Obama's Report Card

The president has said he keeps a check list of promises he made during the campaign in his pocket. President Obama told "Rolling Stone" he figured his administration had "probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do." Even if that is true, the President had given himself a grade of a "C". Here are some of his promises, and how he fared. Barack Obama said he opposed tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but the president could not keep the Bush-era tax rates for couples making less than $250,000, without extending the current tax rates for "the wealthiest two percent of Americans." Barack Obama promised to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, but as of today it remains open. Obama promised to create a $10 billion fund designed to aid homeowners at risk of foreclosure, and a Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)fund of $75 billion was created. This fund helped about 500,000 homeowners. Obama promised to provide citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and the DREAM act, a bill aimed to provide citizenship for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, passed in the House but died in the Senate. Obama promised he would end the Iraq war safely and responsibly within 16 months, and the last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq on December 18, 2011, ending nearly nine years of war. Obama promised to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and signed the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" into law on December 22, 2010. President Obama promised a "Universal Health Care Bill", and President Obama signed Democrat-passed health care reform into law, on March 23, 2010. President promised to expand Vet Centers in rural areas so that veterans and their families can get the care they need where they live, and on December 9th, 2011 the Department of Veteran Affairs, documents that it has authorized 29 new centers since President Obama took office in 2009. President Obama promised he will fully fund the Combating Autism Act, which provides nearly $1 billion in autism-related funding over 5 years, and work with Congress, parents and ASD experts to determine how to further improve federal and state programs. In September 2011, both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act of 2011. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on September 20, 2011. President promised to build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, engineers, foreign area officers, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply, and the numbers of personnel authorized for USSOCOM have increased from 55,890 in fiscal year 2009 to 63,779 for fiscal year 2012, according to the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the budget has increased from $8.9 billion to $10.5 billion over the same period. Barack Obama will end the use torture without exception. He also will eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries, and Obama acted two days after taking office, Jan. 22, 2009, by issuing a detailed executive order on torture and related issues. Barack Obama promised to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 troops and the Marines by 27,000 troops. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families. The target sizes are 547,400 for the Army and 202,000 for the Marine Corps, and for the Army, the number on active duty was 565,463 as of Oct. 19, 2011, said Lt. Col. Timothy M. Beninato, an Army spokesman. That's actually higher the goal Obama had cited. For the Marines, the current number on active duty is 202,000, said Capt. Gregory A. Wolf, a spokesman for the Marines. President promised to expand the U.S. government's bioforensics program for tracking the source of any biological weapon so that the U.S. will be able to rapidly identify any adversary who uses a biological weapon and respond surely and swiftly, an important research facility, the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center at Fort Detrick in Maryland is now operational. Obama promised to expand proven homeless veteran housing vouchers to assist those already on the streets. Congress provided funds for 10,000 additional vouchers each year from 2008-2010, leading to a total of 30,000 by the end of fiscal year 2010. Congress cut the program's funding in the 2011 budget from a proposed additional $75 million to $50 million. This pays for approximately 7,000 additional vouchers. Based on the information above, maybe the President deserves a "B" grade, based the unforeseen road blocks provided by the Republicans.