Obama Administration Gets Slippery On Its Deadline for Expanding Exports

Not that we ever took them seriously

A new campaign brochure from President Barack Obama says his National Export Initiative is "putting America on the path to double exports by 2015." It's worth keeping a close eye on that target date. If exports don't double until the end of 2015, Obama will have broken the pledge he made in his State of the Union address in January 2010. If exports double by the start of 2015, the pledge will be fulfilled.

A senior White House spokesman told me today that the 2015 date mentioned in the new campaign brochure doesn't represent a shifting of the goal posts. "By 2015? means by the start of the year, the spokesman said. So the Obama administration is sticking to its original target.