Obama Set to Discover Inheriting Your Own Mess Is Hard

[Geee]

Town Hall:

 

From Afghanistan to the economy, the to-do list facing the president of the United States is extensive and overwhelming. Townhall breaks down the challenges Obama inherited ... from himself.

 

For four years, President Obama and his team never failed to remind Americans of the state of the country he inherited from his Oval Office predecessor. The mess left at the end of Obama’s first term, however, makes the George W. Bush years look gift-wrapped. From the debt to entitlements to health care and education, the next four years promise a gauntlet of challenges the White House must address sooner rather than later.

Challenges Abroad

The Eurozone and the Global Economy: On January 20, the president faces an even more questionable global economic outlook than previous administrations. Balance of global economic power has been shifting away from Europe toward Asia and South America. As the Financial Times pointed out, this is due in part to the growing clout of emerging nations, such as Brazil and India, but the change has been accelerated by the difficulties “advanced economies” have experienced in rebounding from the global economic meltdown.

With Europe, the president will face a problem with no easy answer and one that he has little to no control over. Unemployment rates top 20 percent in a few countries, and several have needed bailouts. Protests (some violent) in reaction to austerity measures are the new normal. Wealthy individuals consider fleeing due to more socialized and hostile governments, and questions of the euro—and even the European Union itself—breaking apart abound. The president will face great uncertainty in this region as he has to wait, with the rest of the world and financial markets, for European leaders to implement a viable solution.