Obama’s Promises: A Scorecard
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, History, Legislation
Politifact tracked 513 promises Obama made during the primaries, and yesterday took a look at his top 10.
Of the 10 promises, 1 has been fully kept, 1 has been kept via compromise, 5 are in the works and 3 have had no action taken on them.
I’ll have more on those last 3 later, but first a rundown…
- Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners: Promise Kept.
- Create a tax credit of $500 for workers: Compromise.
- Repeal the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes: In The Works.
- Begin removing combat brigades from Iraq: In The Works.
- Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center: In The Works.
- Create cap and trade system with interim goals to reduce global warming: In The Works.
- Create 5 million “green” jobs: In The Works.
- Create a National Health Insurance Exchange: No Action.
- Create new financial regulations: No Action.
- Reduce oil consumption by 35 percent by 2030: No Action.
A couple things about this list…
First, to have this many important initiatives “In the Works” this early is impressive. I don’t think any President has been able to put so many pieces of his agenda into motion in such a short span of time.
Second, although no action has been officially taken on health care reform and new financial regulations, they’re definitely on their way.
I’m just saying, not too shabby for two months in.
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 21st, 2009 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, History, Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 21st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Artfully done, avoid mentioning the broken promises that they list.
March 21st, 2009 at 10:26 pm
11. Destroy America’s life savings and economy, enabling America’s total collapse as a world power: in progress!
Hey, turn that frown upside-down. Have some lemmonade!
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:30 am
To be fair, the broken promises list only has three things on it. And the stalled three as well.
That site looks really useful. Thanks for pointing it out.
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Foreclosure program, promise kept? Misleading. Only in a VERY limited way at very very best. Despite Obama’s campaign rhetoric of helping ALL homeowners with mortgage problems, the program is limited to those whose loans are held by Fannie and Freddie.
Which loans, of course, the US Gov’t is somewhat on the hook for as the guarantor of last resort for Fannie and Freddie. Begging the question of this being an overt admission that Fannie and Freddie, near utterly controlled by upper-level Dems, were the primary predatory mortgage lenders, and the root of the subprime crisis. Which the admin and party have of course denied en toto. (The truth, as usual, is in between. There’s plenty of blame for everyone, as everyone played.)
Here’s Obama’s original campaign promise. An honest and accurate assessment would note it has five parts, and that we’re talking about one part out of the five being only very partially fulfilled.
Your loan not held by Fannie or Freddie (most of the underwater mortgages aren’t) and you’re facing foreclosure? Sucks to be you.
“In The Works” is not in the least impressive. Puffery. Talk is cheap. But it’s early in the admin yet. Too early to be sneering that the rainbow unicorn farts have yet to descend over the land like pixie dust. No matter how many beans you feed those unicorns, it still takes time…..
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 am
Tully, do you think that the mortgage plan should be broader because that would be better for the country?
Or are your comments made simply in regard to how well the promise was kept, without regard to the wisdom of the scope of various possible plans?
Justin, I have my doubts about “in the works” as far as 6 and 7 are concerned. “Trying to do” I could buy. But I have serious doubts either will come to pass. And if they don’t come to pass, I’ll lose no sleep over them.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 am
U.S. life savings and economy were wiped out beginning in March 2003 when hundred billion dollar supplemental bills (paid for via loans from China and India) were passed monthly to fund a catastrophic imperial subjugation of Iraq and Afghanistan and corporate welfare for Halliburton, CACI, Custer Battles, etc. BTW what is lemmonade? Sounds like it might go well with Koool Aid.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:15 am
don’t forget creating that “civilian security force thats just as powerful, just as well funded as our military” … “to achieve our national security objectives”
please stop being manipulated. dems are repugs are 2 wings of the same bird. the destination is the same: total bankruptcy, enslavement, and world government by and for the bankers.
10 trillion banker “bailout” !!! you people make me sick.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
1) As I understood it part of the foreclosure relief was specifically promised NOT to include investment properties & second homes, a promise which Obama broke.
4) Did Obama not promise a 6 month withdrawl timetable? 50,000 troops through 2011 seems like a broken promise to those who listened when he said he would END the war.
5) How is closing Guantanamo even a little bit relevant when there has been NO change in our position regarding extraordinary rendition? Who cares if we have a jail in Cuba when we still advocate shipping people off to be tortured in obscure countries around the world?
March 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
This is complete bull. Obama’s priority number one is to rush at breakneck speed to give trillions of OUR MONEY to prop up Wall Street criminals. In the process he is literally destroying everyones’ life savings. The people who did all the right things and played by the rules will eventually be wiped out by inflation to prop up those who were grossly irresponsible. When Obama is done, none of the rest will matter. He is sell-out who will go down in history as the bum who sold-out and threw away (for his own personal gain) this country’s last opportunity to recover from the 8-year Bush disaster. I sincerely regret voting for him and will never do so again.
And cheer-leading articles like this just piss people off. The collapse of support for this sell-out is breath-taking, and no amount of feel-good propaganda will change that. It is quickly sinking in that the country has been conned, and we’re stuck with four more years of “Bush-lite” when it comes to the things that really matter. While the mess this country is in was created by Republicans (with the complicity of the Democrats), it is the Democrats, led by Obama, who will not only refuse to reverse the course, they will actually accelerate it. Damn them all – especially Obama.
March 23rd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
By my count, he’s kept 19 promises, compromised on 6, broken 3, and is working on 44
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Check this site out for a full accounting of his promises:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:31 pm
The bottom line is that the top end of the food chain will always get the breaks. I inherited some stock (not much, damn!) and have watched it over these past few months. I inherited it in late November, but had already lost my job in October. Anyway, some of it is JP Morgan-Chase, BofA, and The Mellon Group, all 3 big banks. As the bailout and promises of help with the toxic mortgage assets came thru from Obama, I watched the stocks go from in the crapper to at least worth about what they were in mid to late 2008. I must admit(especially since I am now out of a job) I was more than relieved and am cheering on the bailouts (but not the bonuses) and the rest of the promised help to the beleaguered banks. At this point it is SURVIVAL for me, and maybe for many others as well. The stock market in general has also rebounded, at least temporarily, and things are looking a little better. What to do? If you don’t take care of the big boys (no matter how badly they behaved) EVERYONE will suffer. It’s a bitch, but I’m learning that’s the way it has to be, at least for now. What Obama can do for ME personally since I’m paying $1252.00 a month on COBRA, is get some healthcare reform pushed through, and some tax relief would help too since I’m having to pay $3200 this April 15th and can ill afford it. I already had to take all of my 401k funds out to pay bills with 50% of the original value already lost, then I had to pay 20% on what was left! Life’s not fair and the little guy will always get the shitty end of the stick as one poster said.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:18 pm
I volunteered for Obama and donated to his campaign along with voting for him so obviously I thought he’d be a good President, but he has actually exceeded my expectations thus far.