Kenya Red Alliance Congratulates President Barack Obama

The Kenya Red Alliance (KRA) takes this opportunity to congratulate President Barack Obama on his election as President of the United States to serve for a second term. Against all odds, Obama has ran a formidable campaign which has eventually resulted in victory for the Democratic Party whose members have entered into a celebratory period following the announcement of election results. Obama’s victory was not accidental or out of the blue but was based on firm achievements during his first term in office.

In 2009, Obama signed a $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to stimulate economic growth while after he became President, he passed the Health Care Reform by signing the Affordable Care Act to cover 32 million uninsured Americans. Obama took power when the financial sector in the United States was largely unregulated and to fix the problem, he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to regulate the financial sector. To protect the consumer, he signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act (2009) to prevent credit card companies from raising rates without advance notification.

Without Obama’s intervention, the auto industry in the United States could have collapsed. In 2009, Obama pumped $62 billion into ailing GM and Crystler in exchange for equity stakes and agreements for massive restructuring thereby creating 100,000 jobs. The President then proceeded to recapitalize banks in the midst of a financial crisis by signing a controversial Treasury Department plan to lure private capital into America’s largest banks. That was after he kicked banks out of the exploitative Federal Student Loan Program to enable students to get loans directly from the federal government and save $67 billion over a period of ten years. From the Stimulus package, Obama started a $4.35 billion program of competitive grants to encourage and reward states for education reform.

Indeed, it is President Obama who ended the War in Iraq by ordering all US military forces out of the country and the last troops left on December 18th 2011. As US soldiers left Iraq for the country to be led by Iraqis, Obama put in place a program of withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan from a record 101,000 to 93,000. Obama eliminated Osama bin Laden thereby weakening Alqaida, reversed the torture policies of former President George Bush by abolishing “enhanced” interrogation techniques and helped overthrow dictators in North Africa who had been oppressing their people for decades.

In the United States, Obama allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military by repealing the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy”. The President cut the Reagan-era “Stars Wars” missile defence budget thereby saving $1.4 billion in 2010 and cancelled the stationing of antiballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Obama abolished the $1 billion per launch Space Shuttle thereby saving billions to be redirected into more productive sectors of the American economy.

As Americans who voted for Obama will attest, the President invested heavily in renewable technology by investing $90 billion in research on smart grids, energy efficiency, electric cars and renewable electricity. He created the New EPA restrictions on mercury and toxic pollution geared towards closing down the oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants. In 2011, Obama signed the FDA Food Safety and Modernization Act to boost the Food and Drug Administration’s budget by $1.4 billion. In 2009 Obama signed the Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act which mandates that tobacco manufacturers disclose all ingredients on tobacco labels.

By electing him to serve for a second term, the people of the United States have simply acknowledged Obama’s numerous achievements which cannot all be enumerated here. The Kenya Red Alliance hopes that during his next term in Office, President Obama will not only strive to complete the unfinished business in the United States but that he will also focus on the crisis in Africa to help bring about development, peace and prosperity across the continent.

Okoth Osewe
Secretary General
Kenya Red Alliance

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A blog for News and Events happening around Kenyans in Stockholm.

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