510 Promises, part 2

Last week I talked about a website put out by the St. Petersburg Times, which has recorded 510 (actually 511) Obama campaign promises and will track the progress of these promises throughout his term in office.

Last week I covered the first half of the list and found that there were only about 16% of these are promises that I wish he would keep. The percentage is even lower for the second half. There is so much wasteful spending in these promises. Its getting to the point where whether or not you believe a politician's lies doesn’t make any difference anymore because you don’t even want them to do what they say even if you did believe them!

We most definitely would be better off with a President who does nothing at all. We would be far better off with a President who would veto every bill, would rescind all executive orders and wouldn’t issue any new ones. It’s not just the wasteful spending. Here are some of the things that I found that were even worse:

Require all schools of education to be accredited

Push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors

Expand the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity

Support repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)

Sign the Freedom of Choice Act

Here are the nine items in the last half of the list that I actually agree with. This makes about 50 altogether that I wish he would keep, making my agreement with Obama’s publically stated goals less than 10%.

Reduce subsidies to private student lenders and protect student borrowers (maybe just the part depending on how he intends to "protect" them)

Secure the borders

Crack down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants

Limit subsidies for agribusiness (These and all other subsidies should be eliminated altogether.)

Limit term of director of national intelligence (There should be no such office. Thanks, Bush for creating another position to be filled by corrupt political cronies.)

Ban lobbyist gifts to executive employees

Pressure Sudan to end violence in Darfu (…if this is to be done in a peaceful manner. If it’s another war he has in mind, then I’m against it.)

Reduce earmarks to 1994 levels (Why not eliminate them altogether, dufus?)

Cut federal contracts