While some candidates on the presidential campaign trail treat paint promises in glittering generalities, President Obama was often quite specific about what policies he’d implement as president, with exhaustive lists of promised policy plans on his much-ballyhooed website.
As part of our ongoing “Promises Clock” feature, we’ve chosen five of these promises to keep an eye on.
We’re building our list off of the exhaustive work done by Politifact’s Obameter. (500-plus promises, and counting!) The five we’ve chosen to highlight are all doable by presidential order, meaning the new administration can’t hide behind the workings of Congress. We're starting each clock on January 20, 2009 at 12 noon, the date and time of Obama's inauguration.
Our top five:
End no-bid contracts above $25,000
End the “Stop-Loss” program of forcing troops to stay in service beyond their expected commitments
End the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy
Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center
President Obama has issued an executive order to close Gitmo within a year. We will stop the clock once that move is completed.
Create a public “Contracts and Influence” database
What other Obama promises would you like us to start the clock on? Drop us a line. Please include a link detailing the promise. The ones we’re looking for a specific, substantive, and achievable. (Specific tax cut pledges would qualify. “Achieving world peace” wouldn’t.)
