Obama Keeping Promises That Grow Government; Abandoning Promises That Hold It Accountable

Radley Balko | June 22, 2009

McClatchy summarizes the long list of policies where President Obama has reneged on campaign promises—either in letter or spirit—and adopted the policies of his predecessor. We've covered many of them here, but they range from a broad application of the state secrets doctrine to invocations of executive privilege to the Defense of Marriage Act to a host of other issues related to transparency and disclosure.

My own hunch is that presidents try to keep campaign promises that expand the government and their own power, and either back down from or are unwilling to expend much capital on promises that make government smaller and more accountable, thus limiting their own power.

Looking over PolitiFact's report card on Obama's campaign promises, that seems to be about right thus far. By my count (and some of this is certainly subjective) of the of the 31 promises the site says Obama has kept thus far, 20 in some way grow or expand the federal government. Just six make the government smaller, more transparent, or more accountable. The remaining five have no effect, or amount to a wash.

Of the six campaign promises PolitiFact says Obama has unquestionably broken, five would have limited his own power, provided tax breaks, or provided more accountability and transparency to the federal government. One was mostly symbolic (recognizing the Armenian genocide). So far, he hasn't broken a single promise that would grow or expand the government, though he has compromised on a few, and many have been stalled.

PolitiFact also gives Obama more credit than he deserves on some promises. For example, Obama's promise that "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes," was broken when he signed a bill raising taxes on cigarettes to pay for an expansion of the SCHIP program. PolitiFact calls this a "compromise." But "not any of your taxes" seems pretty clear. Obama didn't say, "not any of your taxes, so long as you don't smoke" or "so long as you don't have habits the government finds distasteful."

In short, I think it's safe to say that Obama has been willing to spend plenty of political capital on his promises that vastly expand the size and scope of the federal government, and relatively little on promises related to eliminating waste, putting limits on his own power, or making the government more transparent and accountable.

It's worth emphasizing that this analysis isn't holding Obama to some libertarian standard of the ideal president—I'm not looking at how many of his total policies grow government versus how many limit it or hold it accountable. It's holding him up against his own campaign promises. That is, even when you assume the positions of left-of-center, big government Obama-the-candidate as your baseline, Obama-the-president comes up short.

Comments

PC|6.22.09 @ 4:47PM|#

Promises, promises, old tired worn out second hand sentences...

Xeones|6.22.09 @ 4:50PM|#

My own hunch is that presidents try to keep campaign promises that expand the government and their own power, and either back down from or are unwilling to expend much capital on promises that make government smaller and more accountable, thus limiting their own power.

Word.

WWJGD|6.22.09 @ 4:50PM|#

Elected official breaks promises.
Film at 11.

|6.22.09 @ 5:08PM|#

WWJGD,

I think the twist here is that the promises that are kept are those that expand or maintain government power.

SIV|6.22.09 @ 5:12PM|#

Didn't he promise during the campaign to sign SCHIP?

Promise kept!

Anyone who didn't realize that Democrats always lie about tax increases hasn't been paying attention.

Cal Lipigian|6.22.09 @ 5:21PM|#

Anyone who didn't realize that Democrats politicians always lie about tax increases hasn't been paying attention.

fixed.

SIV|6.22.09 @ 5:31PM|#

Cal, we haven't had a Federal tax increase since 1994 until Obama took office.The GOP did something right-give them credit for that.

Cal Lipigian|6.22.09 @ 5:35PM|#

Still bitter about "read my lips"

Cal Lipigian|6.22.09 @ 5:36PM|#

And the true tax level is the amount of money the government spends. The rest is just details about when the taxes are going to be levied.

Peter|6.22.09 @ 5:41PM|#

And the true tax level is the amount of money the government spends. The rest is just details about when the taxes are going to be levied.

I approve this message.

Tricky Prickears|6.22.09 @ 5:56PM|#

And the true tax level is the amount of money the government spends. The rest is just details about when the taxes are going to be levied.

Not necessarily true. If the ownership of private companies by the government starts to turn a profit: GM, AIG...

Oh shit, did I say that?

As long as I can have my "two TVs and two Cadillac cars, man...You could just dance to the Rock and Roll station..."

|6.22.09 @ 6:05PM|#

Obama is just another power grasping, self serving, lying politician?

Who could have predicted that?

Patrick|6.22.09 @ 6:10PM|#

"It's worth emphasizing that this analysis isn't holding Obama to some libertarian standard of the ideal president"

Even so, it would be nice to see him acting on his libertarian rhetoric about the drug war, or on same sex marriage and civil rights.

So far he's been an old school New Dealer. No social freedom and certainly no economic freedom. He's a better looking Tip O'Neill, but what we need is a better looking Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Thogek|6.22.09 @ 6:18PM|#

It would also be nice to see Libertarians (and other "third-parties") doing everything they can to spotlight such consistently ongoing Republocratic/Demopublican hypocrisies, and perhaps wedge the door open just a little wider for challenge against the Big Two political parties with alternative competition.

SIV|6.22.09 @ 7:26PM|#

Even so, it would be nice to see him acting on his libertarian rhetoric about the drug war, or on same sex marriage and civil rights.

What libertarian rhetoric would that be?
Hey, he delivered on the second favorite cosmotarian issue: Government funded stem cell research.

Rich|6.22.09 @ 8:14PM|#

My dictionary (Random House College, fwiw) defines "promise" as "a declaration or assurance that something specified will or will not happen, be done, etc." Even us non-lawyers can see how coolly this applies.

jtuf|6.22.09 @ 10:42PM|#

My gut tells me we'll have a conservative election sweep in 2010. Public attendance at my town hall meeting was up threefold tonight, and one new attendee I spoke to was mostly concerned about taxes. There's a grass roots movement growing.

|6.23.09 @ 4:02AM|#

Hey what's the story on Obama being held accountable (or not accountable) to Reason's own "Presidential Transparency Oath" that he signed?

Do we have such short memories??

zoltan|6.23.09 @ 1:31PM|#

My gut tells me we'll have a conservative election sweep in 2010.

God, I hope not. I'm not trading one mode of oppression and fiscal irresponsibility for another. Anyone who's still kidding themselves that the Republicans stand for "conservative" spending and smaller government is psychotic.