How the President Spends Time
This website provides an interesting snapshot about how President Obama has divided his time on different topics since taking office. The data is interactive, so after spending some time on the site, what do you notice? For example, one large topic is government/politics. I wondered if that section was a sort of catch-all for any topic that did not fit neatly into one of the other categories, or if it meant meeting with members of Congress in order to work on his agenda. After interacting with the site a bit, it seems as though the latter is more accurate, especially because there is another category called "Other."
posted by Crosby | 7:29 AM
16 Comments:
The way the president spends his time is extremely interesting. The most major issue in the president’s mind seems to be foreign affairs. The least prominent issue looks to be immigration. Those two would tie together in one’s mind but apparently not in his. Immigration is the center of most Americans these days. With the economy being down and jobs being given away to illegal immigrants, many Americans are out of work and therefore angered with his policies of immigration. He doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it though. His time is somewhat well-spent with his initial days in this position but what can be noticed by the reader is there are some issues being treated as small things that really are not miniscule on the large scale.
It’s interesting that President Obama is so gung-ho on education and whatnot, yet education is one of the smallest categories. Heck, you could wipe it off the board and not even notice. About a quarter of his time is spent on foreign policy, and another corner on the economy.
Healthcare seems like a really big deal to Obama and all the people who support him. If you turned on the news now you would probably hear something about healthcare. However, if you look at the chart healthcare is one of the smaller events. It is bigger than the section for education, yet it still is relatively small. Yes, the president should spend time on the Economy, Government Politics, and Foreign Policy. That’s his job!Plus our economy isn't exactly all good and jolly, so it's good that he is focusing a lot on that.
My point is that Obama seems so into all the healthcare and education that other things (such as foreign policy etc.) seem minute. I guess it’s kind of about him being as involved as he says he is.
The thing I found most interesting was that Obama has not spent much time on science and technology. I feel that science and technology are a big part of our future. We are going to need the resources to cure cancer and cure diseases that we can't fight off yet. It is a huge part of our world, but there has only been 8 events out of 991 for it? That doesn't make sense. If we spent more time on our technology as well then we could probably advance our weaponry as well which could help us in fighting other countries. Plus we are never going to know when an epidemic is going to break out and if that does happen we should be well prepared. An example of this is the swine flu; it's affecting our entire country and has been around for a while, but we are still just now finding the cure for it. We have lost lives already by just being slightly unprepared. I think Obama should focus more on science and technology and try to make advancements in those areas.
I agree with Sydney!! It seems like Obama is a lot of talk and not actually do. Seriously, Sydney is exactly right when she said that if you turned on the news you would hear something about healthcare. I guess I'm actually kind of insulted because if he's talking about all of this "great stuff" he's going to do, why doesn't he put it into action?
Another thing that suprised me was how little time was spent on immigration. I remember a few years back when there were so many arguements about immigration poilcies, it wasn't even funny!! Maybe the Mexican immigration population doesn't affect Mr. Pres because he's all the way in D.C. But, it does matter to us, and I think that issue should be more recognized.
Amanda: I think you raise some really good points! I agree that science and technology are incredibly important in this day and age. It's difficult for me to say that Obama needs to attend more events considering how busy he is as is, but I certainly hope that when he deals with other things, whether they be foreign policy or healthcare, he considers the profound impact technology can have on those other fields.
RachelC: I think you might overestimate the degree to which Americans are concerned with immigration right now. In fact, the rampant joblessness means it's harder for immigrants to find jobs too. The end result of this will likely be less illegal immigration. So in a perverse way, having such a terrible economy helps "solve" illegal immigration.
sydneyi2013: Education is pretty much always a "small category," regardless of whether you're talking presidential time or funding. The amount of the federal budget that goes towards education was smaller than the defense departments "black budget," the top secret spending category. In other words, the amount of money the defense department gets to spend without telling people what they spent it on is greater than the amount of money that the national government spends on education.
It's interesting to look at the trend over time when it comes to things like healthcare though. The size of each month's box has been increasing pretty steadily. The past few months are pretty much on par with things like foreign policy.
janiep2013: I have to disagree with the assertion that "Obama is a lot of talk and not actually do." It's pretty clear from the graphic that he's certainly been spending his time doing "stuff." He's worked with congress on passing desperately needed healthcare reform, he's created new strategies for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he's done an incredible amount of work repairing our countries damaged image abroad. Whether or not that is what you want him to be doing is an entirely different story.
If it was up to you, what issues would you want Obama to tackle first? And what would you change about how he's dealt with the issues he's already addressed.
While seeing how President Obama spends his time, it was interesting to see which issues he thinks are most important. He spent a lot of time on Foreign Policy, Economy, and Government/Politics. It seems that those issues are very important but, he might also want to spend more time on issues that worry the people. He should be spending more time looking into the energy and environment, Immigration, Education, and Science & Technology. These seem to be lacking in his attentions. I think it would also be interesting to see the portion of this that he spends with his family. This website is interesting and helps us get to understand the break-down of his job.
I found that March and April were the major months where he brought these points up.
I also think that it is interesting to see what President Obama is doing these days. I agree with sarahm, while I think what the president is doing is really good I think that he should also spend time on the environment, without that we wouldn’t be here. I also agree with BenH, I don’t think that Obama is "just talk not do”. He is obviously is working hard to get us out of this economic mess we are in judging from how big the economy square thing is on that website. I also kind of agree with Amanda, I think that Obama should be working on technology, but I don’t think that should be his main focus.
Personally, I think President Obama is doing well with his first few months in office. Despite the fact that not much has changed since the last administration, things have improved, in my opinion, and people have to remember that things aren't going to change overnight.
His time, though, could be more evenly divided. Social issues, such as gay marriage, abortion, etc, and not spent so much on foreign policy, although I am not denying the fact that this is an important part of American politics.
One of the three big sections, government/politics, strikes me as being a sort of catch all/help-me work-with-the-politicians category. It varies widely and is not specifically on one thing, unlike healthcare.
The first place I immediately look is how the president spends his "other" time. Most of it was eating with people or doing something fun (like playing golf) to honor or welcome people. However I noticed that a few times it had President Obama scheduled to, "vacation at the White House". I found this humorous because Obama lives at the White House and it's rather hard to vacation at your own house. Also, when you look at what he does overall; it’s mainly talking to people in congress or giving speeches. Several times Obama eats lunch with Biden; now that’s fine because he is VP; but neither of them has actually worked at a bank or a store or done anything other than politics. Even though these people are representing us they haven’t ever faced what the average person has to face. I think that instead of having so many lunches with Joe Biden and his senior advisors, Obama should be talking to normal people who are trying to cope with all these new bills he is trying to pass and really find out if people agree with what he wants now that they are seeing just how much change Obama wants. The thing the president spend the most time on is foreign policy which I think is great but it surprised me because on the whole it seems like he talks about things like education and health care more than foreign policy. I thought this website was interesting and really showed what President Obama is doing, instead of what the TV would have you believe.
In my opinion, President Obama should spend a little more time on education, especially since he makes such a big deal about it. I mean, why does he even talk about it if it is not one of the “bigger topics” he deals with. I know it is important but still.
I also found it interesting that he spends so little time on science and technology. Science and technology sort of seems like something the president would spend very little time on, since not only the president handles science and technology. A lot of people of different job fields handle things like that.
Sydney i am just going to say what is most important to you the enconomy or education and healthcare what i am saying is i would way rather have Obama spend time on the enconomy becuase thats the most important. not to mention there was just an enconomical chrisis so of course he is paying attention to it. Also i Know when Bush was President he took way to much time off almost 500 days off in his time during office.
Interesting comments so far. Remember to keep in mind what we discussed in class - that this is a website maintained by someone outside the White House. As a result, some events may be categorized by the website in a way that would be different than President Obama sees them.
It also occurs to me that foreign policy and the economy are receiving the great majority of the president's attention, and those were the two most-discussed issues during the election. It would worry me if he was spending as much time on education, science and technology as he is spending on foreign policy and the economy. Education, science and technology tasks, it seems to me, can be delegated much more easily than foreign policy and economic concerns.
BenH-
If I was in Obama's position, I think I would be spending a lot more time addressing the issues of the people in our country. Right now, it seems like he is more worried about the global status of America. I agree that forigen policy is important, but honestly, how is the way we interact with other countries going to affect the people of America?
Also, in my opinion, I think Obama has messed up all of our Iraq progress. If we leave now, it'll return to the same state it was in before we left. It's like doing a project. You can't do half or 75% of it and then decide to quit and turn in the incomplete project. You'll only succeed if you complete your job 100%.
As of now, Obama should definitely be spending more time tending to his people, and helping them out in ways that don't involve stimulus. People need to be taught how to fix their lives, and if that requires a SMALL amount of assistance from the government, then fine. But, with that said, everyone in the country going through hard times shouldn't rely on the government to help themselves stagger throughout their lives.
Nathan-
I don't understand why you're bringing Bush's days off into this discussion. What does that have to do with Obama and the economy?
Personally, I find it interesting that Bush was recorded to have 500 "off days" because I don't see the job of being president as being a job you can take off from. It is a title for you, a permanent state of being for your 4 (or more) years in office. You can't take a break from being who you are.
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