Weigel

Did Obama Break His 2008 Promises?

WASHINGTON – For the umpteenth time, I’m sitting in a room of activists who insist that Barack Obama broke the promises he made to voters. Indeed, he broke a few big ones. Who told him that “promising to cut the deficit in half in four years” was workable as America slumped into a recession?

After wasting some of Thursday on the Living Room Candidate archives, I remembered the 120-second ad that the cash-flush Obama ran after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. I sort of expected to see and hear some bogosity that Obama never acted on. But… this largely holds up, doesn’t it?

The “tax cuts for 95% of Americans” were in the stimulus, as were the education ideas. The Iraq War was wound down, though I don’t think it’s saved as much as $10 billion per month. The big broken promise, actually, is the one regarding the Bush tax rates. They’re still there.