Eight years ago we were in the middle of what is now known as the Great Recession.

The wildly inflated housing bubble burst, causing a crisis in the banking sector and sharp declines in consumer spending. The American auto industry was on the verge of collapse.

All told, America lost 8.7 million jobs, and American households had lost $16.4 trillion of net worth by January 2009. Seven million families lost their homes.

Middle-age workers lost value in their retirement accounts and delayed retirement plans; some seniors saw their debt loads double as a result of medical and housing costs.

Local governments had cutbacks in state aid and states lost federal money. It was a scary time.

And, eight years ago Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. A Democrat, a first-term U.S. senator from Illinois, he was the first African-American to be elected president of our country.

He walked into a mess. Despite the Republican talking points, Obama had a filibuster-proof Senate for only a little over four months (Sept. 24, 2009, through Feb. 4, 2010) due mainly to the effects of Teddy Kennedy’s illness and death, Al Franken’s contested election, and the absence of Robert Byrd due to illness. He had a small window to turn things around.

Despite this reality, Obama, his administration, and his congressional allies were able to pass a stimulus bill which created over a million jobs and lowered the unemployment rate; create the Affordable Care Act that brought health care to millions of previously uninsured people; pass measures to reign in Wall Street; save the American auto industry and 1.7 million auto jobs; remove banks from the Federal Student Loan Program; expand Pell Grant spending; crack down on for-profit colleges; increase energy efficiency standards for cars and trucks; close dirty power plants; create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; improve school nutrition; open the door to Cuba, sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; grant clemency or pardon 1,324 individuals; appoint two brilliant women to the Supreme Court; grow private sector jobs for 78 straight months … and the list goes on and on.

Obama was able to achieve these public policy initiatives despite the overwhelming intransigence of the Republican Party and their leaders from the moment that he was elected.

And there were those who not only opposed him, they tried to delegitimize his presidency by questioning his citizenship. The incoming president led the charge, offering rewards for a copy of President Obama’s birth certificate, and retreating from this claim only four or so months ago.

There are things the president did that I struggle with. He deported too many people and killed too many with drones. Syria is a mess and we have no plans that will help the 4.8 million people displaced by that war. I wish he had led more on criminal justice and on early education. We lost too many down-the-ballot elections. But there has been no politician (even myself) that I agreed with 100 percent of the time.

And while President Obama pulled us out of the economic ditch, I wish he had been able to do more about income inequality. But he would have needed a Democratic Congress to do that.

I went to Virginia to campaign for President Obama in 2012. A young African-American man picked me up at the airport and drove me to my motel. He had quit his job to join the Obama campaign.

One thing that he said has stuck with me. He was sure that Obama would be successful at restoring the economy by the time he left office in 2017. And he was worried that Obama would not be recognized for that monumental achievement.

I have thought a lot about that young man and his faith in his president over the last few months. I have thought about the last scandal-free eight years, about a thoughtful leader that understood the power of presidential rhetoric, about a First Lady who taught us “When they go low, we go high.”

I hope that young man in Virginia continues to work for other leaders that he can have faith in, as I hope we all do.

Sadly, Obama’s successor is doing exactly what my young friend feared. He is claiming credit for an economy that he didn’t save and going low whenever he can. But we all know who did the hard work.

And now it’s time for us all to take up the hard work of taking back the Congress and statehouses. There are candidates that need our money and our help. Let’s get to it!

And ... thanks President Obama.

Clare Higgins, of Northampton, a former mayor of the city, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action! of the Franklin, Hampshire and North Quabbin Regions. She writes a monthly column and can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.

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