Obama Kept Twice As Many Promises As Trump

 

     One reason people said they would vote for Trump in 2020 is that he "kept all his promises." Actually, he has the lowest rate of promises kept since the term of George H.W. Bush. Trump consistently broke some of his biggest promises. He swore that he would "repeal and replace" the "disaster" known as Obamacare. His effort at repeal failed at the beginning of his term even in a Republican-controlled Congress, and his "replacement" never surfaced. Even though Obamacare already protected preexisting conditions, Trump swore he would do the same, even though his term was marked by a flurry of executive orders and legal challenges attempting to weaken it.

     He swore he would build the Keystone XL Pipeline: that never happened. He swore he would build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Neither occurred. Even his biggest "accomplishment," the corporate tax cut that blew up the national debt while raising taxes on the middle class, was a compromise: he lowered corporate tax rates by 40% instead of 60%. The only promises he fully kept involved immigration. He failed to repeal DACA (upheld by his conservative Supreme Court) and instead focused on executive orders separating children from their parents and banning Muslims from entering the country (on his third attempt, he was able to succeed). Both policies were revoked within the first week of the Biden term.

     His legacy also involved renegotiating NAFTA, cancelling the Trans Pacific Partnership, and cutting federal regulations. His legacy of isolation is being dismantled as we speak, and the vast majority of his rollbacks of environmental and discrimination protections were stopped in court even before President Biden took office. We are back in the Paris Agreement and WHO, we are admitting more refugees, and we are putting "Happy Holidays" on the White House Holiday Card (not doing that was actually one of the 100 priorities for his presidency). Another priority was not taking a salary; JFK didn't take one either, because he, too, came from a line of socialites. Believe it or not, a four-year total of $1.6 million doesn't matter much to a multibillionaire. His promise not to take vacations? He golfed twice as much as Obama did.

     He is the only president since Herbert Hoover to cost America jobs; his corporate tax cuts are going to be scaled back to pay for the infrastructure repair, another broken promise of his. So, what will be Donald Trump's legacy? A space army, a deadly virus, a deadly insurrection, and 23% of his promises kept, a total of 34% of his unambitious agenda fulfilled. 

     Barack Obama, on the other hand, managed to achieve a total of 61% of his agenda, including fully keeping 47% of his promises and compromising on another 28%. President Biden has already kept 10% of his promises in his first four months in office. Republicans could stand to learn a thing or two from "Do-Nothing Democrats."