I fully anticipate that this post may ruffle a few feathers. First, I want to ensure everyone that I made every attempt to remain as objective as possible in my research (And boy, did I spend a lot of time doing research. As a result, this is a long post, but I tried to make the main points easy to find). That being said, I am fully aware that I may unintentionally come across as bias, as I have for the most part (full disclosure!) been an Obama supporter in the past. Therefore, I encourage my followers to challenge and debate my claims if they feel they are not all correct, and I look forward to reading your responses.
So what’s this post all about? Well, I have heard so many people say: “Obama promised so much during his campaign, but he hasn’t kept a majority of those promises.” I feel like some (not all) of those people say that based on a general feeling they have, without citing many specific examples. So I began to wonder whether or not that was actually the case. Now I don’t think I, any Obama supporter, or Barack Obama himself would make the claim that Obama did not make a large number of promises during his campaign. He most certainly did. Every presidential candidate makes promises, and this is to be expected. I don’t think very many people would vote for a candidate that didn’t come in with a list of items they would “take care of.” Granted, it may be true that President Obama made more promises than other candidates, and that some of those promises were very broad and difficult to define (e.g. “change in Washington”). But this post isn’t about the number of promises Obama made compared to other Presidents and presidential candidates. I do feel, however, that it is important that we make an honest attempt to evaluate the President’s performance in delivering on those promises.
Now, you and I would both hate me if I attempted to address all of Barack Obama’s promises in this post. According to
PolitiFact.com, President Obama made 506 promises during the campaign. The site goes on to claim that of those 506 promises, President Obama has kept 134, compromised on 41, broken 38, is stalled on 71, is working on 220, and 2 remain unrated. Phew! So according to PolitiFact, halfway through Obama’s first term, 26% of his promises have been kept and 8% have been broken. I have to say, however, that given the rhetoric of Obama opponents and disappointed Obama supporters, the number of kept promises seemed a bit high to me. So perhaps, then, it is the “most important” promises that people feel he hasn't delivered on. And that’s what I’ll try to focus on in this post.
I chose Obama’s “most important” promises by taking a look back at some of his campaign speeches. In particular, I focused on the end of his campaign and looked at two speeches made a week before the election in
Ohio and
Virginia, and his
Inaugural Address. I looked for the most specific and most frequent promises made during those speeches. There were many important promises, but in the end I chose the following 6 categories of promises to analyze. Note that within each description, I have coded as followed:
Green = kept, Red=broken, Orange=debatable/compromise, and Blue = still in the works/cannot yet be determined. A detailed (and quite lengthy) description of why I made those choices will follow below.
· Promise Area 1: Invest in the Middle Class. A) Tax breaks to 95% of working Americans. B) No family making under $250,000 will see an increase of any kind in taxes C) Eliminate taxes for seniors making under $50,000. D) Reverse Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy (return the tax rate of those who make over $250,000 a year to the rates they paid in the 1990s).
· Promise Area 2: Create Jobs. A) 2 million jobs by building roads, bridges, new schools, modernizing our electricity grid, and building broadband lines across the country. B) 5 million green jobs over a decade by investing $15 billion/year in renewable energy sources. C) Reduce incentives for corporations creating jobs overseas, and D) create $3,000 tax credits for every job created within America.
· Promise Area 3: Increase quality/lower costs of healthcare. A) If you already have health care, a new healthcare bill will lower your premiums. B) If you don’t, you will have access to a healthcare plan equivalent to the one members of Congress have. C) Require health care companies to cover “pre-existing conditions,” which were not always covered before. D) Invest in preventative care and new technology to improve the quality of healthcare and lower costs for the American people and the health care industry.
· Promise Area 4: End the War in Iraq, work towards peace in Afghanistan. A) Responsibly leave Iraq and ask the Iraqi government to step up. B) Work towards peace in Afghanistan. C) “Go after” Al Qaeda and Bin Laden.
· Promise Area 5: Improve the quality of education. A) Focus more on math and science, to improve our children’s abilities in relation to other countries. B) Give more money and more support for teachers, while increasing standards and requiring more accountability. C) If a student serves their community or serves their country, ensure they can afford college tuition.
· Promise Area 6: Change in Washington. A) Bipartisanship in Congress. B) Decrease the influence of lobbyists. C) Greater transparency in Washington.
So by my count (including the promises I split), those small promises add to a total of 26. Out of those 26 “major” promises, my research has allowed me to conclude that he has kept 9 and broken 4, while the remaining 13 are either debatable/compromised (6), or in the works/not yet able to be determined (7). In percentage terms, that means 35% of his “major” promises have been kept and 15% have been broken. In comparison to PolitiFact’s overall percentages, the “major” kept promises are a bit higher but the failed promises are almost doubled.
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For those of you who are curious at how I came up with the coding, let’s look at these promises one by one, and see how Obama has performed thus far. I warn you, this will get a bit lengthy as there are a lot of details to consider.
*Note: Unless otherwise cited, much of this research was found through links provided by politifact.com. I felt confident using this site as a research guide because the sources they used were “good” sources (government websites, the bills themselves, respectable news agencies, etc.).
Promise Area 1: Invest in the middle class.
1A) I coded this as debatable/compromise because I had trouble finding an exact percentage of who has received cuts, and Obama made some compromises with Republicans on some of his policies. President Obama extended George W. Bush’s tax cuts for those making less than $250,000, which was set to expire and those tax rates would have gone up in 2011. In the 2009 stimulus, Obama proposed a $500 tax credit for working Americans, but compromised with congress to make that tax credit a maximum of $400. This credit didn’t make it in 2010, and instead Obama made a deal with Republicans to extend a few tax cuts, and cut payroll taxes that American works pay to Social Security by 2%. Those making above $20,000 would receive more than they would under the $400 tax credit, but those making under $20,000 get a smaller cut than $400.
1B) I was tempted to code this one as broken, just because it is so broad. In the end I coded it debatable because, well, the claim that no family will see an increase of taxes of any kind if they make under $250,000 has been highly debated. Mostly it is the “of any kind” rhetoric that has caused the debate. Obama put forth an increased tax on indoor tanning services, and starting in 2014 people will be fined in their income taxes if they can pay for health insurance but refuse to do so (aka “individual mandate”). Obama claims the individual mandate should not be seen as a tax increase because it is an attempt to prevent people who can afford health insurance from passing the burden of their healthcare on to other people. He argues that a similar policy requiring individuals to have auto insurance is not seen as a tax increase because it prevents those who are hit by the uninsured from having to pay for it themselves.
1C) Instead of repealing tax cuts for wealthy Americans like he promised in the campaign, Obama agreed to continue those tax cuts in December 2010 for two more years. Obama claims he will fight against them in 2012, but given that he extended them in 2010 it is unclear whether or not that will actually occur. Maybe in 2012 he will keep his promise, but as of now it is broken.
1D) Obama’s plan to cut all income taxes for seniors making under $50,000 has simply not been discussed since Obama took office. The 2009 stimulus bill did give $250 to those receiving social security benefits, but again the promise to end income taxes was not discussed.
Promise Area 2: Create Jobs.
Note: Overall, in January 2009 when Obama took office, the unemployment rate was 7.8%. In January 2011, the unemployment rate is 9.0% (
Bureau of Labor Statistics)
2A) Obama’s budget devotes $25 billion to improving roads and bridges over the decade following Obama’s inauguration. The stimulus bill in 2009 devoted $7.2 billion to expanding broadband access. Whether or not these investments will lead to the creation of 2 million jobs has yet to be determined.
2B) The 5 million green jobs were projected to be created over the decade, and that decade is not over yet. However, the 2009 stimulus package did designate at least $27 billion to increasing increasing energy efficiency and investing in green technologies
(NY Times, 2009), and the 2010 budget included investment in energy technologies and renewable energy projects. While a number of jobs have been created already, we’ll have to wait until the end of the “decade” to see if this investment results in the creation of 5 million jobs.
2C) Obama signed a bill in August 2010 that closed the loophole that provided incentives through tax cuts for governments to provide jobs overseas. The loophole essentially allowed companies to write off taxes they were paying to foreign governments without paying taxes in the US.
2D) For 2010, Obama compromised to provide a tax credit of 6.2 percent per job given to an American worker hired between February 2010 and January 2011, with the maximum credit set at $1,000. While this is less than $3,000, the bill also exempts companies from paying the 6.2% Social Security tax, which can save them more than he promised. (e.g. if the company pays the individual $106,800, the company would have a tax exemption of $6,600)
Promise Area 3: Increase the Quality/Lower the Costs of Health Care
3A) I coded this as broken but I want to address some confusion about premiums. The GOP claims that the health care bill is completely to blame for rising prices. It is true that premiums have increased, but experts in the fields of insurance, health care, and within those companies state that the increase is not as much of an effect of the health care bill but is instead mostly a result of increased medical costs. Only a very small portion of the increased premiums is caused by the bill. (
Factcheck.org)
3B) I had a difficult time coding this one, but I ended up going for debatable/compromise. Here’s my logic. On the one hand, Barack Obama signed a Health Care Bill within his first year of office, one of his promises. However, the health care bill underwent so many changes and compromises to pass through Congress. In the end, Obama changed a lot of his positions just to get the bill passed. I couldn’t find in my research whether or not Americans would have affordable access to a health care plan that was “equivalent to the plan Members of Congress have access to”
3C) Requiring companies to cover pre-existing conditions was a key aspect of the health care bill that passed in 2010
3D) I split this promise into two. Obama has increased funding for medical research. He restricted the ban on stem-cell research, increased funding for science and technology (a portion of which is devoted to healthcare), and increased funding for cancer research. Whether or not this increase in funding will lead to a long term increase in quality or decrease in costs remains to be seen.
Promise Area 4: Leave Iraq, switch focus to Afghanistan
4A) Combat troops are out of Iraq, but somewhere around 50,000 troops remain as a “transitional force” to support and train Iraqi forces. Obama claims that while still dangerous, this is a switch from a military effort to a civilian effort. During the campaign Obama always maintained that troops would have to remain to protect our Embassy, civilians, and monitor Al Qaeda to ensure it doesn’t set up bases in Iraq. So the remaining troops are consistent with his campaign promise.
4B) After removing combat forces from Iraq, Obama has switched focus to Afghanistan. The number of troops to Afghanistan has continued to increase in 2009 and 2010.
4C) Obama has continued George W. Bush’s unmanned drone attacks of suspected Al Qaeda operations in Pakistan. Moreover, aid to Pakistan in 2009 was only given provided they aid in anti-terrorism efforts. However, I marked this as in the works because he hasn’t yet captured Osama Bin Laden or “stamped out” Al Qaeda.
Promise Area 5: Improve quality of our education system
5A) Obama has taken steps to increase our students abilities in math and science. In 2009 Obama put for the “Race for the Top” Program which, among other things, provided incentives for math and science graduates to become teachers. Moreover, grants can be provided to schools that develop rigorous programs in math and science. Whether or not this will improve our children’s math and science abilities remains to be seen.
5B) Part of Obama’s “Race for the Top” grant program included incentives to reward high quality teachers and teachers that work in schools where they are needed most. The goal is to prevent the highest quality teachers from only working at the high quality schools, but instead making it more profitable for them to work at schools that need to increase the quality of their teaching staff. Obama also increased funding in 2009 for public charter schools that improve accountability. Whether or not Obama’s efforts will actually increase the standards and accountability of the schools remains to be seen.
5C) Obama originally promised a $4000 tax credit a year for students that participated in 100 hours of community service. However, Obama compromised in his 2009 stimulus and reduced that number to $2500. He removed the 100 hour community service requirement under the understanding that more research needed to be done to determine how feasible that requirement was. This $2500 a year tax credit is in place for two years, so it’s possible that once those 2 years are up he may increase up to $4000. But that remains to be seen.
Promise Area 6: “Change in Washington”
6A) Early in his presidency, this seemed like it would be a broken promise. Republicans and Democrats exchanged harsh words and fought on nearly every issue. However, and quite surprisingly, in the lame duck session (after elections were held but before the newly elected members of congress came to Washington) a number of bills were passed that had support from both parties. Moreover, in Obama’s January 2011 State of the Union, Republicans and Democrats sat together instead of separated. Obama is making efforts to improve bipartisanship, but whether or not that will change in the next session is still up in the air.
6B) Obama hired numerous lobbyists and created loopholes for them to remain strong in Washington. This means that his promise to reduce the power of lobbyists is simply broken. These employees can recuse themselves if the issue at hand conflicts with their interests, but information has not been made public of how many recusals there have been or under what subject. In 2009, Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa asked for the Obama administration to release this information. To my knowledge this has not been done.
6C) I coded this as debatable because it’s very vague, so I feel like people could argue either way. On the one hand, Obama has made the 2011 budget available for anyone to download, and lawmakers are required to post their earmark requests on their website when they submit their request for consideration. On the other hand, he hasn’t created the searchable internet database of “lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings” that he promised, and has not yet disclosed “communications about regulatory policymaking between all White House Staff” (Obama, 2009).
