#SOTU Schadenfreude: Obama’s Lackluster Legacy

#SOTU Schadenfreude: Obama’s Lackluster Legacy

In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama made a lot of promises. From free community college, to middle class tax breaks, to massive tax hikes on the wealthy and investors, the President served up a bill of goods that, given a Republican-controlled Congress, will take a miracle to become reality.

This is nothing new for Obama, who has a pretty poor record of delivering on his most high-profile promises. He hasn’t allowed Congress to address our broken immigration system; he hasn’t eliminated the threat of al-Qaeda; he hasn’t closed the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay; and he certainly hasn’t brought the kind of “change” that America wants or deserves.

Based on an informal tally, President Obama has broken a whopping 112 SOTU promises during his time as President. I don’t think any reasonable person would argue that no president has ever added aspirational policy goals to his annual address to the nation, but coming from a man who came into office claiming revolutionary status, the number seems…high?

Grabien compiled a video montage of all 112 broken promises. Click below the fold for an all-too-long list of bullet points highlighting all the ways Obama has failed to live up to his promises.

112, and counting. I wonder how long this list will be come 2016?

2009

1. The stimulus bill will create 3.5 million jobs over the next few years, 90 percent of which will be in the private sector.

2. Create program that will enable Americans facing foreclosure to lower their mortgage payments and save their homes.

3. Double the supply of renewable energy within the next three years.

4. The “largest ever” federal spending program on science will yield breakthroughs in energy, medicine, science, and technology.

5. Lay down 1,000s of miles of power lines to connect Americans’ homes to these new sources of energy.

6. Reduce Americans’ energy bills by “billions of dollars.”

7. Cure cancer “in our time.”

8. Use stimulus funds to spend on preventive health care, which will get federal health spending “under control.”

9. Use the savings that result from the stimulus’ reform of health-care to reduce the deficit.

10. Cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office.

11. Go “line by line” through the federal budget to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs – saving $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

12. Never raise taxes “a single dime” on any family earning less than $250,000.

13. Stop the growing cost of Medicare and Social Security.

14. Make Social Security sustainable.

15. Create tax-free savings accounts for all Americans.

16. Close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

2010

17. Use stimulus funds to build a high-speed railway in Florida.

18. Research funds from the previous year’s stimulus will cure cancer, lead to “the cheapest solar cells.”

19. Building a new generation of nuclear energy plants.

20. Passing a climate-change law that will make clean energy profitable

21. Passing health-reform that lets Americans keep their doctors and their plans.

22. The health-reform law will reduce costs for “millions” of families and businesses

23. The health-reform law will bring down the deficit $1 trillion over the next 20 years.

24. Starting in 2011, government spending “ will be frozen for three years.”

25. Cut programs we don’t need to maintain a balanced budget.

26. Veto spending bills that don’t adhere to balanced budgeting.

27. Go through budget “line by line” to eliminate programs that we can’t afford and don’t work.

28. Create a bipartisan fiscal commission; the recommendations of which he’ll enact.

29. Restore the pay-as-you-go budgeting rules.

30. Create a website that publishes every lawmakers’ earmark requests.

31. Never give up “ trying to change the tone of our politics.”

32. Pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

33. Secure America’s borders.

34. Enforce existing immigration laws

2011

35. More nuclear power, more natural gas, more wind and solar.

36. Pass comprehensive immigration reform.

37. Secure America’s borders.

38. Enforce existing immigration laws.

39. Reduce unemployment by increasing the number of people working on infrastructure projects – ensuring these projects are “fully paid for.”

40. Recruit private sector financing to assist these infrastructure projects.

41. Projects will be prioritized by importance, not by politics.

42. Give 85 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail within 25 years.

43. Within the next three years, enable 98 percent of Americans to receive high-speed wireless Internet.

44. Lower the corporate tax rate and eliminate loopholes.

45. Reduce business regulations restraining growth and investment.

46. Starting this year, freeze domestic spending for the next five years.

47. ObamaCare will slow rising costs of health-insurance premiums.

48. Enact medical malpractice tort reform.

49. Consolidating various federal departments to streamline federal bureaucracy and ensure it’s “more competent and more efficient.”

50. Create website that lists all federal spending.

51. Veto every bill that contains earmarks.

2012

52. Reduce corporate income taxes.

53. Consolidate federal jobs-training programs – creating a single website that makes all information about these programs available in one place.

54. Convert federal unemployment insurance into a system that focuses on finding the unemployed jobs.

55. Enact comprehensive immigration reform.

56. Force all high schools to require students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18.

57. Open more than 75 percent of off-shore U.S. territory to drilling.

58. Go “all out” on every type of energy.

59. Take “every possible action” to expand natural gas production.

60. Ordering “every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense.”

61. Create “financial crimes unit” to crack down on white-collar crime.

62. Work with Congress to procure power to consolidate federal bureaucracy.

63. “End the notion that political parties must be engaged in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction.”

2013

64. Reform Medicare and Medicaid to save as much as was proposed by the Simpson-Bowles Commission.

65. “Reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies.”

66. Raises taxes on the wealthiest seniors.

67. Bring down health-care costs by changing the way the federal government pays for Medicare.

68. Eliminate loopholes and deductions for the “well off.”

69. Enact comprehensive tax reform that brings down the deficit and encourages job growth.

70. Cut “red tape and speed up new oil and gas permits.”

71. Create an “energy security trust.”

72. Create a “fix it first” program that will direct the unemployed to the highest priority programs.

73. Make “high quality” preschool available to every child in America.

74. Require that aid to colleges be distributed according to the value they impart upon students.

75. Pass comprehensive immigration reform.

76. Raise the minimum wage to $9/hour.

77. Create a tax incentive for companies to hire the long-term unemployed.

78. Create a program to put people back to work by rebuilding vacant homes in rundown neighborhoods.

79. Enact new tax credits for businesses that hire and invest.

80. Eliminate the marriage penalty for low-income couples.

81. Encourage fatherhood through tax policy adjustments.

82. By the end of 2014, end the war in Afghanistan.

83. Never make promises the government can’t actually keep.

84. Keep the promises already made.

2014

85. Lower corporate income taxes, close loopholes.

86. Use the money saved from corporate tax reform to finance new infrastructure spending.

87. Slash bureaucracy through executive orders.

88. Create an additional six “high tech manufacturing hubs” in 2014.

89. “Do more” to help entrepreneurs and small business owners.

90. Use government research funds to create entirely new industries – like vaccines that adapt to evolving bacteria, and inventing material thinner than paper but stronger than steel.

91. Pass a patent reform bill.

92. Use executive orders to cut red tape to enable factories to be built that are powered by natural gas.

93. Reform taxes so that fossil fuel companies are taxed more and “ fuels of the future” are taxed less.

94. Enact new fuel-efficiency standards for trucks.

95. Pass comprehensive immigration reform.

96. Consolidate federal jobs training programs, helping match people with skills to jobs they can fill.

97. Reform unemployment insurance to encourage Americans to return to the workforce faster.

98. Assemble a coalition to help more kids access pre-K education.

99. Pass the “Equal Pay Act” for women.

100. Raise the minimum wage to $10.10

101. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit

102. Reform the tax code to help lower-class Americans save

103. Give every American access to “an automatic IRA on the job.”

104. Ensure Americans never have to wait more than a half hour to vote.

105. Pass legislation that will prevent mass shooting tragedies.

106. End the Afghan war by the end of 2014.

107. Reform NSA surveillance programs.

108. Close Guantanamo Bay Prison in 2014.

109. End the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

110. Ensuring the Iran will stop installing advanced centrifuges.

111. Be the “first” to call for more sanctions if Iran doesn’t abandon nuclear program.

112. Reform Veterans Affairs so that vets no longer have to deal with backlogs and instead receive the health care that they need.

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