1. According to PolitiFact.com, Obama said this on February 23, 2009 following a Fiscal Responsibility Summit:
“Today I am pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. Now, this will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay, and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.”
Earlier this year, with four consecutive $1 trillion or more budget deficits, President Obama acknowledged he didn’t keep that promise, saying, “Well, we’re not there because this recession turned out to be a lot deeper than any of us realized.”
2. President Obama promised that the health care debates and negotiations would be televised. “These negotiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the choices that are being made,” he said on January 20, 2008.
However, the final meetings were held behind closed doors, prompting Nancy Pelosi to utter her now infamous words, “We have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”
The Affordable Care Act did not receive one Republican vote, diminishing President Obama’s promises to pass bipartisan legislation.
3. One glaring broken promise involves Obama’s promise to have an “unprecedented” level of transparency in his administration.
To name a few things: Besides not televising the health care negotiations, Obama’s promise to wait five days before signing legislation has flown out the window, White House officials have met with lobbyists at coffee shops near the White House to avoid showing official visitor logs, Executive Privilege was exerted over Fast and Furious documents, and the Benghazi cover-up scandal continues to plague Obama’s administration.
4. Obama said he would “turn the page on the ugly partisanship in Washington, so we can bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the American people.”
However, records have been set on how little compromise has been achieved. The House, led by Republicans since 2010, set a record for frequency of party-line votes, while majority holding Senate Democrats fell in line with their party’s vote more often than any time in the last 50 years.
According to PolitiFact, the current Congress had only passed 61 bills into law as of the end of August, making it the least productive Congress since 1947.
As of today, October 29, 2012, it has been exactly three and a half years since the last budget passed through Congress.
6. “And — and, you know, a year from now I think people — are gonna see that — we’re starting to make some progress. But there’s still gonna be some pain out there. If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s gonna be a one-term proposition.”
-Barack Obama, February 2009.
So I ask you, how can you take what this guy has to say literally and if you do, than why so? After all, how can we know what the guys going to do if he never actually sticks to his word? Let me guess, have hope right.. Yeah, good luck with that.
