Agence France Presse
April 26 2009

Scorecard of Obama’s campaign promises

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama made hundreds of campaign
promises on the road to the White House — and has pressed ahead on
several of the most high-profile in his first 100 days.

According to a scorecard of more than 500 campaign pledges collated on
the Pulitzer Prize-winning website PolitiFact.com, Obama has kept 27
promises and broken six, but the vast majority are still a work in
progress.

Among the major promises KEPT by the new Democratic leader:

— Most combat troops are being pulled out of Iraq by August 2010 and
all US forces are scheduled to leave by the end of 2011.

— Extra troops are being dispatched to Afghanistan — 21,000 this
year — and Pakistan is at the center of a new drive against the
Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

— A 75-billion-dollar fund has been created to help embattled
homeowners.

— New loans are coming on tap for small businesses.

— A state health insurance scheme for children has been expanded.

— Unemployment benefits have been enlarged.

— Predecessor George W. Bush’s restrictions on stem-cell research
have been overturned.

— Two Republicans are in the cabinet. Obama had promised at least
one.

— Curbs on travel and money transfers by Cuban-Americans to their
communist-run homeland have been lifted.

— And the Obama girls have a new puppy.

Obama has also made a start on rolling back Bush’s "war on terror"
policies by ordering the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention site
and banning abusive interrogations of terror suspects that critics
called "torture."

In foreign policy, Obama’s pledges to engage with Iran and to reset
ties with Russia remain in an embryonic phase. Tough talk on trade has
not led to any action against China or America’s NAFTA partners Canada
and Mexico.

But the president did make good on a vow to deliver a speech in an
Islamic capital in his first 100 days during a recent visit to Turkey.

Among promises BROKEN:

— US recognition of the Ottoman Empire’s "genocide" during World War
I against Armenians. Obama avoided the word during his stay in Turkey
and in a message on Armenian Remembrance Day.

— A ban on former lobbyists working in the White House has been
waived for at least three staffers.

— Obama’s popular pledge to scrap income tax for seniors earning less
than 50,000 dollars a year did not figure in his huge economic
stimulus package.

— Also missing from the stimulus bill and subsequent proposals has
been a promised tax credit of 3,000 dollars for companies adding
full-time workers.

Other promises are classed by PolitiFact.com as STALLED with
administration officials talking down prospects for action. Those
include ending the Pentagon’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy on gays
serving in the military.

Neither is there any sign of Obama’s promised windfall tax on giant
oil company profits, with energy prices well off their record highs of
last year amid the global economic crunch.