Promises, Promises

On the day Barack Obama officially becomes our president, we’d like to direct you to a handy resource from Politifact. The site has compiled a list of 500 campaign promises from our new C.I.C. The list is a full 26 pages long. It’s well worth perusing in full. But here are some notable pledges that we here at Captive American are particularly interested in:

• Number 34: Bringing back PAYGO rules in Congress. PAYGO, if you aren’t familiar with it, is a radical concept that says we shouldn’t spend money on new programs without, you know, finding a way to pay for them first.
• Number 43: Approve “card check” rules for unions. Organized labor spent millions putting Obama into office and this is their top legislative priority. We’ll see how eager he is to repay them.
• Number 45: Stop bailed out corporations (ahem, Goldman Sachs) from paying exhorbitant executive bonuses. Obama took more money from Wall Street than any other politician during the last election. Will he dare to pull our money out of those bankers’ pockets?
• Number 73: Allow Medicare to negotiate for bulk drug prices.
• Number 104: Require post-deployment mental health screenings for returning veterans.
• Number 131: Allow Congress to vote on the so-called Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq. Iraq’s parliament got to vote on this crucial treaty, but our Congress didn’t even get to see it before it went into effect.
• Number 222: Allow Cuban Americans to travel to Cuba.
• Number 226: “Urge” China to stop keeping the value of its currency artifically low. Every recent president has made noises about this. But if China really allowed its currency to float on the market, the dollar would likely tank and you’d probably have to put a toaster on layaway at WalMart to afford it.
• Number 231: Create an independent watchdog agency on Congressional ethics. With Democrats in control of both houses? That’ll be a nice trick.
• Number 240: Stop the revolving door between the White House and lobbyists. Hmm … this one already sounds pretty hollow.
• Number 259: Decrease subsidies to private student loan lenders and help students deal with crushing debt levels.
• Number 324: Cap the interest amounts on so-called “pay day loans” and other predatory forms of lending to low-income people.
• Number 365: Appoint someone to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency who actually has experience … handling major emergencies. Wow, what a concept.
• Number 379: Create a national service program.
• Number 388: Diversify the owners of our major media outlets.
• Number 404: Cut the federal bureaucracy. Many of those same unions that spent millions getting Obama into office represent government employees. If Obama follows through on this promise, we’re interested to see how they react when their members start getting pink slips.
• Number 407: Limit subsidies for agribusiness. With a guy like Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture?
• Number 440: Reduce our consumption of foreign oil by 2.5 million barrels a day.
• Number 448: Stop speculation in the energy markets.
• Number 449: Raise fuel economy standards.
• Number 480: Build high speed rail.