That set the stage for so many troubles to follow. Our priorities could have and in hindsight should have been more sharply focused and boldly defined back then, in the early days of the Obama Administration on the heels of a sweeping Democratic victory in the 2008 elections. Direct job creation expenditures were cut back to make room for more Republican backed tax cuts and credits. The results; a less immediate and obvious bang for the buck in reducing unemployment, a concessionary soft peddling of the virtues of direct public works programs (laying the groundwork for a later retreat on the Public Option in HCR), an emboldened Republican minority who learned they could have their cake and eat it too by insisting that Democratic initiatives be changed in response to their concerns, and then opposing the final legislation anyway.