additional $500 billion to come after September 2011. This combined initial increase of $900 billion would be offset by budget cuts of some $917 billion that would result from an immediate cap on domestic and defense spending. The deal, which did not provide for tax increases, also stipulated that both houses of Congress had to vote on an amendment to the Constitution requiring a balanced budget. The final bill was approved by the House of Representatives by a vote of 269–161 (with centrists from both parties largely voting for it, while many of those farther on the right and left voted against it) and by the Senate by a bipartisan vote of 74–26. Yet despite these efforts, on August 5 Standard & Poor’s, one of the three principal companies that advise investors on debt securities, downgraded the credit rating of the United States from the top level, AAA, to the next level, AA+.
The bill also created a congressional “super committee” tasked with recommending by the end of November 2011 the measures by which an additional $1.2 to $1.5 trillion would be cut from the deficit over a 10-year period. If the committee had agreed on a set of proposals and had those proposals been approved by Congress, the debt ceiling would have been raised by a commensurate amount. In the event, however, the super committee failed to arrive at a consensus plan, which, according to the stipulations of the bill, triggered some $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts (evenly divided between defense and nondefense spending) to be implemented in 2013.
Occupy Wall Street, withdrawal from Iraq, and slow economic recovery
As these events unfolded in the autumn of 2011, another populist movement, this time on the left of the political spectrum, gained steam. Inspired by the mass protests of the Arab Spring and the demonstrations that had occurred in Spain and Greece in response to government austerity measures, a disparate group of protesters calling themselves Occupy Wall Street took up residence in a park near New York City’s financial district to call attention to a list of what they saw as injustices. Among the protesters’ concerns were that the wealthy were not paying what the protesters considered a fair share of income taxes, that more efforts needed to be directed at reducing unemployment, and that major corporations—particularly banks and other financial institutions—needed to be held more accountable for risky practices. The protesters identified themselves as “the 99 percent,” the have-nots who would no longer put up with the corruption and greed that they perceived among “the 1 percent,” the wealthiest Americans. In the succeeding weeks the movement spread to other cities across the country.
As winter approached, the last U.S. troops left Baghdad in December, bringing to a close the Iraq War.
Spring 2012 found the American economic recovery continuing to progress slowly. Many corporations were solidly in the black again, and many of the banks and financial institutions that had been rocked by the collapse of the housing market and by recession had returned to solvency, a number of them having paid back the rescue loans provided by the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. Wages, however, remained largely stagnant, and the housing market, while showing some signs of recovery, was still tottering, with foreclosures widespread and in some places seemingly ubiquitous. Unemployment, which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, had reached 10 percent in October 2009, fell significantly but still remained high at 8.2 percent in May 2012. Nevertheless, the U.S. economy was on more solid footing than Europe’s, which continued to suffer from the euro-zone debt crisis.
Deportation policy changes, the immigration law ruling, and sustaining Obamacare’s “individual mandate”
Immigration policy remained central to the national conversation. In June the Obama administration announced that deportation proceedings would no longer be initiated against illegal immigrants age 30 and younger who had been brought to the United States before age 16, had lived in the country for at least five years, did not have a criminal record or pose a security threat, and were students, veterans, or high-school graduates. Those who qualified received a two-year reprieve from deportation and the opportunity to pursue a work permit.
Also in June, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the provision of Arizona’s controversial 2010 immigration law that required police to check the legal status of anyone they stop for another law enforcement concern if they reasonably suspect that person to be in the United States illegally; however, the court struck down three of the law’s provisions, including one that permitted police to arrest individuals solely on the suspicion of being in the country illegally and another that criminalized undocumented immigrants’ pursuit of employment.
In what some saw as its most important decision since Bush v. Gore in 2000, the Supreme Court at the end of June upheld (5–4) the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, most notably ruling not to strike down the act’s “individual mandate” provision by which Americans were required to obtain health insurance by 2014 or face financial penalties (see Affordable Care Act cases). The decision preserved what was for Obama the signature legislative achievement of the first three years of his presidency.
The 2012 presidential campaign, a fluctuating economy, and the approaching “fiscal cliff”
As the summer progressed, the 2012 presidential campaign heated up. Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, outdistanced a field of competitors that included former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum to gain the Republican nomination. Romney promised to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and pledged to limit government, preserve the Bush-era tax cuts while eliminating tax loopholes, and employ his acumen as a successful businessman to create 12 million new jobs within four years. He staked much of his campaign on his criticism of Obama’s handling of the economy.
After expanding by 4.1 percent in the last quarter of 2011, GDP growth dropped to 2 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, in the first and second quarters of 2012 before rebounding slightly to 2 percent in the third quarter. Unemployment hovered between 8.3 percent and 8.1 percent for most of the year before dropping to 7.8 percent in September, its lowest level since Obama had taken office in January 2009. Obama, who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination, defended his record on the economy, promised to attack the deficit by increasing the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest Americans, and claimed that Romney’s plan for the economy did not add up.
All this unfolded as the country drew closer to the so-called fiscal cliff, the series of economic measures mandated by law to either expire or be enforced at the turn of the new year. They included the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, temporary payroll tax cuts initiated by the Obama administration, and some tax breaks for businesses, along with the automatic application of across-the-board spending cuts to the military and nonmilitary programs required by the Budget Control Act of 2011. There was fear that, absent some compromise, those measures would result in another recession.
The Benghazi attack and Superstorm Sandy
On September 11 the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked, and J. Christopher Stevens, who was serving as U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans were killed. Initially, it was thought that the attack was a spontaneous action by rioters angered by an anti-Islam film made in the United States (demonstrations had already occurred at the U.S. embassy in Cairo and elsewhere), but it soon appeared that the assault was actually a premeditated terrorist attack. The incident became an element of the presidential campaign, with Romney controversially criticizing the level of security at the Benghazi post and the administration’s response to the attack.
In the last week of October, during the final run-up to the election, a huge area of the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic states was pummeled by a powerful superstorm, Sandy, that resulted from the convergence of a category 1 hurricane that swept up from the Caribbean and made landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey, and a cold front that descended from the north. New Jersey and New York were arguably the areas hardest hit by Sandy, as tidal surges flooded beach communities and portions of Lower Manhattan. More than 110 people died in the United States as a result of the storm, which left an enormous path of destruction and millions without power.
Second Term
The 2012 election
In the November 6 election, Obama captured a second term, narrowly winning the national popular vote and triumphing in the Electoral College by holding off Romney’s challenge in nearly all the “battleground” states. The Republicans and Democrats held on to their majorities in the House and Senate, respectively. Postelection negotiations between Obama and Boehner aimed at avoiding the fiscal cliff failed, but on January 1, 2013, a last-minute deal brokered by Biden and McConnell passed the Senate 89 to 8 and then was approved by the House 257 to 167, with about one-third of Republicans voting with Democrats during a rare New Year’s Day session. The compromise preserved the Bush-era income tax cuts for individuals earning $400,000 or less and couples making $450,000 or less annually, but it raised taxes on those earning more than that from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, the first federal income tax increase in some two decades. The bill also raised taxes on dividends and inheritance for some high-end earners but allowed the payroll tax cut that had been initiated by Obama to lapse.
