NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SỰ HỒI SINH CỦA GIẤC MƠ MỸ DƯỚI NHIỆM KÌ CỦA TỔNG THỐNG BARACK OBAMA

Since America was born, the country has been seen as the land of freedom, of opportunity for everyone with effort. This ideas also was emphasized in the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson (1776) “We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”. At that time, in the world, people in many countries did not access equal rights and conditions to realize their wish, hope and dream. They started to run away to find the new land where their desire of freedom especially religious freedom could be fulfilled and the departure of their runaway was absolutely the United State of America where desire of freedom, of prosperity and opportunity could come to real life. Overtime, the American Dream has changed. Initially, it was the dream of religious freedom. However, society changed entailed the desire of people changed. The dream was not limited only in the area of religion anymore; the American Dream gradually touched every single aspect of society such as job, education, healthcare, wealth, etc. It was not only the dream of immigrant in America as in the initial time but becoming the dream of every person in the United States. This may be considered the positive changes of American Dream. However, beside the positive changes, American Dream has also suffered negative changes. Some view that “The American Dream Is Dead” (Whitworth, 2011). It is more exact to say that the original and pure American Dream when coming into reality has been distorted. In reality, the dream hasn’t been fulfilled yet because of discrimination, poverty and degraded economy. In addition, critics saw the dream as “overly materialistic while spiritual empty” (Kiger, n.d.). The material improvements are achieved much easier and quickly than the spiritual improvement, which makes material dominate in American Dream. Overtime, people start to question whether American Dream is alive or even exist. However, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first black president of the United States, which instilled the hope that American Dream could be revitalized and the president has been trying his best to save the dream that was ruined. As a student of ULIS who is interested in American Studies, especially American Dream, the writer notices that there have been some studies about the degradation of the dream but nothing about the revitalization of it in contemporary time. Therefore, she wants to dig deeply into this topic to see how the first black American president despite being bequeathed an economy deepened in “the biggest financial and economic meltdown since the Great Depression” (Wood, 2009) and numerous inadequacies in education, healthcare, etc from President Bush who “earns a place in the bottom five” (Kim, 2010) in American president rankings tried his utmost to revitalize the American Dream and to prove that the American Dream is still alive. Above all, his success helped the American people regain their oncelostfaith in their highest ideal.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON THE REVITALIZATION OF AMERICAN DREAM UNDER THE OFFICE TERMS OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA Supervisor: Phạm Phương Hoa (M.A.) Student: Đỗ Thị Diệp Course: QH2010.F1.E21 HÀ NỘI – 2014 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SỰ HỒI SINH CỦA GIẤC MƠ MỸ DƯỚI NHIỆM KÌ CỦA TỔNG THỐNG BARACK OBAMA Giáo viên hướng dẫn: ThS Phạm Phương Hoa Sinh viên: Đỗ Thị Diệp Khoá: QH2010.F1.E21 HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2014 DECLARATION I hereby state that I: Do Thi Diep, QH2010.F1.E21, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Hanoi, 2014 Do Thi Diep ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, my sincerest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Ms Pham Phuong Hoa for her wholehearted encouragement and support during the time of doing my thesis The graduation paper cannot be completed without her Secondly, gratefulness and love are sent to my family From the bottom of my heart, I owe them for all the things they have done for me Thirdly, I would like to express my thanks to my classmates, class QH2010.F1.E21, for their advice and encouragement when I was really under pressure Lastly, I send my thanks to my teachers for their dedication and support in the last four years i ABSTRACT The American Dream is considered one of the highest ideal of American people It is the Dream of equal opportunity for everyone in United States to attain better life Originally, it was the dream of people coming to United States for religious freedom Overtime, the coverage of American Dream has widened and changed as social context changed Under the presidency of President George W Bush, through his policies, President Bush degraded the American Dream After him, President Barack Obama took the office and has fixed President Bush’s mistake to revitalize the American Dream The research investigated three areas: healthcare, education and economy under the office terms of the two presidents and noted that the American Dream on healthcare, education and economy has been revitalized by President Barack Obama via his policies implemented to fix President Bush’s flaws ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration .iii Acknowledgement i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii vii List of tables and figures .viii List of abbreviations .ix CHAPTER I- INTRODUCTION 1.2 Aims of the study .2 1.4 Significances of the study 1.5 Design of the study .3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1.Key concepts As mentioning above, American Dream originated from ethos of the nation: Liberty, Opportunity and Equality for everyone Therefore, it is a very holly dream embracing core American values There have been many published books and works taking American Dream as topic In 1931 the historian James Truslow Adams wrote the non-fiction work named The Epic of America, from this book, the term “American Dream” was popularized American Dream described in this books as “being able to grow to fullest development as men and women, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any every class” (Adams, 1932) The Dream targeted to gender equality and no discrimination in class order, equal opportunities for everyone to achieve their goals in life For Adams, he considered economic success the first among other values because the publishing time of the book was in the early stages of the Great Depression “Wall Street had melted down, personal saving and investment had been vaporized, business were going bust” (Adams, 1932) Also for this reason, the book of Adams could not have been better at depicting American Dream The viewpoint about American Dream of Adams has become leading concepts of American Dream which are still applied nowadays 12 Two outstanding studies on American community named Middletown in Transition conducted by Robert and Helen Lynd published in 1937 and Yankee City of W Lloyd Warner in 1929 Both of these iii studies mentioned American Dream While the first study was in Middletown where the Lynds found that most successful businessmen in the town were “from comparative poverty to great wealth” ( the Lynds, 1937) The studies was conducted five years after the publish of “The epic of America” so the Lynds referred point of view of Adams and concluded that successful men in Middletown achieved their American Dream For the study of the Lynds, American Dream quickly spread and became familiar to American The second study of Warner focused on men’s status in society rather than economic aspect According to Warner “A man by applying himself, by using the talents he has, by acquiring the necessary skills can rise from lower to higher status and that his family can rise with him” (Warner, 1929) The study of Lynd focused on economic aspect while the study of Warner focused on social status Actually, these two aspects have tight relationship in American Dream because a man with strong finance can easily get high status in society .12 In 1995, Princeton University Press published a book named Facing up the American Dream: Races, Class, and the Soul of the Nation of Jennifer L Hochschild, she is the Professor of African and African American Studies, and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University In this book, Henry approached American Dream in pessimistic view For her, American Dream in reality has been threatened race and class discrimination Hochschild questioned “whether African Americans achieve their version of dream and the effort they undergo to so, tells us much about America’s deepest and most bitter social divide” (Hochschild, 1995, p.4) However, the Hochschild’s perspective was one-sided or just appropriate for the social context at the writing time 13 In the event of Obama became the first black president of America in 2008 was a milestone in politics of USA The event caught interest of people around the world so since the election in 2008, many writings about President Obama’s life, and his dream were published that the “Obama Studies” field has harvested a giant number of works Among them, it is a flaw when not mention the book Critical Essays on Barack Obama Re-affirming the Hope, Re-vitalizing the Dream The book is a collection of essays written by professors, scholars about every facets of President Obama’s life, a symbol of revitalizing American Dream The book Letters to President Obama: Americans Dream share their hopes and dreams with the First African-American President also a worth-mentioned book about Obama and the revitalization of American Dream President Obama has proved that every child regardless class, religion, race can become a president in the future time 13 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 15 3.1 Research methods 15 3.2 Data collection instruments .16 3.3 Procedures of data analysis .16 CHAPTER IV: THE CORRUPTION UNDER PRESIDENT BUSH’S OFFICE TERMS AND REVITALIZATION UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA’S OFFICE TERMS OF THE AMERICAN DREAM 17 For the reason of costly healthcare expenditure, in 1997, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 as Title XXI of Social Security Act created States Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) which “provides iv health coverage to nearly eight million children in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid, but can't afford private coverage.” (Children's Health Insurance Program , n.d.) In America, there is a group called eligible group who fit the criterion of being covered healthcare cost by Medicaid they may be “being aged or disabled, and who meet certain common requirements, such as having income and assets below certain levels” (Medicaid Eligibility, n.d.) In spite of struggling to live, these groups of people not suffer the burden of healthcare cost because Medicaid sponsors them Other group is the rich, this group can purchase themselves private insurances and even uninsured they still can afford their healthcare cost Therefore, there is a group stuck between two above groups They are not rich enough to cover themselves cover but not poor enough to be sponsored by Medicaid Therefore, SCHIP was created for this group 19 SCHIP came out like a lifebuoy saving billions of uninsured American children from sky-high healthcare cost The Act obviously practiced the better-life-for-everyone principle of American Dream SCHIP was designed to provide health insurances for children living in families whose incomes are low but too high for Medicaid and cannot afford private insurances SCHIP was for children in the gap between public and private healthcare coverage The Act really made it easier for uninsured children to touch American Dream of accessing fully healthcare without burden of expenditure Just in a short time, the program achieved a great success After three years of implementation since 1997, “nearly 2.5 million children were enrolled in SCHIP programs” (Almanac of Policy Issues, n.d.) In the period time of 19972004 “As a result of SCHIP, health insurance has been extended to millions of children from low-income families, and rates of the uninsured among this population have declined by 2.2 million, from 23% in 1997 to 14.4% in 2004.” (The American Academy of Pediatrics, 2007) and in 2005 “SCHIP programs provided health insurance to million children nationwide” (The American Academy of Pediatrics, 2007) Till 2007, 6.6 million children were covered by state SCHIP programs but million more remained uninsured 19 4.2.The corruption and revitalization of the American Dream on education front 27 4.2.1.NCLB of George W Bush destroyed American Dream on American education 27 4.2.2.President Barack Obama fixed No Child Left Behind 32 4.3.The corruption and revitalization of the American Dream on economy front 37 After playing with risk for several years, 2007-2009 was the time for players to suffer consequences All banks, financial institutions which “had borrowed beyond what was responsible” (Tanneeru, n.d.) were on the verge of or did go bankruptcy On September 15th, 2008 the bankruptcy of the fourth largest investment bank of America, Lehman Brothers “helped to create in the biggest v bankruptcy filing in history” (Onaran, 2008) Other leading financial institutions were collapsing such as Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE), two government-sponsored enterprises At that time, Fannie, Freddie “had an enormous $223 billion debt” (Shedlock, 2008) Others giants like Washington Mutual, AIG, The Detroit Three, The Citigroup Colossus also declared bankruptcy’s statement Many small banks and individuals investors in Wall Street became bare-hand Security market deemed in red color when “The S&P 500 declined 57% from its high in October 2007 of 1576 to its low in March 2009 of 676” (Beattie, 2009) Job market also was victim of the crisis when “the number of unemployed climbed to 14.7 million over the course of the recession” (Luttrell, 2013) A research conducted by official of Fed of Dallas estimated the cost of 2008 crisis was “an output loss of $6 trillion to $14 trillion” and “this amounts to $50,000 to $120,000 for every U.S household the equivalent of 40 to 90 percent of one year’s economic output” (Luttrell, 2013) That was a huge loss ever in history of America, which destroyed American Dream of a richer and fuller life of many American 41 Contrary to George W Bush, who did not much to deal with the recession, president Barack Obama rushed to recover the economy right after taking office As a result, things were gradually back to right tracks within several months The financial system started to recover, thank to QE3, cost of capital fell “enabling banks to recapitalize from private markets rather than rely on public money” (Ahamed, 2013) In Wall Street, in the end of 2008, stocks in Wall Street all went to bottom Some big index namely Dow Jones, S&P 500, Nasdaq got low record On January 2nd, 2009, more than two weeks before Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration, Dow Jones closed at 9034.69, Nasdaq closed at 1632,21 and S&P 500 closed at 931,80 12 months later on December 2nd, 2009, the indexes were 10452.68, 2185.03 and 1109.24 respectively In 2008, amid the recession, many banks of America were on the brink of collapse, but things have changed positively In 2013, Standard & Poor', a global credit rating agency vi Interest rate could benefit lender because of low cost for money borrowing, which boosts consuming and producing then gives economy an upturn, but it is the case of short-term low interest rate However, in 2004, Fed enacted loose monetary policy by lowering interest rate to near zero and promised that ease policy would be used “until the committee observes sustained economic growth, substantial progress in trimming economic slack, or a period of inflation above a specified floor.” (FED, 2004) The country had just beaten by double hits so it might take the time unit of year to make recovery, which meant low interest rate would stay long Interest rate, cost of capital was cheap encouraging borrowing especially for purchasing valuable assets namely houses, cars, etc (durable goods) Low interest rate also stimulated speculation since speculators saw that were god-given chance to earn profit Taking advantage of low interest rate, low-income people wanted to realize their dream of homeownership that they couldn’t afford when the interest rates were high Given that, house prices were pushed up fast House booming “led to rampant real estate speculation “(Beattie, n.d.) so speculators with not much capital in hand also did businesses to seek higher returns, especially in real estate At that time, people had a long held belief that house price would never “do down” so the participants taking part in housing market kept increasing despite of increasing housing prices These participants were mainly lowincome people and speculators so they went to banks to ask for sub-prime loans, loans for “individuals who not qualify for prime rate loans, have low credit ratings or other factors that suggest that they have a reasonable chance of defaulting on the debt repayment” (Investorpedia, n.d.) Since the owners of sub-prime loans have low credit ratings so their loans have to be backed by mortgage As a result, there was a incredibly rise of sub-prime loans which was “approximately 5% of the mortgage market in 2000, grew to a peak of about 40% in 2006, reaching approximately $1.3 trillion in total” (Rimkus, 2014) At that time giant investment institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the most generous lenders of sub-prime loans Because of high return rate, approximately nearly 20% in 2006, these investment institutions braved the risk of “defaulting on the debt repayment” In addition to high 39 return rate, these institutions also had another profit source from mortgage-backed securities After approving sub-prime loans of borrowers, banks did securitization that was the process of transforming mortgage from sub-prime loans into securities then injecting them into financial market to mobilize capital Securitization is also called transformation of “bad mortgages into toxic financial assets” (Thomas, 2011) “Bad mortgage” were “low credit ratings” mortgage and “toxic financial assets” were securities backed by “bad mortgage” so this kind of securities was really risky because of sub-prime loan owners have “a reasonable chance of defaulting on the debt repayment” Even so, many sub-prime loans were still being made and mortgagebacked securities kept being born and sold to investors in Wall Street People were unconsciously jumping into risky- spiral circle of gaining profit They thought that “As long as everyone was paying their mortgage, that was fine," (Velshi, n.d.), but they “didn't take into account with these mortgages that people might lose their jobs, the interest rate might go up and the housing prices may go down” (Velshi, n.d.) Actually, the housing prices did go down After years of bubbling, “housing prices started trending downward, and by 2007 the bubble had burst.” (CNN, n.d.) Downward in housing prices led to the fall of mortgage-backed securities that were asset of many investors at that time 40 After playing with risk for several years, 2007-2009 was the time for players to suffer consequences All banks, financial institutions which “had borrowed beyond what was responsible” (Tanneeru, n.d.) were on the verge of or did go bankruptcy On September 15th, 2008 the bankruptcy of the fourth largest investment bank of America, Lehman Brothers “helped to create in the biggest bankruptcy filing in history” (Onaran, 2008) Other leading financial institutions were collapsing such as Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE), two government-sponsored enterprises At that time, Fannie, Freddie “had an enormous $223 billion debt” (Shedlock, 2008) Others giants like Washington Mutual, AIG, The Detroit Three, The Citigroup Colossus also declared bankruptcy’s statement Many small banks and individuals investors in Wall Street became barehand Security market deemed in red color when “The S&P 500 declined 57% from its high in October 2007 of 1576 to its low in March 2009 of 676” (Beattie, 2009) Job market also was victim of the crisis when “the number of unemployed climbed to 14.7 million over the course of the recession” (Luttrell, 2013) A research conducted by official of Fed of Dallas estimated the cost of 2008 crisis was “an output loss of $6 trillion to $14 trillion” and “this amounts to $50,000 to $120,000 for every U.S household the equivalent of 40 to 90 percent of one year’s economic output” (Luttrell, 2013) That was a huge loss ever in history of America, which destroyed American Dream of a richer and fuller life of many American 2007-2009 Financial crisis was resulted from numerous causes including the fault of President George W Bush’s administration The core matter was the process of assessing sub-prime loans An incredibly rise of sub-prime loans which was approximately 5% of the mortgage market in 2000, grew to a peak of about 40% in 2006 pose a question why was it so easy to access sub-prime loans It was certain that the regulated standard was lowered to make it easy to create a sub-prime loan Among banks offering sub-prime loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were two Government Sponsored Enterprises In 1992, Fannie and Freddie were assigned affordable housing mission forcing them to increase financing for low-income so that they could afford houses To meet this requirement, these two GSEs had to reduce the quality of the 41 mortgages they would acquire so that more people could access sub-prime loans “From 2005 through 2007, the GSEs purchased over $1 trillion in subprime, driving up the housing bubble and driving down mortgage quality” (Wallison, 2009) The increasing holding of sub-prime loans of GSEs made a competition with private lenders, which pushed the number subprime loan up quickly While financial market were in a frenzy of making sub-prime loans, it was questioned that where was the regulation of Bush’s administration? and why did Bush let the market so relax? It was likely that Bush wanted GSEs to accomplish their mission If this presumption was true, obviously, George W Bush wouldn’t have the sense of flexibility, a required characteristic of a president Instead of basing on the situation to regulate GSEs, Bush let them freely provide sub-prime loans as doing their mission as usual For this reason, it sounds illogical because it is impossible for a president not to feel imminent disaster coming from increasing-ever sub-prime loans and mortgage-backed securities Also, for the development of the country, the President will not exchange healthy financial system for an accomplished affordable housing mission Therefore, it can be referred that George did not nothing to prevent crisis because of some underneath reasons which may be to exchange for some personal interest not national interest By doing nothing to prevent crisis, President George W Bush brought national economy on the ground then destroyed American Dream of America How American Dream could be fulfilled when people not have homeownership, jobs and when financial system nearly collapses 4.3.2 Obama revitalized financial system from 2007-2009 crisis Similar to healthcare and education, economy especially financial system of America has been given chance to recover by the next president, Barack Obama Taking office amid the recession “President Obama inherited a catastrophic economic mess” (Blodget, 2011) The financial system was corrupted with “banks were still hemorrhaging cash, and it was feared some would go down” (Ahamed, 2013) Therefore, President Obama’s first priority was to reform economy especially reform financial system in order to “make sure that a crisis like this never happens 42 again” (Whitehouse, n.d.) and to pave path for the American Dream to come back to American people On July 22, 2010, President Barack Obama signed Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that was better known as Dodd-Frank Act to reform financial system The Act was born out of the worst recession since Great Depression so its intention was to prevent any other collapses of financial institution as the case of Lehman Brothers Obama said on the day of signing “For years, our financial sector was governed by antiquated and poorly enforced rules that allowed some to game the system and take risks that endangered the entire economy” (Obama, 2010) The Act contains hundred pages of regulations used to eliminate any possible cause of financial crisis again Dodd- Frank puts banks under a number of regulations along with “the possibility of being broken up if any of them is determined to be too big to fail” (Koba, 2012) Under the Act, President established a board of regulator named Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) including nine members who are representatives of Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPA) FSOC functions as overseeing banks and searching for the dangers that can affect the banks in particular and the whole financial system in general Under Bush’s presidencies, there was no board of regulators so GSEs namely Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE) automatically took advantages of affordable housing mission’s incentives to expand their credit activities However, for the Dodd-Frank Act, all banks are under regulation of FSOC, if any bank expands too big beyond its ability, Fed will regulate it by adjusting its requirement of reserve, sum of money used to ensure bank’s liquidity, compulsorily saved by banks and is not used for credit activities Besides Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), an organization named Federal Insurance Office (FIO) was established to supervise insurance companies that may bring threat to financial system After the failure of AIG, a large insurance company that received an $85 billion emergency fund from U.S Federal Reserve Bank 43 meet increased financial payouts, Obama saw that the risk brought from insurance companies are considerable Therefore, Federal Insurance Office was born The recession was also fault of credit rating agencies such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's These agencies were criticized for “misleading investors through over-rating derivatives and mortgage-backed securities—and saying the investment tools were worth more than their actual value” (Koba, 2012) Therefore, President Obama established an Office of Credit Rating at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to supervise and regulate credit ratings agencies Under Dodd-Frank, “the SEC can require agencies to submit their rating systems for review, and can de-certify an agency that gives misleading ratings.” (Koba, 2012) This regulation of the Act really helps to enhancing transparency in credit ratings and investor’s belief in financial regulation of the government Besides reforming financial system, Dodd-Frank act was designed to protect consumers The Act created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to keep consumers from risky business of banks by “working with regulators in large banks to stop transactions that hurt consumers, such as risky lending” (Koba, 2012) In addition, the bureau provides consumers information about “mortgages and credit scores along with a 24-hour toll-free consumer hotline to report issues with financial services” (Koba, 2012) With CFPB, the consumers of financial services will no longer be blindfolded in assessing business of banks so they can have their best investments In addition to the new law, President Obama assigned Federal Reserve to give “rescuing package” including Quantitative Easing (QE3) which cost $85 billion per month Every month, Fed injects “rescuing package” into market by buying mortgagebacked securities, bad loans of banks The purposes of QE3 are to help bank to solve their “toxic asset” and increase money supply in market in order “ to keep short-term interest rates low for an even longer period of time, until 2015” (Plumer, 2012) Federal committed that it wouuld keep using QE3 until “the economic recovery strengthens" 44 (Fed, 2010) This time, low interest rate is different from that before the 2008 recession because banks now are under Dodd-Frank Act’s regulation Contrary to George W Bush, who did not much to deal with the recession, president Barack Obama rushed to recover the economy right after taking office As a result, things were gradually back to right tracks within several months The financial system started to recover, thank to QE3, cost of capital fell “enabling banks to recapitalize from private markets rather than rely on public money” (Ahamed, 2013) In Wall Street, in the end of 2008, stocks in Wall Street all went to bottom Some big index namely Dow Jones, S&P 500, Nasdaq got low record On January 2nd, 2009, more than two weeks before Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration, Dow Jones closed at 9034.69, Nasdaq closed at 1632,21 and S&P 500 closed at 931,80 12 months later on December nd, 2009, the indexes were 10452.68, 2185.03 and 1109.24 respectively In 2008, amid the recession, many banks of America were on the brink of collapse, but things have changed positively In 2013, Standard & Poor', a global credit rating agency “raised its outlook on the U.S government's credit rating to stable from negative" (Sahadi, 2013) The agency commented that S&P Fed took "timely and effective actions" that mitigated the effects of the deep recession in 2008 and 2009 (Sahadi, 2013) It is undeniable that Obama’s achievements especially in recovering financial system are remarkable In his inauguration time, America was in the recession that was biggest since the Great Depression 1930s The President has revitalized financial system from the ground back to leading financial market in the world Starting from obstinate point, it is unavoidable for him to face challenges and produce results against people’s expectation However, the president really saved financial system, a fundamental base of an economy From that base, American economy is growing up and gets the nation on top of world’s economy Recovering financial system helps to strengthen economy so American people are given more chances to be wealthier; this is one focus of American Dream By saving financial system, President Obama has saved American Dream on economy front which was nearly dead under Bush’s presidency 45 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Major findings of the study After conducting the study, the researcher has attained some major findings to respond to the research questions as the following: 46 Firstly, American Dream which “has its beginnings in the Declaration of Independence and the first European Settlers” (Michels, 2002) is one of the ethos of American Originally, it was the dream of religious freedom of European Settlers when arrived this land Overtime, the Dream has changed from the dream of religious freedom of European Settlers to the dream of equal opportunities on education, healthcare, wealth, etc American Dream changes as the social context changes, but the Dream embraces the desire to live a better life of everyone in America Secondly, there exists the degradation of American Dream, which appeared in the presidencies of President George W Bush During his terms, Bush launched No Child Left Behind Act on education The Act with the initial aim of enhancing American education standard turned out the test-punish Act NCLB degraded American Education for nearly a decade and destroyed American Dream on education of American children In term of healthcare, President Bush strongly vetoed funding for States Children’s Health Insurance Program Act (SCHIP) the Act which supported healthcare coverage for children in families whose incomes are too high for Medicaid but too low for private insurance The “heartless veto” of President Bush destroyed American Dream of accessing healthcare of many children in middle- class families Finally, on economy especially in financial system, relaxing regulation and the ignorance of Bush’s administration to the financial system led to financial crisis in 2008 The crisis took American’s economy on the ground that strived American Dream of wealth of American people Thirdly, American Dream can be lost but cannot disappear forever It can be revitalized Under Bush’s administration, the Dream was ruined and thought to be lost However, under presidency of President Obama, the Dream has been revitalized President Obama follows the spirit of American Dream to fix President Bush’s mistake On healthcare front, the President reauthorized CHIP which was vetoed by President Bush, removed eligible restriction posed by President Bush and widens the entrance for CHIP enrollment In term of education, the President gives waivers for states to release 47 them from unattainable requirement of Bush’s NCLB The waivers help schools effectively develop according their condition Finally, President Obama signed DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and launched QE3 to recover financial system and American economy By reforming healthcare, education and economy, President Obama revitalizes American Dream and brings it back to American people 5.2 Limitations of the study Due to the restriction of time and limited scope as well as other objective factors, the study has some limitations In term of limited scope, the researcher only investigated in three areas: healthcare, education and economy Although reforms in these areas are remarkable, the study hasn’t set a comprehensive picture about revitalization of American Dream in every area In addition, during information analysis progress, there exists redundant or inappropriate information which may be hard for readers to follow 5.3 Suggestions for further studies Because the limited scope is the limitation of the study, further studies can cover other scopes which are embraced by American Dream namely taxation, race, gender, religion, etc Further studies about American 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President Obama? ??s life, and his dream were published that the ? ?Obama Studies” field has harvested a giant number of works Among them, it is a flaw when not mention the book Critical Essays on Barack Obama